Confidence doesn't start with praise, it starts with self-awareness

Picture two people in a meeting. The first speaks loudly, quickly, without pausing; every objection is deflected before the other person can finish it. The second mostly listens, then says calmly: “I see it differently, and here is why.” Which of them is self-confident? Our culture would point to the first. The therapy room has taught me to point to the second — with the first, what often hides beneath the volume is precisely the fear of being truly seen.

Self-confidence is one of the most desired and, at the same time, most misunderstood qualities. We look for it in how we perform, in posture, in “positive affirmations” in front of the mirror — and then wonder why none of it holds. In this piece I want to show you a different route: self-confidence does not begin with volume or with praise, but with self-awareness — with the capacity to know what is going on inside you and to stay with it. Only on that foundation can you build a trust in yourself that does not crack at the first criticism.

We will walk this path in steps: from the body (interoception) through words for feelings (emotional granularity) and the way you treat yourself when you get things wrong (self-compassion), to the experiences that self-confidence actually grows out of (self-efficacy). Along the way I will tell you why I have a particular, personal relationship with “performed” confidence.

Self-confidence is not a trait — it is a relationship with yourself

Let us clear up the term first. Self-confidence is not volume, it is not the absence of nerves, and it is not the belief that you are better than other people. This definition comes closest to the truth: self-confidence is the trust that you can rely on yourself — that you will hold whatever comes, even if it does not go smoothly. That is why a self-confident person can say “I don’t know” and “I got it wrong”; their worth is not on the line with every mistake.

That this is more than a pleasant thought is borne out by research: the large meta-analysis by Sowislo and Orth (2013) showed that low self-esteem is not merely a consequence of distress but also a predictor — it forecasts more depression and anxiety years in advance. The relationship you have with yourself is therefore a factor in mental health, not cosmetics. At the same time, developmental research (Orth and Robins) brings good news: self-esteem is not set in stone. Across adulthood it tends on average to rise, and it rises above all through experience — which means it can be worked with at any age.

The wrong route towards it is the one we most often take: waiting until we “feel confident” first, and only then starting to live. It works the other way round — the feeling follows the action, it does not precede it. How and why, we will see with Bandura. But first, the foundation, without which everything else hangs in mid-air.

One more trap deserves a mention: comparison. Self-confidence that we look for by measuring ourselves against others is fragile by definition, because it depends on whoever happens to be in front of us at that moment — and social media makes sure there is always someone in front of us who looks a step ahead. In my work with young adults I see this constantly: people who are objectively doing well, with a profession, relationships and skills, who nevertheless feel left behind every time they open their phone. The trust in yourself that we build in therapy therefore does not answer the question “am I better than other people”, but a completely different one: “can I rely on myself when things get hard?” Other people’s achievements cannot answer that question — only your own experiences can.

The foundation in the body: interoception, or how you know what you feel

All trust in yourself begins with a simple question: do you even know what is going on inside you? Science calls this interoception — the perception of internal bodily signals: heartbeat, breath, tension, hunger, tiredness, that familiar tightening in the stomach. The neuroscientist A. D. Craig showed that these signals have their own “maps” in the brain (chiefly in a region called the insula) and that they underpin how we feel at all — an emotion is to a large extent an interpretation of a bodily state.

Why does this matter for self-confidence? Because a person who does not register their own internal signals is steering blind. They do not notice they are exhausted until they fall ill; they do not notice that something is bothering them until it erupts; they “don’t know” what they want, so they leave decisions to others — and every such handover lowers their trust in themselves a little further. By contrast, a person who registers “my stomach tightens at this proposal” gains valuable information before they decide. The inner compass is not a metaphor; it is a very concrete bodily skill that can be practised — by stopping, by asking “what am I feeling in my body right now”, by taking a few minutes of quiet without a screen. How the body speaks, and why we sometimes stop listening to it, I described in more detail in my piece on trauma in the body.

Words for feelings: emotional granularity

The second step of self-awareness is words. The psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett and her colleagues studied a phenomenon she calls emotional granularity: some people describe their inner state only as “I feel bad” or “stressed”, while others can tell disappointment from resentment, anxiety from restlessness, sadness from loneliness. This difference is not merely verbal gymnastics. Research (for example the review by Kashdan, Barrett and McKnight, 2015) shows that people with a more finely grained emotional vocabulary regulate distress better, reach for harmful strategies less often, and recover more quickly.

The logic is simple: fog is frightening, but a thing that has been named is manageable. “I feel bad” tells you nothing about what you need. “I am disappointed, because I promised myself more” tells you exactly where the work is: in the promises you make to yourself. For self-confidence this is crucial — a person who can name their state precisely stops being afraid of their own inner weather. And someone who is not afraid of what is happening inside them moves through the world far more calmly.

An exercise I like to give as homework: the next time something grips you, do not stop at the first word. Ask yourself: “If I had to choose a more precise word — what would it be? And what if there are two at once?” It often turns out that under the anger there is sadness, under the anxiety there is anger, and under “I don’t care” there is anything but indifference.

Why performed confidence does not hold water

Here I will add something personal. Before I came to psychotherapy I was an actress — and I know more about staging conviction than I would ever have wished to. On stage almost everything can be acted: posture, voice, gaze, self-assurance. For a while it even works. But performed confidence has the same flaw as any stage set: up close, and at the first touch, it wobbles. Because it rests on nobody looking behind it, it demands constant guarding — and it is exactly that guarding which gives it away: the excessive volume, the inability to say “I don’t know”, the aggression at the mildest criticism.

The difference I had to learn for myself is this: a performance builds an image, self-awareness builds a foundation. An image collapses the moment someone knocks it over; a foundation stays put even when you get things wrong, because it does not rest on your being right. That is why in my work with people we do not rehearse “a performance of confidence” — we practise the capacity to stay with yourself when things are uncomfortable. You can read more about my path from the stage to the therapy room on the My Approach page.

Self-compassion: a foundation that can carry mistakes

Many people try to build self-confidence on high demands of themselves: “Once I am good enough, I will finally trust myself.” The trap is obvious — the bar keeps moving and the inner judge never says “enough”. The researcher Kristin Neff has shown that there is a sturdier base: self-compassion. It is made up of three elements: kindness towards yourself instead of self-flagellation, a sense of common humanity (“we all make mistakes”) instead of isolation (“I am the only one like this”), and mindful presence with difficult feelings instead of fusing with them.

It matters what self-compassion is not: it is not leniency and it is not an excuse. Research shows exactly the opposite — people with more self-compassion recover from failure sooner and persist longer, because a mistake does not throw them into an existential crisis. Which is logical: if you know that after a fall you will be met at home with understanding rather than a lynching, you dare more. Self-compassion is therefore a precondition for courage, not a soft alternative to it. If a stern, mocking voice speaks up inside you at every mistake, my piece on the inner critic will speak to you — where it comes from and how it can be worked with.

Neff points out one more common confusion: self-compassion is not self-pity. Self-pity says “poor me, this only ever happens to me” and settles into the story; self-compassion says “this is hard, and every human being knows moments like this — what do I need now?” and moves on. The first isolates and paralyses, the second connects and mobilises. The difference shows most clearly in what comes next: after self-pity we stay stuck, after self-compassion we usually take the next step.

Self-efficacy: confidence grows out of experience, not out of praise

And now to the question of how trust in yourself actually grows. In 1977 the psychologist Albert Bandura introduced the concept of self-efficacy: the belief that you can carry out what you set out to do. His key finding, confirmed a thousand times over: that belief is not built with words, but above all through mastery experiences — real situations in which you attempted something difficult and saw it through. Praise and encouragement (Bandura calls this verbal persuasion) help, but they are the weakest of the sources; stronger is the example of someone like you who managed it; strongest of all is your own experience.

This explains why affirmations in front of the mirror disappoint, and why we do not equip children by praising their every breath: confidence that is not backed by experience is like money with nothing behind it. But it also explains the way forward — through small, real challenges just beyond the edge of comfort. Not the biggest fear all at once, but the smallest step that still counts: a question in a meeting, a call you keep putting off, an honest sentence in a relationship. Every step you see through is a deposit into the account of self-trust. There is one more Bandura detail worth knowing: how you explain the experience to yourself also counts. If you put success down to luck, the deposit evaporates; part of the exercise is therefore a deliberate acknowledgement: “I did that.”

Bandura listed two further sources worth knowing about. The first is vicarious experience: when you see someone like you — not a superhero, but a person with comparable fears — manage a challenge, your brain concludes: “If they can do it, perhaps I can too.” That is why support groups and honest stories are so powerful, and polished success stories so useless. The second source is bodily state: we readily read an agitated body before a challenge as proof of incapacity (“I am shaking, so I can’t do it”), even though the very same arousal can also be read as readiness. Here the circle closes neatly with the beginning of this piece — someone who knows their own body no longer reads its signals against themselves.

While you are at it, notice where your energy is draining away: chewing over scenarios you have no influence on is one of the quietest thieves of self-confidence, because it keeps you in the role of a helpless observer. How to redirect it into steps that are in your own hands I described in my piece on the circle of influence.

The pyramid: from self-awareness to self-confidence

If I gather all of this into a single image, I get a pyramid. At the bottom is self-awareness: I feel my body, I recognise and name what is going on in me. Above it, self-compassion: whatever I find in myself, I can hold without self-flagellation — the fear too, the mistake too. On the third step are mastery experiences: out of a safe relationship with myself I dare to take on small, real challenges and see them through. And at the top stands self-confidence — not as a performance, but as a quiet trust that the layers below have earned. Each step carries the next; if the bottom one is missing, the ones above collapse into a stage set.

Five small exercises for every day

To close, some practice — five small habits, one for each layer and one for good measure:

• A check-in three times a day: stop for half a minute and scan your body from head to feet. What is tense, how am I breathing, what do I need? Nothing has to change — you only need to know.
• A more precise word: whenever distress arrives, look for a more granular name than “I feel bad”. Over time you assemble a vocabulary that helps you find your way inside yourself.
• You wouldn’t say that to a friend: when you catch yourself in self-flagellation, ask what you would say to a good friend in the same situation — and then say it to yourself, out loud, even if it feels awkward.
• One step past the edge each week: pick one small thing you have been avoiding and see it through. Then give yourself the credit — in words, not in passing.
• An evidence diary: in the evening, write down one situation you held or saw through that day. Self-confidence is also memory — and memory likes to forget our victories while filing our mistakes in the front row.

If you notice that despite all your effort you keep going round in circles — devaluing every success and magnifying every mistake — that is often a sign that an older story lies underneath: a voice from childhood, an experience that shook your trust in yourself, standards that were never yours. That is when it makes sense to look deeper, and you do not have to do it alone. Write to me and together we can look at what your pyramid actually stands on.

I shared a short summary of this pyramid on Instagram too — if an image speaks to you more than text:

Samozavest ni glasnost — je temelj, ki se gradi od spodaj.