The Confidence Feedback Loop

Posted on April 24, 2008 by Editor in Chief, Pick The Brain | CATEGORIES: self improvement

One of the most popular articles I’ve ever written covered the subject of building self confidence. The chief criticism of this article was that you can’t just decide to be confident. You either have confidence or you don’t.

This type of thinking is flat out wrong and harmful to those who subscribe to it. The reason you CAN choose to become confident is the confidence feedback loop.

You might not be able to control your level of confidence, but you can control your actions. You can choose to act in ways that confident people act, even if you aren’t confident. I’ve experience that simply acting confident helps, but an even more important factor is the perception of others.

As one astute commenter pointed out, there is no outward difference between a truly confident person and a person who is posing as confident. The outside signals are the same, so observers perceive both people as confident. They treat both people with the admiration and respect commanded by confident people.

This is the confidence feedback loop. Once others start to treat you like a confident person, you start to believe it. The confidence you were faking before becomes real, leading to more positive feedback, leading to more confidence. It’s a virtuous cycle.

  • http://www.goingdumb.blogspot.com alex

    aka fake it til you make it.

  • http://stanleybronstein.com MrAchievement.com (Stanley Bronstein)

    It’s funny, everybody seems to be talking about confidence today. I wrote a post just last night on my blog about confidence.

    It must be something in the air. I based my posting on the following quote:

    “Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.” (Cicero)

    Take care,

    MrAchievement
    Stanley Bronstein
    Attorney, CPA, Author, Blogger & Professional Motivational Speaker

  • http://abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com Marelisa

    I agree that you should act in a confident manner even when you don’t actually feel confident. However, I think that a lack of self-confidence comes from an inability to recognize one’s own true worth. The end objective should be to feel good about yourself and your decisions–that is, feel confident about yourself–regardless of how others act toward you.

  • http://www.greatmanagement.org GreatManagement

    I use this technique when facing a difficult situation.

    A good friend of mine is one of the UK top confidence coaches and one technique he uses to give yourself an instant boost of confidence, is ‘pretend to be someone who is already successful’.

    So if you wanted to improve your tennis, pretend to be Roger Federer. If you wanted to improve your presentation skills, pretend to be Anthony Robbins.

  • http://www.deepmarket.com Eric

    @alex – or “Don’t let them see you sweat”.

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  • http://www.etavitom.com etavitom

    I agree!!

  • http://www.byknight.com/wordpress Peter Knight

    A first impression of self confidence? I think that’s certainly good. If you look reliable it is a necessary beginning, and I think it could lead to a positive feedback loop: as long as there is something there to back it up!

    I think we are all weary of brazen fakes. On the other hand (as Marelisa suggests) not having the ability to recognize one’s own true worth is a great shame and I’m sure that a lot of good talent is lost that way. Know that you have earned your worth. It’s yours, there is no need to pretend.

  • Elizabeth

    The interesting thing is that if you think you “LACK” something (i.e. self confidence) then you will feel like you have a problem and you won’t be able to be confident. I spent years searching for and trying to get this thing I was lacking…in turn leading only to more lack of self confidence. Now I try to focus on me, now, and what I have inside me that I will use today.

    • Khaled

      I agree with you that focusing on your ownself and what you have inside you,is the key point to building a stable self-confidence.People’s perception is variable and not guaranted to be a positive feedback for you all the time.I think that it will be good to act(pretend) as a confident person but only as a short term plan to trigger your self-confidence mechanism until you gain enough confidene that you can use to build on it by your real character.Acting or pretending that you are someone else for along time will end that you will lose yourself and get unrelevant to whom you are inside.

  • http://selfhypnosisconfidence.com confidence building

    Good information, thanks for posting that. I have bookmarked your site and will come back to see what else you have to say. Building confidence is so challenging for me that the more information I have the better: there are so many ideas and people to learn from. I am looking forward to coming back and learning some more to help make a difference to my confidence levels and my life. thankyou David