In The Confidence Code, journalists and authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman examine confidence—what it is, why it’s important, and why women seem predisposed to have less of it than men. (While the book focuses on confidence in women, much of the confidence-building advice applies to men too.)
Confidence is believing so strongly that you can do something that you’re driven to actually do it. The belief stems from mastery—you know you can do something because you’ve worked hard and pushed through past difficulties and failures.
Confidence is contagious—once you’ve mastered something, this gives you the confidence that you can master (or at least try) something else.
Confidence is important for three reasons:
1. If you don’t have it, you won’t act, even if you have the desire and skills to do so.
2. It’s more important than competence (provided the gap between competence and confidence is small). Humans admire and respect people who display confidence, and when people genuinely believe they’re good at something (even if they’re objectively not) they naturally give off nonverbal cues and behave in ways that make them seem confident. Keeping your head down and working hard isn’t as visible.
Interestingly, many confident-but-not-extremely-competent people never run into problems. Others don’t think they’re narcissistic because they’re not faking their confidence; they genuinely believe they’re as good as they think they are.
3. It contributes to emotional well-being. Being confident offers more rewards than workplace or personal success. Confidence contributes to making you feel engaged, rewarded, accepted, fulfilled, and purposeful.
Researchers have found evidence that women have less confidence than men, and women tend to underestimate their abilities. Men tend to overestimate their abilities:
Confidence comes from biological factors (genetics, brain biology, and hormones) as well as environmental factors (upbringing, societal expectations, and so on).
Scientists estimate that 25-50% of our confidence comes from our genes. Four notable genes affect confidence and their variants are evenly distributed between genders.
Gene #1: The serotonin transporter (SLC6A4). This gene regulates serotonin levels in the body. Serotonin calms the amygdala, the two primitive parts of the brain responsible for fear and strong, often negative emotions that further survival. Serotonin also de-stresses the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for, among other things, rational thought). A calmer prefrontal cortex makes you feel happier, less anxious, and more confident in your decision-making.
SLC6A4 comes in three variants that process serotonin: well, inefficiently, and poorly, respectively. People with the quick-processing variants are resilient, which helps them be confident, and people with the slow-processing one are at a higher risk of anxiety and depression
Gene #2: OXTR. This gene controls oxytocin levels. Oxytocin, like serotonin, aids the prefrontal cortex processes and calms the amygdala. Additionally, it encourages positive thoughts about others, which increases optimism. Optimism supports confidence because it’s easier to take risks if you believe things will turn out all right.
Like SLC6A4, this gene also has two variants. One makes people more resilient and outgoing; the other can lead to low self-esteem and low optimism.
Genes #3 and #4: COMT and DRD4. These genes control dopamine, which aids concentration and is linked to action and risk-taking.
COMT is responsible for clearing dopamine out of the prefrontal cortex and there are three variants that clear dopamine: quickly, medium speed, or slowly. When there’s excess dopamine in the prefrontal cortex (in times of stress), the brain shuts down, so the quick-clearing variant restores balance more quickly, aiding confidence.
DRD4 comes in two variants and those with DRD47R are more adventurous because the variant encourages pushing limits and extreme risk-taking.
Even if you have genes that don’t enhance confidence, that doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to be under-confident. Certain genes related to character traits can turn on and off, depending on life experiences, thus changing our brain chemistry—and our confidence levels.
While there are no genetic differences between men and women—the confidence-related gene variants are evenly distributed between genders—the sexes do have physiological differences in their brains, think in different ways, and have different amounts of relevant hormones.
Women’s and men’s brain differ in the following ways:
All of us, regardless of age, can physically change our brains, which means that if you choose to change your thinking and mental habits, you can rewire yourself to be more confident, regardless of your genes or sex.
In the previous section, we looked at brain biology. Now, we’ll look at two hormones that affect confidence: testosterone and estrogen. Both men and women have testosterone, but post-puberty, men have around 10 times more than women.
Testosterone is responsible for muscle size, competition ability, speed, strength, and feelings of power. It’s also related to risk-taking and ignoring warnings. While these qualities aid confidence, testosterone has some downsides—it limits certain abilities, like cooperating and seeing other people’s points of view.
Women can increase their testosterone levels by adopting male postures, like taking up space while sitting.
Estrogen encourages observation, social skills, and connection. Like testosterone, it has limitations too—it contributes to risk avoidance, which can kill confidence. However, risk aversion isn’t always bad—sometimes risks fail—and therefore estrogen’s effects can enhance performance and success.
In the previous sections, you learned about how genetics, brain biology, and hormones affect confidence. But confidence isn’t a matter of nature versus nurture—both our biology and our environment affect us and neither will win out.
Seven environmental influences contribute to women having lower self-belief than men:
Influence #1: Expectations of “goodness.” Starting in elementary school or even younger at home, girls are rewarded for being “good”—quiet, neat, compliant, and well-behaved. Encouraging goodness discourages confidence-building behavior like taking risks, being rowdy, or teasing and roughhousing (both common ways boys play).
Influence #2: Fewer girls play sports. Sports are good for building confidence because playing them involves competing, winning, and losing, which have parallels with victories and setbacks throughout life (such as making a mistake at work.) However, fewer girls play sports than boys, and girls are six times more likely to quit their team than boys. This is because girls’ self-esteem drops more than boys’ during adolescence and losing makes them so uncomfortable they stop competing.
Influence #3: The rules change. Unlike in the classroom, in the workplace, academic achievement and competence are no longer the requirements for success. Instead, success requires self-promotion, political savvy, and pushing beyond nos. Many women aren’t skilled in these areas since they haven’t had practice in their upbringing.
Influence #4: Stereotype threat. When there’s a stereotype associated with a minority group, members of the group feel pressure to embody the stereotype. There are many negative stereotypes associated with women’s abilities. For example, women are stereotypically worse at math than men.
Influence #5: Systemic barriers. Women don’t have access to the same resources as men in the U.S. For example, American women earn more degrees than men and according to the Global Gender Gap, the U.S. is first in equality in educational attainment. There’s no lack of competence—but the U.S. is 67th in gender pay equality and 60th in political empowerment.
Influence #6: Body image expectations. Women’s confidence is strongly tied to physical appearance and they’re judged on their appearance more than men are. Women who don’t meet society’s beauty standards have a harder time in life.
Influence #7: Self-imposed obstacles. In addition to the six external influences that inhibit women more than men from developing confidence, women also assume certain burdens such as a desire to be likable (making us so scared of offending people we don’t act), overthinking (inhibiting our ability to act) internally attributing everything (chalking up anything that goes wrong as a personal failing), and perfectionism (unattainable, so you’ll always feel too inadequate to take action).
As you learned in the previous sections, biological and environmental factors contribute to confidence, but confidence isn’t a fixed trait—you have to build it. Psychologists believe that 50% of confidence might come from choice and will.
The confidence code—the building blocks of confidence—consists of three principles:
Practice adhering to the code using the following techniques:
Technique #1: Fail fast. Failing fast is a business strategy that involves trying lots of ideas, expecting that most of them will fail. This is useful as a confidence-building strategy because it inherently involves the same cycle of repeated attempts, failure, and risk-taking necessary for building confidence. Additionally, it combats perfectionism and inhibits overthinking because the cycles are so fast there’s simply not time.
Technique #2: Act, even when you’re uncertain. If you stay inactive in your comfort zone, you won’t improve or gain confidence. If you act, the worst thing that will happen is that you fail. You don’t have to take massive action—it’s fine to start this strategy with baby steps. For example, if you’re not confident about attending parties solo, first, go to a small event where you know people.
Technique #3: Think differently using thought exercises. For example, to control ruminating, whenever you find yourself doing it, think of three things you’ve done well that day.
Technique #4: Change your focus. Women tend to be more confident when they focus on others instead of themselves. Therefore, you can spur yourself to act by thinking about how taking action will benefit others. For example, if you’re nervous about public speaking, tell yourself you’re speaking on behalf of people or a group you care about.
Technique #5: Take credit. When you achieve something, don’t downplay it, attribute it to luck, or be self-deprecating. You deserve your achievements, so take credit for them. If you have trouble taking a compliment, say thank you and tell the person you appreciate them saying it. In moments when you lack confidence, remember these achievements—you’ll become more confident when you remember there’s proof you’ve been successful in the past.
Technique #6: Don’t take things personally. When someone criticizes you at work, remember that this criticism is directed at your work, not you. Also, recognize that women face some obstacles men don’t and this makes things harder for us. We’re not incompetent or less capable; our lives are harder and we don’t have access to the same resources.
Technique #7: Become more comfortable speaking up. You can improve your confidence and speaking abilities by using whatever speaking style is most comfortable, focusing on others, and avoiding upspeak (when the pitch of your voice rises at the end of a sentence, making it sound like you’re asking a question and are uncertain).
Technique #8: Do things differently if necessary. You don’t need to copy men or other people to be confident. If you have a new, more effective way of doing something, pursue it, even if you face criticism.
Technique #9: Don’t rely on external sources of confidence. There’s nothing wrong with comparing yourself to others and enjoying external validation, but it’s dangerous to rely on this as a source of confidence. You’re less likely to act if you fear the action will make people stop praising you, and you’ll be crushed when you don’t get enough praise.
In the previous section, you learned some techniques for building your confidence. In this final chapter, you’ll learn how to build confidence in your children and the women you know.
The earlier in life we encounter the confidence builders (risk, failure, and so on), the faster and more effectively we build confidence.
Here are some strategies for raising confident children:
1. Slowly expose children to risk—too much all at once might traumatize them.
2. Be specific about praise. For example, if your son helps set the table, instead of saying “good job” or “you’re a perfect child,” say something like, “I like how you folded the napkins.” Be especially careful not to overpraise daughters—this encourages them to be good. (Also be careful not to overly reprimand daughters for the same reason.)
3. Don’t fix their problems—this will make them overreliant and impede their ability to develop tolerance for frustration.
4. Teach them to master small life skills like cooking an egg or doing laundry.
5. Don’t attach your status to their achievements. An Irish study found that young people thought pressure to meet their parents’ expectations was mentally damaging.
6. Lead by example. Your children will copy you, so if they see you emulating confidence-building behavior like working hard, struggling, or recovering from mistakes, they’ll pick it up too.
7. Discourage perfectionism by praising appropriately, encouraging your daughter to be happy with doing her personal best, and encouraging her to reflect on past challenges and how she got past them to develop resilience.
8. Push daughters toward math and science by pointing out how useful math is in small daily tasks and drawing their attention to the science they encounter every day, such as weather. Never make fun of your own science and math skills—doing so reinforces stereotypes.
9. Encourage your daughters to play sports. Enroll them when they’re young, don’t let them quit if they fail, and consider individual sports if they don’t like team sports.
10. Draw your daughter’s attention to women role models. This will show them what they could achieve.
11. Encourage the “growth mindset”—the belief that you can learn new things and improve if you put in effort (as opposed to your abilities being fixed). This mindset turns failure into a learning experience.
Here are some tips for encouraging other women in your life:
1. Share the facts about confidence, namely that it’s a choice and everyone has the potential to develop it.
2. Encourage women to acknowledge and talk about their achievements. It’s possible to talk about achievements without bragging. For example, you might say your team did a great job.
3. Instead of defaulting to being supportive and sympathetic toward another woman, sometimes, encourage her to act.
4. Especially if you’re in a senior position, help other women advance. For example, whenever Christine Lagarde, chief of IMF, goes to a meeting, if she sees a woman who’s too afraid to speak, she’ll call on her.
5. Act as a role model. If you’re a successful woman, other women will be watching you, so display your confidence.
In The Confidence Code, journalists and authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman examine confidence—a personality trait that’s a major contributor to success. In this chapter, you’ll learn what confidence is, why it’s important, and how women seem predisposed to have less of it than men. (While the book focuses on confidence in women, much of the confidence-building advice applies to men too.) In later chapters, you’ll learn where confidence comes from and how to build it. Finally, in the appendix, you can assess your current confidence levels.
(Shortform note: We’ve rearranged the book’s material for concision and clarity.)
Confidence is believing so strongly that you can do something that you’re driven to actually do it. The belief stems from mastery—you know you can do something because you’ve worked hard and pushed through past difficulties and failures.
Confidence is contagious—once you’ve mastered something, this gives you the confidence that you can master (or at least try) something else.
Neuroscientist Adam Kepecs studies “statistical confidence”—how certain we are about a decision we’ve already made; it has two “faces:”
1. Objective. This is simply the measure of how certain you are about something.
2. Subjective. This is the emotional feeling of confidence.
There are several other terms that people often use synonymously with “confidence,” but while these qualities are related to confidence—they can help or hinder it—they aren’t the same thing because they lack a to-do or action element.
Self-esteem is a belief that you have value; it’s an attitude about yourself. It’s usually more general than confidence, as confidence is often tied to specific actions or decisions about achievement.
Self-esteem supports confidence because if you believe you’re valuable, you won’t assume that other people don’t.
High self-esteem and high confidence often go hand and hand, especially when self-esteem is based on abilities or talent.
See the Appendix for a self-esteem assessment.
Optimism, like self-esteem, is an attitude, and optimism is interpreting events to predict the most favorable outcome. It’s unrelated to a sense of self—it doesn’t stem from self-esteem or belief that you can do something. It also doesn’t drive action; instead, it’s a way of interpreting events and observing surroundings, whether those are specific events or the general workings of the universe. (Note: Some psychologists, such as Martin Seligman, do attach action to optimism.)
Optimism supports confidence because it’s easier to take action if you think it will turn out successfully.
Optimists notice the good things happening to or around them, so good things seem numerous, and optimists are thankful.
Self-compassion is when we judge ourselves by the same standards as our friends—we acknowledge that by nature, humans aren’t perfect and fail sometimes.
Self-compassion supports confidence because it softens failure. It’s easier to take a risk if you know it won’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t work out. It’s also easier to be confident if you acknowledge that you don’t always have to be above average or the best all the time. (If you’re too scared of not being perfect, you won’t try.)
Self-efficacy is similar to confidence—it’s the belief that you have the capacity to succeed at a particular task. Some experts consider this synonymous with confidence; others think that self-efficacy is for specific tasks and confidence is more general.
Self-efficacy supports confidence because like mastery, once you develop it by doing one task, it increases your belief that you can succeed at other tasks.
Depending on what you need to be confident about, your confidence might also be boosted by a dose of courage (if you’re doing something frightening) or force of will (if you’re procrastinating or doing something hard).
Women have less confidence than men, and women tend to underestimate their abilities—their self-perception is negatively skewed. Men, on the other hand, tend to overestimate their abilities.
Zach Estes is a psychologist who studies confidence in men and women. He ran several experiments and found that women have equal ability to men but less confidence in those abilities, and this lack of confidence results in inaction and decreased performance (and vice versa):
Psychologists David Dunning and Joyce Ehrlinger found that because women were less confident in general, they were less confident when doing specific tasks, and this discouraged them from trying similar tasks again:
The authors interviewed many people about the confidence differences between the sexes. Almost all the women they interviewed expressed self-doubt or lacked faith that they deserved their positions, especially as they climbed the ladder:
Several researchers have found that women negotiate their salaries less often and ask for less than men do, suggesting that women undervalue themselves:
Researchers have also found that men overestimate their abilities:
Today’s prevailing image of confident behavior involves showboating, being authoritative, making decisions, and displaying bravado and aggression—in short, all the ways men display confidence. Over time, we’ve been socialized to accept this as the only version, though many women find it foreign and inauthentic to adopt.
In reality, there are many presentations of confidence because all confidence requires is taking action. It’s possible to take action (and demonstrate confidence) by being quiet, listening, sharing credit, acting calmly, and even showing vulnerability or uncertainty (ruminating won’t induce confidence, but reviewing decisions to learn from them can be advantageous).
In fact, some of the non-mainstream expressions of confidence might be advantageous.
Additionally, many studies show that women who act the same way as men aren’t received well by either men or women. For example, Victoria Brescoll of the Yale School of Management tested people’s impressions of men and women in different positions. First, she asked them how much they’d talk in different positions:
Next, Brescoll asked participants to rate hypothetical CEOs of different genders and talkativeness:
There is some evidence that the workplace is changing to accept different confidence styles.
In the previous chapter, we discussed confidence and some of its associated psychological traits. Now, we’ll explore where it comes from. This chapter looks at the first of three biological factors that affect confidence: genetics. In the next chapter, we’ll cover brain chemistry and hormones.
It’s scientifically accepted that the big five personality traits—agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, extroversion, and openness are responsible for around 50% of our personalities. Confidence and optimism are related to these traits, and scientists estimate that 25-50% of our confidence comes from our genes.
There are still many unknowns when it comes to genetics and personality. (Much historical genetic research has focused on pathology and only in the past few years have scientists started looking more at psychology and genes.) Scientists have studied the genes of highly intelligent people, but at the time this book was written, no one had studied the genes of highly confident people. Most scientists think that confidence will be related to many, rather than one, gene because confidence is a complex personality trait that includes, cognition, emotion, and metacognition (thinking about how we think).
While scientists don’t yet know all the genes that affect confidence, they’ve identified four notable players. There are no differences in these genes between men and women.
The serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) regulates serotonin levels in the body. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that influences mood in two ways:
SLC6A4 comes in three variants:
The OXTR gene controls oxytocin levels. Oxytocin is the “cuddle hormone” that makes us want physical contact and encourages us to be generous and moral. It’s generated from physical contact, such as sex and exercise, and it’s a virtuous circle—if you hug someone, this increases your desire to keep hugging—but some people naturally have more or less of it.
Oxytocin affects confidence in two ways:
Like SLC6A4, this gene also has two variants. One makes people more resilient and outgoing; the other can lead to low self-esteem and optimism, and less capability for mastering things.
COMT and DRD4 control dopamine. Dopamine in the prefrontal cortex aids concentration and IQ, and is also linked to action and risk-taking, among other things. Our bodies make more dopamine when we’re stressed.
COMT is the “warrior/worrier” gene. It’s responsible for clearing dopamine out of the frontal cortex and there are three variants:
In most situations, the worrier version is biologically advantageous because it allows dopamine to remain in the brain longer, and dopamine aids concentration and IQ.
However, in stressful situations, our bodies make so much dopamine that it overwhelms our brains and shuts them down. In these scenarios, the warrior gene is advantageous because it quickly clears that excess dopamine.
These variants help explain why some people need pressure and stress to be effective, and other people who are normally reliable choke in high-pressure situations.
One of the variants of DRD4, DRD47R, is the “adventure gene”—it encourages pushing limits and extreme risk-taking because these activities boost dopamine.
If you want to know which variants you have, two services offer genetic testing:
While up to 50% of confidence might be determined by our genes, that doesn’t mean that any of us are doomed to be under-confident. Certain genes related to character traits can turn on and off, thus changing our brain chemistry—and our confidence levels. Epigenetics is the study of how life experiences can change our genes and DNA.
Interestingly, these gene off-ons might be inheritable even after only a single generation. Scientists don’t know yet if women who work on their confidence can pass this to their children, but it could be possible.
Sensitivity genes are genes that make someone more sensitive—not more vulnerable—to their environment. This means that they’re more likely to absorb whatever influences they’re surrounded by, whether positive or negative.
Sensitivity is highest in early childhood and psychologist Suomi thinks it may also be high in other key periods like menopause, labor, and puberty.
The Orchid Theory
The orchid theory states that most children are resilient and hardy, like dandelions. Other children are orchids—they’re harder to raise because they’re sensitive to their environment, but if they’re nurtured properly, they’ll overcome their environmental sensitivity and grow up to outdo the dandelion children.
While there are no genetic differences between men and women—the confidence-related gene variants are evenly distributed between genders—the sexes do have physiological differences in their brains, think in different ways, and have different amounts of relevant hormones. Understanding the differences can help you with self-compassion—if you know your brain is predisposed to something, it’s easier to take it less personally. First, we’ll talk about brains, then, hormones.
First, it’s important to note that while there are differences (the subject of this section), men’s and women's brains are far more alike than different.
Women’s and men’s brain differ in the following ways:
An active brain was useful in earlier times—worrying and paying attention to our surroundings helped us survive. Today, however, we don’t have to worry about predators lurking in the bushes. It’s still useful to make good decisions and avoid bad impulses, but ruminating and worrying don’t make us happy or confident.
These differences in thinking and even capability show up at different stages of development:
Scientists don’t know if these brain differences are due to how we’re raised, how we act (for example, we may have more white matter because our women ancestors used it more), or whether they’re programmed in.
Scientists do know that brains are plastic—they can change. All of us, regardless of age, can physically change our brains, which means that if you choose to change your thinking and mental habits, you can rewire yourself to be more confident, regardless of your genes or sex.
There are a few strategies you can use to rewire your brain. Both shift activity from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex.
Strategy #1: Cognitive behavioral therapy is a technique for managing worst-case scenario thinking.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective strategy.
Strategy #2: Meditation. Meditation can quiet the amygdala.
Memory is also a factor when it comes to plasticity and our ability to choose confidence—our past experiences inform what we think will happen in the present. This influence can be unconscious—one study discovered that the hippocampus, which is responsible for consolidating memories, can affect our choices.
You can’t control your unconscious, but you can build up new, positive memories for it to draw on instead. This will help you break free of habitual negative thoughts. Cognitive neuroscientist Laura-Ann Petitto describes this process as akin to building an overpass. If something happened in your childhood that shook your confidence, this created a memory highway in your brain. Your brain will reflexively go down the highway when you encounter situations similar to whatever created the highway. You might not ever be able to tear up the highway, but you can build overpasses and take those routes instead.
In the previous section, we looked at brain biology. Now, we’ll discuss two hormones that affect confidence: testosterone and estrogen. Both men and women have testosterone, but post-puberty, men have around 10 times more than women.
Testosterone is responsible for muscle size, speed, strength, and feelings of power. It’s also related to risk-taking, ignoring warnings, and the “winner effect” (winning creates testosterone, which then encourages additional risk-taking in the hopes of winning again).
Testosterone limits certain abilities, like cooperating and seeing other people’s points of view.
Women can increase their testosterone levels by adopting male postures, like taking up space while sitting.
Estrogen encourages observation, social skills, and connection. Like testosterone, it has limitations too—it contributes to risk avoidance, which can kill confidence.
However, risk aversion isn’t always bad and estrogen’s effects can enhance performance and success. Taking big risks doesn’t always work out well.
In the previous chapters, we discussed how genetics, brain biology, and hormones affect confidence. But confidence isn’t a matter of nature versus nurture—both our biology and our environment affect us and neither will win out. In this chapter, we’ll look at what role the environment plays in confidence development, focusing on the influences and obstacles that affect women, who often lack the self-belief men have.
One of the first environmental factors girls face is behavioral expectations. Starting in elementary school or even earlier at home, children, especially girls, are rewarded for being “good”—quiet, neat, compliant, and well-behaved. Encouraging goodness discourages confidence-building behavior like taking risks, being rowdy, or teasing and roughhousing (both common ways boys play). These expectations affect girls more than boys because:
This leads to girls taking mistakes personally—if they do something wrong, it’s because they’re not skilled enough. Boys, on the other hand, attribute mistakes to not trying hard enough.
The second influence is sports—sports are good for building confidence because playing them involves competing, winning, and losing, which have parallels with victories and setbacks throughout life (such as making a mistake at work.)
More girls play sports than ever—in 1972, Title IX legislation required U.S. public schools to spend the same amount of money on boys’ and girls’ athletics and as a result, from 1972 to 2011, girls’ participation in high school sports increased tenfold and in college, sixfold. Girls involved in team sports are more likely to find jobs, work in male-dominated industries, and graduate from college.
On the other hand, some things haven’t changed—fewer girls play sports than boys, and girls are six times more likely to quit their team than boys are. This is because girls’ self-esteem drops more than boys’ does during adolescence, and losing makes them so uncomfortable they stop competing.
As a result, when girls who don’t play sports grow up, they have more difficulty shaking off setbacks and recovering from failure in life.
When girls grow up and enter the workforce, they encounter the third influence—changing rules. Unlike in the classroom, academic achievement and competence are no longer the requirements for success. Instead, success in the workplace requires self-promotion, political savvy, and pushing beyond nos. Many women aren’t skilled in these areas.
The fourth influence is stereotype threat—when there’s a stereotype associated with a minority group, members of the group feel pressure to embody the stereotype.
There are many stereotypes associated with women that reduce confidence. (Shortform example: “Throw like a girl” suggests that women aren’t as skilled at baseball as men are.)
The fifth influence is systemic barriers—women don’t have access to the same resources as men in the U.S.:
The sixth influence is body image—women’s confidence is strongly tied to physical appearance, and they’re judged on their appearance more than men are. Women who don’t meet society’s beauty standards have a harder time in life.
On the other hand, women who do meet society’s beauty standards are judged too.
We judge ourselves too—women are quicker to criticize their appearance than men are to criticize theirs, and women tend to be so self-critical they erode their own confidence.
In addition to the six external factors that inhibit women from developing confidence, there are also several self-imposed obstacles that they have more control over:
Many women would prefer to be liked rather than respected. (And there is some societal pressure—society expects women to be likable, so it’s relevant to success.) Striving to be liked can kill confidence and deter women from using tough or aggressive strategies that come with the possibility of criticism.
As you learned in Chapter 3, women have active brains and often overthink things—obsessing over things they feel they’ve done wrong and how other people interpreted the situation, focusing on problems instead of solutions. Or, they’ll circle around something they want to do but haven’t yet mustered the courage to do.
Additionally, women focus on emotional connections more than men, which can be a strength—women are good at building relationships—but also contributes to overthinking.
Women tend to take the blame for things that go wrong but attribute things that go right to external sources.
Perfectionism is the fourth and biggest of the self-imposed roadblocks—perfection is unattainable, so if that’s the standard you must meet to be confident, you’ll always feel inadequate and won’t take action. Additionally, perfectionism doesn’t just get in the way of confidence, it gets in the way of achievement—you won’t start work unless you feel perfectly ready to take it on, and you won’t finish it either.
Several external and internal factors affect confidence.
When you were a child, were you pressured to be good? Did you succumb to this pressure? Why or why not?
When you first entered the workplace, what was one of the rules for success? Did this rule correspond to anything you’d learned growing up? Why or why not? (For example, perhaps you learned that not interrupting people was polite in childhood, but interrupting is crucial if you want to be heard in meetings.)
Do you feel more or less competent when you’re reminded of the stereotypes of the groups you belong to (for example, when talking to a mechanic about a car problem)? Why?
How often do you impose any obstacles on yourself (for example, holding back because you’re afraid of doing something that will make people dislike you)? How might you eliminate this obstacle?
As we discussed in the previous chapters, biological and environmental factors contribute to confidence, but confidence isn’t a fixed trait—you have to build it. Psychologists believe that 50% of developing confidence might come from choice and will.
The confidence code—the building blocks of creating confidence—consists of three principles:
You can increase your confidence by practicing this code in two ways:
1. Regularly expose yourself to these confidence builders:
2. Try the following techniques:
The first technique is to fail fast—failing fast is a business strategy that involves trying lots of ideas, expecting that most of them will fail. Then, you abandon the failures early (saving time and money) and only pursue the ideas that have promise.
This is useful as a confidence-building strategy because:
For example, attorney Beth Wilkinson fails fast by regularly making quick decisions. When one of them doesn’t turn out, she learns from it. For instance, she once wrote down her opening argument for a case and read it off a sheet of paper. She overheard a colleague criticize her for reading verbatim, and she realized he had a point—she said everything right, but she didn’t connect with the jury. Reading was a failure, so she stopped doing it.
Taking action is the best way to build confidence, especially when the action is risky, so the second technique is to act. If you stay inactive in your comfort zone, you won’t improve or gain confidence. If you act, the worst thing that will happen is that you fail.
You don’t have to take massive action—it’s fine to start this strategy with baby steps.
Additionally, remember that women have a skewed self-perception of their abilities—you’re probably more capable than you think you are.
As discussed in Chapter 3, women’s brains are more active than men’s, and this isn’t an advantage when it comes to confidence because ruminating drains it. Imagining worst-case scenarios isn’t problem-solving; it’s paralyzing, negative feedback.
The third technique is to employ thought exercises to calm your brain:
Exercise #1: Whenever you find yourself ruminating, think of three things you’ve done well that day.
Exercise #2: Think about something horrible that might happen to you at work—maybe you’re leading a meeting and people start to look bored. Pay attention to how this makes you feel. Then, think about something going well at work—maybe you’ve just been offered a raise. How do these thoughts make you feel? You’ll see that your envisioned scenarios affect your feelings even though they didn’t actually happen. This will prove to you how much your thoughts can affect your emotions and how much you can change.
Sometimes, you can see results from these exercises within weeks.
There are two strategies for reducing negative automatic thoughts (NATs):
Strategy #1: Recognize and reinterpret. When you have NATs, first, write them down.
Then, look for another (neutral or positive) way to interpret them. This reframing doesn’t have to address the first one, just be different. This will make the first, negative interpretation less powerful.
If you’re having trouble reframing:
Strategy #2: Destroy a symbol of your NATs. Write down your NATs on a piece of paper, and then rip up the paper and throw it out. This symbolic destruction will help you question how accurate the thoughts are.
The fourth technique is to change your focus—women tend to be more confident when they focus on others instead of themselves.
Therefore, you can spur yourself to act by thinking about how the action will benefit others.
Another element of focusing on others is remembering that other people are more concerned with themselves than they are with you. If you make a mistake, no one remembers it for long—they’re too busy with their own mistakes and problems.
In the previous technique, you focused on others, but sometimes, you do need to focus on yourself, and the fifth technique is to take credit for your achievements. Many women are self-deprecating, and it probably feels more comfortable than bragging. It’s dangerous, though—you’re spreading the message that you’re undeserving. This is bad for your confidence—you’ll be less likely to try new things. It’s also bad for your workplace success—your boss doesn’t want to hear you’re not good at something; they want to work with people who are skilled and accomplished.
You do deserve your achievements, so take credit for them. If you have trouble taking a compliment, say thank you and tell the person you appreciate them saying it.
Knowing your strengths can make you more confident. (Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should never try to improve.)
The sixth technique to avoid taking things personally—when someone criticizes you at work, remember that this criticism is directed at your work, not you, even in performance fields where you’re constantly scrutinized, such as opera singing.
There are two strategies to taking things less personally:
1. Say or think “thank you” whenever someone criticizes you.
2. Recognize that women face some obstacles men don’t and this makes things harder for them. Women aren’t incompetent or less capable; their lives are harder and they don’t have access to the same resources as men. (Don’t let this make you give up or complain though.)
The seventh technique is to find strategies to help you become more comfortable speaking up. Many people aren’t confident about public speaking, and fear of it is the top reason women don’t pursue electoral politics.
Improve your confidence and speaking abilities by:
(Shortform note: For more ideas on improving your public speaking, read our guide to Talk Like TED.)
Interestingly, though a lot of advice about confidence is along the lines of changing your attitude, to access confidence, you actually need to distance yourself from your thoughts. The eighth technique is to remember your external achievements—you become confident when you remember there’s proof you’ve been successful in the past, and this realization is more powerful than any self-perception.
The ninth technique is to be authentic—few women hold high positions, so once you reach this stage, you’re going to be different and unique, and you’re going to stand out. It can be lonely and you can choose how to feel about it: Resent it or embrace it.
You don’t need to evaluate yourself against the same criteria the men use—that wouldn’t be authentic. You’ll be challenged if you do things differently, but if you believe your way is the best option, do it anyway.
Additionally, you get confidence from doing things in whatever way is most authentic for you, even if that’s different from how other people do things.
The last technique is to avoid a dangerous pitfall. Some people (some studies suggest women more than men) get confidence from external sources (like compliments from other people) rather than self-belief. There’s nothing wrong with comparing yourself to others and enjoying external validation, but it’s dangerous to rely on it as a source of confidence because:
For example, one study found that college students who relied on others for validation were more stressed and had a higher incidence of eating disorders and drug use.
In addition to the techniques in this chapter, here are some smaller things you can do to improve your confidence:
One thing you shouldn’t try is faking confidence. Faking doesn’t build confidence because:
If you’re tempted to fake confidence, instead, take action.
This exercise practices the confidence-building technique of shifting your focus from yourself to others.
What’s something you want to do but haven’t yet because you lack confidence?
How would taking this action benefit others? (For example, if you were promoted, you’d have more influence in the company, and you could help it grow.)
Do you feel more confident about taking action now that your focus is off yourself? Why or why not?
The previous chapter discussed techniques for building your confidence. In this final chapter, you’ll learn how to build confidence in your children and the women you know.
The earlier in life we encounter the confidence builders (risk, failure, and so on), the faster and more effectively we build confidence.
Failure in particular builds resilience—the more you experience it, especially when you’re young, the less you fear it.
Here are some strategies for raising a confident child of any gender:
1. Slowly expose children to risk—too much all at once might traumatize them. Celebrate successes and discuss what worked. Be intentional and constructive about failure. For example, if your child needs to learn to swim, don’t push her off the boat in the middle of a lake. Teach her the strokes, give her the chance to practice, and help her when she’s struggling. If she does something wrong, don’t tell her she’s bad at swimming—tell her she made a mistake, explain why things didn’t work, and suggest trying something else.
2. Be specific about praise. For example, if your daughter helps set the table, instead of saying “good job” or “you’re a perfect daughter,” say something like, “I like how you folded the napkins.”
3. Control your reaction to their disasters. (Shortform example: If your son burns dinner, don’t make a big deal out of it.)
4. Don’t fix their problems—this will make them overreliant, and they’ll expect that when they face a problem, they won’t have to deal with it. It will also impede their ability to develop tolerance for frustration.
5. Teach them to master small life skills. For example, Jane Wurwand has a list of 20 small tasks that her children should be able to do, which includes things like cooking an egg and doing laundry.
6. Don’t attach your status to their achievements. An Irish study found that young people thought pressure to meet their parents’ expectations was mentally damaging.
7. Lead by example. Your children will copy you, so if they see you emulating confidence-building behavior like working hard or struggling, they’ll pick it up too. For example, when lawyer Tanya Coke was a child, her mother (and all of her friends’ mothers) worked, so the girls learned that they needed to support their families financially.
Here are some daughter-specific tips:
1. Discourage your daughter from being too good:
2. Discourage perfectionism. High-achieving girls are especially prone to perfectionism, and it doesn’t help them. For example, in the workplace, perfectionism leads them to take ownership of projects (believing no one else is capable), becoming so detail-orientated they don’t see opportunities and don’t progress. To discourage perfectionism:
3. Remember that confidence presents differently in different people. Confidence can show up as determination, stubbornness, speaking your mind, or refusal. Your daughter can use whatever style is most natural.
4. Push her toward math and science (it’s fine if she’s also interested in traditionally feminine things like dolls). To do this:
5. Encourage your daughters to play sports. Competitive team sports are one of the few opportunities girls get to practice teamwork, deal with loss and failure, and recover from it. (If her team is overfocused on winning, she might do better on a team that focuses on long-term development.)
To encourage your girls to play sports:
6. Draw your daughter’s attention to female role models. This will show them what they could achieve.
7. Encourage a “growth mindset”—the belief that you can learn new things and improve if you put in effort. This mindset turns failure into a learning experience. Most men have a growth mindset, but most women believe that their talents and abilities are fixed.
Build this mindset in your child by starting small. For example, if she’s good at soccer, don’t tell her she’s a natural athlete. Tell her how hard she’s worked on her skills.
(Shortform note: For more on helping children develop a growth mindset, or developing one yourself, read our guide to Mindset by psychologist Carol Dweck.)
Parenting inspired by the self-esteem movement (reward children for everything) builds hollow, not true, confidence. This is because if children aren’t given real responsibility, they don’t face challenges they can fail at, and they have no opportunity to use the trial-and-error cycle that builds confidence and mastery.
Hollow confidence is dangerous. If there’s a huge gap between what you think you can do and what you can actually do (remember real confidence is based in mastery), the first time you face that gap—perhaps not until you’re an adult if your parents were sheltering—you’ll be crushed.
Some children of the millennial generation were raised on the ideas of the self-esteem movement, and they’re suffering for it. Millennials believed their parents who told them they were perfect, so the children grew up to be narcissistic. They make no effort to build skills, and they avoid challenges. This upbringing can result in:
Lack of confidence development in children is especially a Western problem. American parents often don’t push their kids out of their comfort zones, and the Western world encourages children to focus on what they’re good at. In the East, pushing kids outside their comfort zone is common, as is encouraging children to work on what they’re bad at to bring it up to the same level as their strongest skills.
Here are some tips for encouraging other women in your life:
1. Share the facts about confidence, namely that it’s a choice and everyone has the potential to develop it.
2. Encourage women to acknowledge and talk about their achievements. Remind them that their bosses want to know they have capable people working for them and that men do this all the time and nothing bad ever happens to them. It’s possible to talk about achievements without bragging. For example, you might say your team did a great job.
3. Instead of defaulting to being supportive and sympathetic toward another woman, sometimes, encourage her to act. For example, Claire had a friend who wanted to start a business but was cowed by the obstacles. Claire was sympathetic for a long time, but one day she told her friend to stop making excuses. It didn’t end their friendship—the woman went for it.
4. If you’re in a senior position, help other women advance. For example, whenever Christine Lagarde, chief of the IMF, goes to a meeting, if she sees a woman who’s too afraid to speak, she’ll call on her. Lagarde also keeps a list of well-qualified women handy so that whenever a male colleague says he wants to hire a woman but can’t think of anyone, she can present him with the list.
5. Act as a role model. If you’re in a position of power, you can’t avoid it—other women will be paying attention to you. For example, when Eunice Mussa-Napolo was a child, she never expected she’d get a job—she lived in a village where girls didn’t go to school, and they married young. One day, though, Mussa-Napolo saw a woman driving a car. She spoke to the woman because she’d never seen a woman driving, and she learned the woman was a bank manager. The woman told her she’d gotten to where she was through education, so Mussa-Napolo pressured her father into letting her go to school.
6. Don’t encourage positive mantras, such as “I am wonderful.” A University of Waterloo professor found that people with low self-esteem who repeated “I’m a lovable person” for four minutes actually felt worse than people with low self-esteem who’d spent the time writing down their negative feelings and thoughts. Wood thinks this is because repeating a statement you don’t believe only emphasizes how far removed your mental state is from what you’re saying.
The authors provide several suggestions for building confidence in others.
Think of a woman you know who’s achieved something impressive at work recently. How might you encourage her to acknowledge and talk about this achievement? (For example, you might remind her that her boss wants to know the employees she’s chosen to hire are capable.)
Think of a woman you know who’s been wanting to do something but is hesitating. How could you encourage her to take action? (For example, instead of being sympathetic to the challenges, tell her to stop making excuses.)
How might you help other women advance their careers? (For example, you might encourage them to participate when you’re leading meetings.)
Now that you have a good handle on how confidence works, try this assessment of self-esteem (which is related to confidence) and an assessment of confidence.
Give yourself a score of 0-3 on each of the following questions. 0 means you strongly disagree, 3 means you strongly agree.
If your score is below 15, you might have low self-esteem. If it’s between 15-25, you’re in the normal range.
Give yourself a score of 1-4 on each of the following questions. 1 means you strongly disagree, 4 means you strongly agree.
A lower score indicates less confidence, and higher, more confidence. The worldwide average is 29.