To start off, I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you: confidence is overrated. What really counts is to dig down deeper than confidence. Because it’s rediscovering your bravery that will create the foundation for true confidence, the kind that goes beyond faking it until you make it.
If confidence is having faith in yourself, bravery or being courageous is the ability to do something that frightens you. Being brave means having the willingness to try, to do your best and give things a go. It means acting even when it feels scary or uncomfortable.
Many people who appear to have been born with confidence, and seem to breeze through every challenge, still struggle internally with self-doubt. What looks impressive or easy on the outside isn’t the whole story.
In Brave New Girl, we’ll be going deep into the reasons that you’ve held yourself back, with plenty of inspirational stories from real women like you, who’ve overcome their fears to develop their confidence. You’ve no doubt looked at successful women who appear to have it all going on and thought, ‘It’s so easy for her.’ But we only see the confident exterior, not what’s going on inside. Adele has been known to projectile vomit before her mind-blowingly brilliant performances. Despite looking so self-assured during her 2011 TED Talk, motivational guru Mel Robbins has described feeling on the verge of a panic attack the whole way through. Speaker and uber-successful global business coach Marie Forleo has confessed to getting nervous before every single talk she does, no matter how small the audience. Even superstar Rihanna has reportedly sought coaching for confidence.
Confidence can be like a mirage: it looks great from a distance, but on closer inspection, it’s hot air, simply a way of behaving. What’s actually going on underneath the surface of someone who’s putting themselves out there, is bravery.
Being brave doesn’t mean having an absence of fear. Rather, it’s being firm in the face of fear or challenges, despite the way you’re feeling. Once you learn you can handle moving out of your comfort zone, real confidence starts to emerge. Confidence comes from experience.
That means you will only discover the extent of your abilities when you give something scary, hard or uncomfortable a go. It’s not about being good at that thing, doing it perfectly, or getting people’s approval. It’s about trying and knowing that, no matter if you fall or fail or make a fool of yourself, you’ll be OK. In fact, you’ll be more than OK because you’ll know you’re BRAVE.
Being brave doesn’t have to mean jumping out of an aeroplane, swimming with sharks or speaking in front of a thousand people (though it might). When we’re afraid, we’re brave for merely showing up.
Brave is pushing the boundaries of what has kept you small, even if only by an inch. It’s poking your head around the door of what’s possible for you. It’s taking baby steps forward and noticing that fear shrinks when you walk towards it. Brave might mean striking up a conversation with a sales assistant in a shop, it might mean letting your sister know how she’s treating you isn’t OK, or going to a party and staying for just twenty minutes. Whatever is on the edge of your comfort zone will exercise your bravery and so grow your confidence.
If you think all this bravery stuff is a step too far, or if you’re about to throw this book across the other side of the room and hide behind the sofa, or if you want to dismiss it as ‘too much like hard work’, I feel for you. This work is hard, I won’t deny it.
When a challenge seems impossible, it’s easy to dismiss our bold dreams or convince ourselves that they’re not that important. But stay with me. In this book, I will be holding your hand and taking you step by step through the discomfort and out the other side.
We won’t be jumping in at the deep end here – that might just be enough to put you off for life! Instead, we’ll be implementing what Caroline Paul, author of The Gutsy Girl, calls ‘micro-bravery’. That means small, simple steps that infuse you with self-belief, grow your confidence and, eventually, leave you feeling unstoppable.
Building your assertiveness in these small ways will strengthen you for the bigger stuff. Learn to do the little things – as small as asking your masseuse to go easy on your sore calf muscles rather than keeping quiet and wincing in pain – and you will eventually learn to do the bigger ones. That includes things as big as speaking out about discrimination at work, or standing up to the doctor who’s compromising your mother’s care in the hospital.
I’m going to teach you how to practise bravery. I’m going to help you push through the discomfort, and speak up. You’ll learn how to do the hard things, for your benefit and for others too.
If this still sounds alien to you, remember you’ve already developed your confidence in so many ways. You weren’t born being confident at walking – you pulled yourself up, courageously gave it a try, fell over lots and finally learned how to confidently toddle over to Mum or Dad. Perhaps driving or riding a bike were once scary and new, but you now do them on autopilot.
Every time you are brave, you’ll learn assertiveness and develop confidence. Finally, you’ll be able to access and use your potential to the full. You’ll be free to try, to do your best and to give yourself the best chance of success. And you’ll free up your energy to become authentically you.
★ Confidence comes from being brave and taking action.
★ Micro-bravery is about taking small steps to challenge yourself and grow your confidence.
★ Building your assertiveness in small ways gives you strength and confidence to do bigger things. It’s like exercising a muscle.