As you may or may not know I’m a personal development coach which means I help people who are serious about making changes in their lives in order to be the best version of themselves. This could be in work or their personal lives.

One of the most popular areas coachees want to explore and improve is their confidence. I work mainly but not exclusively with women and every single woman without exception has said that she would like to build her confidence. That’s great, I can certainly help with that, but I’ve noticed that many of the women I’ve worked with didn’t actually lack confidence at all – at least not in the areas they had stated. They just needed the space and time to explore possibilities and new ways of thinking and behaving in a supportive and non-judgemental space.

This got me thinking about confidence and how, at best it’s often misunderstood and at worst, it’s sometimes used as a gaslighting tool.

Confidence – some definitions

Psychology today – ‘Confidence is a belief in oneself, the conviction that one has the ability to meet life’s challenges and to succeed – and the willingness to act accordingly’

Mind – ‘Confidence is about believing in and trusting ourselves, our abilities and ideas.’

CALM – ‘Confidence is about how you carry yourself every day. When you feel confident you feel steady and sure no matter what’s going on around you.’

Confidence can be complex. A person can be very confident in some aspects of their lives and lack confidence in others. People who appear to be confident are sometimes the least confident, and vice versa. It also doesn’t help that introverts and ‘reflectors’ (people who need time to think before acting or speaking) are said to lack confidence simply because they’re quiet or require time to think things through.

And while many of us may want and/or need to work on being more confident either in a particular area or in general, there are some instances in which convincing people to work on their confidence is not a development tool but a sinister distraction technique.

Many moons ago I was interested in working in a different field. It seemed like a good fit in terms of my interests and transferrable skills, but I had zero practical experience, something that a lot of employers in this particular field ask for. Friends would send me jobs in this field, but when I told them I couldn’t apply because I lacked the relevant essential experience, I was told that I needed to have more confidence in myself and my abilities.

When I was younger and becoming acutely aware of how poorly I was being treated by some, solely based on my albinism, some people suggested it was basically all in my head and that I just needed to be more confident.

Job seeking and meeting (decent) new people weren’t areas in which I lacked confidence at the time, but those particular responses were from people who felt their opinions were more accurate than my own lived experiences. They couldn’t identify with my situation so instead of acknowledging this and trusting my observations, they took the stance that unfortunately many people take when faced with situations they can’t relate to: ‘That’s never happened to me/ I would never do such a thing therefore it didn’t/doesn’t happen’. The older upper middle-class white women I was friends with at the time couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just blag my way into a job I wasn’t fully qualified for like they had done at one time or another, and the people without albinism said there was no way people would treat me badly just for being an albino. When I tried to explain, I was implicitly told that my lack of confidence was the problem.

Ironically, not being listened to and having my feelings and experiences dismissed lowered my confidence, and for a long time I didn’t always trust my own feelings in certain situations – something I realised many years later.

Now, I’m not trying to present myself as perfect. I really did need to work on my confidence in some areas because in certain instances it was so low I was holding myself back from reaching my potential. But low confidence wasn’t the answer to every problem I encountered.

Nor is it something every woman experiences just by virtue of being a woman. Although you wouldn’t think so judging by the amount of confidence building courses aimed at women – particularly in the workplace. So, if, as these courses, articles and women themselves suggest, so many women are lacking confidence, might it be reasonable to suppose that the women themselves might not be the entire problem, and that an examination of the environments we inhabit and the societies in which we live might be necessary?

Banging on about confidence when someone presents with problems caused by external factors is a brilliantly diabolical way of absolving a person, organisation or system of their responsibilities to an individual or group isn’t it?

Think about it: If, as a manager, organisation or profession you don’t want to progress too many women, or you are a woman who has progressed but would prefer other women didn’t, telling women it’s their own lack of confidence that’s holding them back and not the system that has been designed to work against them, is pretty smart.

Across the UK there are many children receiving sub-par education from underpaid and over-worked teachers in underfunded schools, and while some of those children will go on to do extraordinary things, others will falter and probably never reach their full potential. These children, and later, adults will be encouraged to build their confidence one mentor, coach or manager at a time while the problems created by the system that failed them are ignored.

And when sick people and people with disabilities so severe they’re unable to work are being forced in to work, and when non disabled people who have lost their jobs are being forced into roles they are unqualified for, and when both groups are being forced to apply for jobs that don’t pay enough to cover their basic living expenses, and all of this is happening during a period of high unemployment, job coaches will be sent in to help jobseekers confidently apply for the jobs they can’t do and that don’t pay enough for them to live, because clearly, it’s the jobseeker’s lack of confidence that’s the sole issue here.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about absolving people of personal responsibility. If you genuinely have a problem that’s holding you back from success, then you’re responsible for acknowledging this and doing the work to make the necessary changes. However, we must also know when we’re being hoodwinked and bamboozled. Sometimes ‘you need to work on your confidence’ depending on where it’s coming from can be an insidious form of gaslighting by others to avoid dealing with other issues at play.

I’m in no way suggesting that low confidence doesn’t exist but even when it does, it rarely, if ever just comes from nowhere. Upbringing, environment, past experiences, societal so-called ‘norms’, culture, politics…These and more can impact a person’s confidence levels in one way or another. Suggesting that one work on their confidence in a vacuum without acknowledging external factors is a fruitless task.

So, the next time someone suggests that you need to work on your confidence, you may want to ask yourself (or them) the following:

• Who is saying this, and might they have an ulterior motive?
• Can they be more specific? In what areas do you lack confidence? What specifically have they observed?
• What (if any) are the external elements that may be preventing you from reaching your goal(s)? (Lack of support? Lack of information? Lack of opportunities? Poor management? A rubbish relationship? Access to resources?)
• In relation to the above, is there anything you can do about these? (Is there a way to get the information/resources you need? Do you need to speak with your manager, spouse/partner or others in your life about the nature of your relationship and the impact it’s having on your ability to meet your needs?)

Of course nothing beats knowledge of self. Do you genuinely feel that low confidence is an issue for you? If so and you’re ready to work on it then get to it! But you know yourself better than anyone so if what you’re being told about your confidence level (or anything else for that matter) doesn’t resonate then push back. Don’t allow your time and energy to be wasted trying to fix a non-existent problem or partially fix a problem which is more complex and requires more than just an examination of your behaviours alone while other elements are ignored.