The Difference Between Confidence & Knowing What You're Doing
For a long time, I thought confident people had everything figured out.
I thought confidence meant having a plan.
Having answers.
Knowing exactly what you were doing before you started.
Then life taught me something different.
Some of the most confident things I've ever done happened when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
When I started creating journals, I didn't know what I was doing.
When I started a YouTube channel, I didn't know what I was doing.
When I started learning website building, I definitely didn't know what I was doing.
Most of the time I was learning as I went.
Watching videos.
Reading articles.
Making mistakes.
Trying again.
The funny thing is that people often assume confidence comes from certainty.
I don't think it does.
I think confidence comes from trusting yourself enough to try anyway.
There were times when I talked about my ideas and I could practically feel people questioning them.
Sometimes nobody had to say a word.
You can tell when somebody doesn't quite believe in what you're doing.
You can see it in their expression.
You can hear it in the way they respond.
And if I'm being honest, there were times when I looked people right in the face and said it.
"I know you think I'm crazy."
"I know you don't think this is going to work."
"I know you think I'm wasting my time."
"But I'm going to figure it out."
Not because I knew exactly how.
Not because I had some perfect plan.
But because I've spent enough years rebuilding my life to know that just because I don't know how to do something today doesn't mean I can't learn.
I've been underestimated before.
I've underestimated myself before.
Neither one has ever been a very good predictor of what I'm capable of.
The truth is, I wasn't confident because I knew I would succeed.
I wasn't confident because I had some perfect roadmap.
I wasn't confident because I had special knowledge.
I was confident because I've survived enough hard things in life to know that I can learn.
That's different.
When you've rebuilt your life more than once, you start to understand something important.
Not knowing isn't the problem.
Quitting is.
Most of the things I've learned in my life started with confusion.
I didn't understand them at first.
I wasn't naturally good at them.
I made mistakes.
I got frustrated.
Sometimes I wanted to walk away.
But every time I stayed with it a little longer, I learned something new.
And eventually the thing that once felt impossible became familiar.
That's true for technology.
It's true for business.
It's true for relationships.
It's true for life.
I think a lot of people are waiting to feel confident before they start.
They're waiting for certainty.
They're waiting to know enough.
They're waiting for the fear to go away.
The problem is that confidence usually shows up after you start.
Not before.
You don't gain confidence by thinking about something.
You gain confidence by doing something.
By trying.
By failing.
By learning.
By getting back up and trying again.
Looking back now, I realize I had confidence long before I had knowledge.
I just didn't recognize it.
Every time I said, "I'll figure it out," that was confidence.
Every time I tried something new, that was confidence.
Every time I kept going after making a mistake, that was confidence.
Confidence isn't knowing what you're doing.
Confidence is believing you can learn what you don't know.