I’ve spent some time reflecting yesterday and I realized that. When people want you to be confident they don’t want you to be actually confident, they want you to pretend you are. It is idiotic and makes no sense, but it explains a lot of situations in which I behaved the wrong way.
confidence to me means the opposite of that. it means questioning your asssumptions, approaching things from a different angle, reflect, recalculate, asking for a second opinion. Because I’ll end up with greater confidence that my assertions are more truthful. But apparently doing all that makes people think I’m insecure. Shit!
If double checking your beliefs will mean you are then confident in them, do that double check before you speak. Make it part of coming to your conclusion in the first place, and then trust yourself enough to stick to that. That’s true confidence. Worrying and asking for more opinions, or double checking after you have your conclusion just telegraphs uncertainty.