Confidence is a skill, not a trait.

A “trait” is something like your eye color that you don't have any control over. What you are born with. A “skill” is something you can cultivate, practice and build.

Confidence is not something you're born with.

Your circumstances and life experiences and what people have said to you may have shaped your confidence — up to this point. Don't let those things shape your confidence now. Continue to build it.

When you realize that confidence can be built — like a muscle — it can be hard to face the truth: that even the energy you put toward self-doubt, playing small, hiding, fitting in, suppressing your genius, staying shy, or not sharing your creativity, is still energy spent!

That believing the stories about how you're weird, different, don’t belong, or are unlovable is just another way of holding yourself back. Other people may have instilled these thoughts or you took them on.

It takes work to override these and start cultivating confidence, but it can be done. It's a process that takes work and maintenance.

Confidence also isn't a feeling.

When confidence is present, How do you feel? What emotions do you feel? What sensations are in your body?

Confidence is a multifaceted thing that can be approached and developed from many angles, not an end destination that you're aiming for. It's not outside of you. You have all you need inside of you. Just like building muscles.

You can't go out and get muscles, but you can use tools and training to develop them. You can make other supportive decisions about your diet and lifestyle habits to encourage their growth.

The same is true with confidence. It's inside you.

Confidence isn't cultivated overnight. It also isn't always built through success, but rather through showing up and facing hard things you've never done before.

When you show up, confidence shows up.

It's a relationship built on trust, not on outcomes.

Thank you to Tunde Oyeneyin at Peloton for inspiring these thoughts.