“The actions of confidence come first; the feelings of confidence come later.”
Russ Harris – The Confidence Gap
If you have ever said to yourself “I’d really like to do X, but I’m not confident enough” this could be the book for you.
What is it about?
This book is about how we are held back by the myths around confidence. It describes how our beliefs about ourselves and our abilities can really prevent us from doing what we want to do in life. The idea that we wait to do something until we have enough confidence is flawed, and it means that so many of us waste our talents while we wait.
If we were stood on one side of a river, waiting for the bridge to appear before we could cross, we may quickly realise that may never happen. But we all too often will to do something we really want to do, putting it off until confidence shows up. That’s the confidence gap. Once we understand these myths and how they hold us back, we realise that waiting doesn’t work, we have to start building the bridge ourself.
“The world is full of people who are trying to purchase self-confidence, or manufacture it, or who simply posture it. But you can’t fake confidence, you have to earn it. If you ask me, the only way to do that is work. You have to do the work.”
Russ Harris – The Confidence Gap
One of my favorite things about this book was learning how twisted our concept of confidence has become. We think it means doing things without fear. We look at other people doing things well and we say, “it’s okay for them, they are confident”. What we don’t see is that those very same people experience doubt, fear and uncertainty too. In fact, the best bit of the book for me, is the writer describing how all of that shows up when they write. Although the book is clearly written by a successful and excellent writer … if they’d waited for the confidence to start writing, it would never have been written!
“Genuine confidence is not the absence of fear; it is a transformed relationship with fear.”
Russ Harris – The Confidence Gap
Confidence does not mean being without fear. It means proceeding with faith, even when fear is there. As you’ll discover in the book, our definition of confidence is all mixed up. The original source of the word means “with faith” , and it means going forward (even through fear and doubt) with faith in yourself (or the universe or whatever you put your faith in). Understanding this can entirely change the way we chose to go about things.
“What holds you back is not fear, but your attitude towards it. The tighter you hold on to the attitude that fear is something ‘bad’ and you can’t do the things you want until it goes away, the more stuck you will be.”
Russ Harris – The Confidence Gap
In over ten years as a Clinical Psychologist, the approach described in this book is the one I’ve personally found most helpful. So it’s the one I follow in my work too. If you want to know more about that, click the button.
Who is this book for?
People who would like to do something with their life and want to know how to find the confidence. This book won’t help you find it … but it will convince you to stop wasting your life looking for it – leaving more time to do what you want to do with your life.
[Have you seen the Indiana Jones film where it looks like there is no bridge, but he steps out anyway and the bridge is there? It feels like doing that, but do it enough times and you earn the confidence.]
Two Clicks Psychological Services is the website of Dr Laura Walton, a UK registered Clinical Psychologist who is qualified to provide consultation and psychological therapy, via online videocall. For more details, visit the main page and make a request.
Dr Walton 