The Confidence Paradox – Building Confidence from the Inside Out

There is a voice that we have all been carrying since childhood. A voice shaped by the standards we were held to, the comparisons we absorbed, the moments we were told, directly or indirectly, that we were not quite enough. And as we move through life, confirmation bias reinforces it further – we unconsciously notice the evidence that supports what we already believe about ourselves, and overlook the evidence that doesn’t. It does not go quiet simply because we have become successful. If anything, it often gets louder, because there is more at stake. This is the inner critic, and it can play havoc with our confidence!

Awareness of that voice is the starting point because it gives us the potential to develop agency around it. But awareness alone is not always enough to address its impact on our confidence. The psychologist Martyn Newman identifies two pillars of genuine self confidence: self competence and self liking. Self competence is a sense of personal efficacy – a belief in your ability to do things and achieve things. It is undermined when we don’t pay attention to our strengths and achievements, or when we downplay them as “just the way I am” or “just my job.” The evidence is there, but we aren’t rating it. Self liking is a sense of self-worth. It is not about what we have achieved, but how we feel about ourselves irrespective of our achievements. When the feelings of self-worth are held in the body, clarity of thought is not enough to shift them.

In this final article I want to explore three dimensions of what actually builds lasting confidence. The first is about getting clear on our passion, values and priorities – what matters to us, what energises us and how we want to direct our time and energy. The second are practices that help change our relationship with our inner critic. The third goes further still, into a kind of listening that goes beyond how we think and addresses the memories held deep in the body.

Passion, values and priorities

Confidence is affected when we lack focus. Knowing what we are good at, what we enjoy, and what is important to us gives us information we can use to decide what outcomes we want and how we want to spend our time achieving them. Without that clarity, everything feels equally urgent, and there is little sense of direction. In my work I regularly see clients who arrive feeling overwhelmed, stressed and pulled in every direction, questioning whether they are in the right role. In more extreme cases they are ready to quit. Often they cannot access their passion for anything because of the overwhelm. This impacts confidence profoundly because they feel like they are failing, that they are not enough and they lack the energy or focus to do anything about it.

These sessions tend to bring up a lot of emotion and creating the space for that is an important part of the work. Once that emotion has shifted, something clears. We can then get focused on reconnecting with what really matters – their strengths, their values, what energises them and their priorities in life. And for those clients who came in on the verge of quitting, that reconnection often reveals that quitting is not necessarily the right answer.

Here are some questions that can help bring that clarity into focus:

• What are three things you are good at, that you rarely give yourself credit for?
• What is one thing you do regularly that genuinely energises you, and one thing that quietly drains you?
• If you looked honestly at how you spend your time, would it reflect what actually matters to you?

Getting clear on what matters is one part of the work, it gives us an internal compass to navigate from, rather than being driven by the demands of the external environment. But there is something more personal running beneath it.

The role of the inner critic

The inner critic affects both pillars. It erodes self competence by telling us we are not capable, not ready, not good enough. And it erodes self liking by making us feel that our worth as a person is conditional on our performance.

Self confidence isn’t built by silencing the inner critic or arguing with it. It is built by developing a different relationship with it – noticing when it speaks and choosing not to accept every thought as fact.

One simple practice can help build that different relationship: at the end of each day:

• Name three things you achieved
• Name three things you are grateful for

This is not about positive thinking or ignoring what is difficult. It is about acknowledging what is true and provides a foundation to build on, rather than starting again from zero each day.

Another practice that helps is reframing. The inner critic speaks in absolutes – I can’t, I’m not good enough, I’m not ready. Reframing doesn’t deny the difficulty but shifts the perspective. “I can’t” becomes “I can’t yet.” “I’m no good at this” becomes “what did I learn?” or “what will I try differently next time?” These are not just positive spins on a negative thought. They are more accurate. They reflect the reality of growth rather than the fiction of fixed ability.

These are cognitive practices that impact how we think and feel about ourselves and can be very effective. I worked with a client who, when we explored his strengths, achievements, what he was grateful for and practised reframing, experienced a genuine shift in his confidence. For him, this mindset shift was the work. He never knew he had an option to think differently.

Sometimes the work goes deeper still. Beyond what we think, beyond what we believe about ourselves, into the memories the body has been holding long before we had the words for them. These are the memories that get triggered in the present and pull us back into old patterns of thinking.

The wisdom of the body

The body is always communicating. The sick feeling in the stomach before walking into a room where authority might be challenged. The tightness in the chest when asked a question you don’t feel certain enough to answer. The sense of energy and clarity when something feels right. All of this is information. The body stores everything – every experience, every memory, every pattern, every moment of threat or safety – held there long before we have the language to name it. Learning to pay attention to this information helps us respond intentionally, rather than react on autopilot.

But most of us have never been taught how to listen to the body. We have been taught to override it, push through it, manage it. Accessing what the body holds requires a different quality of attention. One that involves slowing down, turning inward and being present with what is there rather than trying to fix or change it.

Sitting with and allowing a sensation in our body, rather than trying to understand or analyse it, enables it to move and release. In practice, this is an invitation to a different kind of self-inquiry – one that starts not with what am I thinking, but what am I feeling, and where am I feeling it. Slowing down enough to notice what the body is telling you, rather than overriding or pushing through it.

This understanding was deepened for me in a way I didn’t expect during my Craniosacral Therapy training and it showed me what deep listening looks like at an embodied level. During a practice session I was present and listening to the tissues of the body, with no intention to change or fix anything. The person I was working with began to feel changes. I asked my tutor how that was possible. I wasn’t doing anything, I said. He said simply: you are listening.

The body had known what it needed. The listening facilitated the changes.

That experience reinforced my understanding of deep listening. It is a way of being, rather than a technique. Listening tends to be understood as something we do from the neck up – paying attention, tracking what is being said, formulating a response. But there is a deeper kind of listening available, one that involves the whole body. And when you learn to listen to yourself in that way, something that has been held for a very long time can begin to move.

Not another framework. Not a better strategy for managing the inner critic. A genuine, embodied shift and one that releases an old memory.

A closing thought

The leaders I have worked with who have made the most meaningful shift in their relationship with confidence share something in common. They got clear on what actually mattered to them and let that clarity guide what they gave their time and energy to. They developed a different relationship with the inner critical voice, rather than trying to silence it. And they released the embodied memories that were holding them but no longer served them.

If any of this feels like more than you want to navigate alone, that is exactly what coaching, therapy or other professional support is there for.

Frequently asked questions

Why doesn’t thinking your way through a confidence problem always work? Confidence has two dimensions: self competence, a belief in your ability to do things and achieve things, and self liking, a sense of worth that is independent of what you achieve. Cognitive practices like reframing and gratitude exercises can be very effective at shifting how we think and feel about ourselves. But when feelings of self-worth are held in the body as embodied memory, clarity of thought alone is not enough to shift them. That is where a deeper kind of work is needed.

What is the role of the inner critic in confidence? The inner critic affects both pillars of self confidence. It erodes self competence by telling us we are not capable, not ready, not good enough. And it erodes self liking by making us feel that our worth as a person is conditional on our performance. Building confidence is not about silencing that voice or arguing with it. It is about developing a different relationship with it: noticing when it speaks, choosing not to accept every thought as fact, and building the evidence base that the inner critic tends to overlook.

What is embodied confidence and why does it matter? Embodied confidence goes beyond how we think about ourselves. The body stores every experience, every memory, every pattern, held there long before we have the language to name it. When the memories that undermine our confidence are held in the body rather than the mind, they get triggered in the present and pull us back into old patterns of thinking. Accessing and releasing those memories requires a different quality of attention – one that involves slowing down, turning inward and being present with what the body is holding, rather than trying to fix or analyse it.

At KOI we work with people in Ireland and internationally to explore all three dimensions of this work, in person and virtually.