Authentic vs Learned Confidence
AUTHENTIC VERSUS LEARNED CONFIDENCE
What is the difference and how can it help you?
Confidence is often seen as being an essential trait or characteristic of successful and happy people, influencing everything from career development to personal relationships. However, we know that not all confidence is the same. Understanding the distinction between authentic confidence and learned confidence can offer valuable insights into how we can cultivate more personal resilience and genuine self-belief.
Let us start by understanding the difference between authentic confidence and learned confidence.
AUTHENTIC CONFIDENCE:
The Neuroscience of Self-belief
Authentic confidence (also known as self-assurance) is a deep-seated belief in one's own abilities to achieve a task or achieve goal, which is grounded in our actual skills and personal accomplishments.
This form of confidence develops over time and is rooted the brain’s neurobiology because it is closely linked to the Brain’s reward system. This is why authentic confidence is often associated with improvements in our mental health, well-being, and personal resilience.
The below are two key insights regarding authentic confidence.
a) Our neural pathways and true self-belief.
When we successfully accomplish tasks and overcome a challenge our brain releases dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which acts on areas of the brain to give you feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation.
When dopamine is released, it creates a positive feedback loop in our brains. This motivates us to repeat our success, and as we do, it strengthens the neural pathways in our brain which are associated with confidence and capability.
This is especially true for tasks or challenges which use our Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC), which I like to call the “CEO of the brain.” The PFC is responsible for our executive functioning – decision making, planning, and regulating social behaviour. Just imagine how powerful and rewarding it will be to build your neural pathways in these activities of your life!
b) Personal experience is key!
Authentic Confidence is built up over time through our repeated experiences of success and self-mastery.
Our brains are amazing in that they can change and adapt in structure and function in response to learning, experience, or injury. This ability is called plasticity. Neuroscientific studies have shown that when we repeatedly exceed in tasks or challenges, our brain’s plasticity allows us to improve our skills in this area which further deepens our sense of self-belief.
A theory which also incorporates the role of experience and our brain’s reward system is supported by the positive path in Harrison’ s Enjoyment Performance Theory* - which states:
“When we enjoy a task or behaviour, we tend to do it more often and get better at it. This elicits positive feedback or a sense of satisfaction, which re-enforces enjoyment and tendency. The cycle repeats” (Note: The opposite can obviously also be true)
Authentic confidence is powerful for us as individuals because it is our experiences that build our self-belief, and our sense of confidence comes from the “inside-out”. This inner confidence and self- belief greatly improves our performance and resilience because we are far less influenced by external criticism or failure.
LEARNED CONFIDENCE:
Creating a positive mindset
Learned confidence (often referred to as self-esteem) is cultivated through external affirmation and cognitive strategies.
As you may know, self-esteem is how we value and perceive ourselves and it is influenced by your life experiences and interactions with other people. Positive psychology offers insights into how we quickly develop this form of confidence, even in the absence of extensive experience or skill, through the use of mental techniques and positive reinforcement.
In light of the above, learned confidence can be more susceptible to fluctuations, especially in the face of criticism or failure.
The below are a two key insights regarding learned confidence.
a) Useful cognitive strategies (1):
Positive Reframing: Is when we challenge negative thoughts or limiting beliefs to find a more positive and realistic perspective or a more resourceful way of thinking. This change in thinking helps us to feel more optimistic and resilient in the face of stress.
Positive Affirmations and Visualisation: This is when we use positive repetition as our cognitive strategy. When we repeatedly visualise our success or we repeatedly connect with our positive affirmations, it helps us to experience good feelings about the future or outcome. Thereby releasing Dopamine and creating a positive feedback loop again. These techniques are a form of self-directed plasticity (2), where the repetition coupled with the positive emotions help us to develop new neural pathways and confidence.
b) Adopting a Growth Mindset:
Positive psychology highlights the importance of adopting a growth mindset when developing our learned confidence.
A growth mindset is when an individual views intelligence, abilities, and talents as being learnable and capable of improvement through effort.
When adopting a growth mindset, this means that an individual will tend to view challenges or difficult situations with an open mind and a “what can I learn from this” type of mentality (3). Resulting in them identifying the opportunities for growth in the situation rather than accepting failure or defeat which is more likely to impact and lower their self-worth.
This shift in our perspective helps us to feel less like a victim of circumstances and more like we have greater control of influencing and achieving the outcome we desire. In my view, this is what we describe as the “Can Do attitude” because of its expansive and proactive learning approach. A growth mindset strengthens our resilience and boosts our personal growth and development which once again builds our self-esteem.
Learned Confidence is therefore a powerful way of using intellectual reframing to increase our chances of achieving success the building self-worth and optimism. It is especially useful in helping us to navigate, adapt and learn in new or difficult challenges where we may not have the necessary skills or knowhow as to approach and achieve our goal. Learned Confidence opens us up to our potential and helps us to feel worthy of achieving success.
THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRATING BOTH FORMS OF CONFIDENCE:
As you will have now read, both authentic and learned confidence have clear roles and benefits for the individual that can employed independently depending on the individual’s needs and current situation.
However, the ideal approach to our overall wellbeing, resilience and confidence is to develop and enhance both our authentic and learned confidence at the same time.
In this way we not only have the strength of our foundation of self-belief and inner wisdom through our own experiences, but we are also capable of proactively training our minds to be more resourceful and connected to our achievements. Both of which increases our chances of future success and our ability to build, maintain and expand our confidence moving forward.
Here are some handy tips on how you can achieve this:
Reflect on your past success.
Write down a list of things, no matter how big or small, that you feel proud about achieving. Then write down the skills, competencies, and behaviours you used to achieve these results. This is your own personal success toolkit. It will help you to establish and a solid foundation for your authentic confidence. Keep this updated with your new successes so that it remains relevant and increasingly powerful.
Focus on building competence and self-mastery.
Engage in activities which help you to support and develop your strength and interests, whilst also seeking opportunities to learn and master new skills. Through repetition and persistence this will help you to develop and enhance your plasticity and confidence.
Adopt a growth mindset.
Refocus your perspective on life to embrace challenges as opportunities for growth and learning. Enjoy finding new options or possibilities to succeed in your tasks or challenges. Embrace life with the view that there is no such thing as a F-A-I-L but rather the First Attempt In Learning.
Emotionally connect with your affirmations and visualisations.
The most powerful way to build confidence for the present and the future is to connect to the positive emotion of the vision or affirmation. (Yes, feeling it, releases that lovely Dopamine hit). Learn to incorporate affirmations that build you up and make you feel emotionally stronger. Or visualise your future and concentrate on how it feels to have already achieved it. When you emotionally connect to that future state, you begin to activate your neuroplasticity which increases your chances of success and achievement.
In summary, by understanding and embracing both your authentic and learned confidence, we have the potential to exponentially build and maintain our Confidence and Resilience.
Our Authentic Confidence creates a solid foundation of self-belief, whilst our Learned Confidence provides us with techniques to create a positive mindset which elevates our self-worth and enhances our ability to achieve confidence and happiness with greater ease and success.
When working with my clients, I strive to equip my clients with the knowledge, personal insights and skills to establish the powerful balance of both Authentic and Learned Confidence. if you would like to find out more, feel free to get in touch and book in a Discovery call so you can understand how I may be able to help you to transform your life with greater confidence and resilience.