Confidence is the belief that you can do something. It is not optimism. Optimism is the cheerful belief that things will work out well. Nor is it self-esteem, which is ones evaluation of oneself. The critical ingredient of confidence is its link to action – doing stuff.
In the brain, confidence is linked to its action systems. It is therefore not a general purpose view of yourself like self esteem, but rather specific beliefs about your ability to take specific actions in particular domains. So, for example you can be confident about your sporting ability, but not about your social capacity.
A very good example of confidence and action is president JF Kennedy’s statement in 1961 that America would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. In many ways this was a ridiculous projection because the computers, materials and rockets did not then exist to achieve this.
But Kennedy’s confidence acted like a self fulfilling prophecy, galvanizing thousands of people to work to create this outcome. And so, in July 1969, we witnessed a huge achievement for humanity. This shows that confidence is not only something that happens in the individual mind, but collectively as well.
Our brains work as prediction machines. We see and hear what we expect rather than what is actually there. And when our expectation is wrong, this wakes us up, making us pay attention, and very often, making us anxious. Our brains do not like when they cannot predict the future accurately.
The trouble is, the future is by definition uncertain and so we spend a lot of time by trying to make it predictable and certain. As the world becomes more complicated and technology changes everything, this means that we experience a lot of anxiety, particularly when we try and do new things.
More and more, we have to take steps into an uncertain future and do this in spite of feeling anxious and uncertain. What helps us do this? -confidence! Confidence is what takes us across the bridge to an uncertain future. If there is no uncertainty, then you don’t need confidence.
That bridge to the future has two strands to it: the first is “can do” and the second is “can happen”. So for example I believe that I can change my diet and eat more healthily (can do) aand that if I do that I will lose weight open brackets (could happen).
The Bridge to the Future This gives us 4 states of confidence belief:
- Can’t do, can’t happen
- Can do, can’t happen
- Can’t do, can happen
- Can do, can happen.
This in turn, leads to four different states of the mind: 1) leads to apathy, 2) to anger, 3) to anxiety and 4) to activation – ie confidence.
Let’s look at the first – can’t do, can’t happen. This is a state of Apathy – which has five different effects on your mind and brain.
1st, it lowers your mood and makes you more depressed;
2nd, it makes you more anxious and less likely to take action
3rd, it saps your motivation and lowers your initiative
4th, it slightly lowers your mental sharpness because of the lower dopamine levels in the frontal lobes of your brain
5th, it makes people less likely to do what you ask -you become less persuasive and your status goes down.
These five effects are all linked to the low dopamine levels that these beliefs cause.
They become a self fulfilling prophecy: your low mood deters you from doing anything challenging; the higher anxiety caused by the low dopamine also makes you avoid difficult things; low motivation means your initiative is blunted; and diminished mental sharpness means that you’re less likely to think of opportunities and act on them; finally, most new projects involve other people and if you’re status and ability to influence them is reduced, then this makes it even harder to achieve your goals.
The second state of the brain-can do, can’t happen -tends to lead to a different emotion, namely anger. For example – I can get that College degree, but my background means that I can’t improve my job prospects even with that. This activates a different chemical messenger in the brain – nor adrenaline. Believing you can do something but that the good outcome you want can’t happen tends to make you frustrated and angry. But anger and anxiety get mixed up in the brain, and so you can end up with a bad mix of angry and anxious emotions. This is not good for confidence.
The third state -can’t do, can happen – makes you anxious because you can see the opportunity but you don’t have the confidence that you can do it. This causes your brain to release a lot of noradrenaline which, as we saw in lesson 3 can take you away from your mental sweet spot and make it hard to think clearly and take action to meet the new challenges.
The 4th state – can do, can happen – is the very opposite of the first one apathy. Believing that you can do something and that the good outcome could happen, becomes a positive self fulfilling prophecy because:
1. Your mood is higher -confident beliefs act like a mini antidepressant
2. You are less anxious and therefore less likely to avoid a difficult challenge
3. You are more motivated and therefore more likely to take the 1st and subsequent steps towards a new challenge
4. You’re a little bit smarter because of the increased dopamine in your frontal lobes
5. These confident beliefs makes you more influential and persuasive with other people and therefore more likely to get your way towards your goals
All This is why confidence is such a powerful state for all of us.
Author: Professor Ian Robertson, Academic Partner at The Leadership High, Neuroscientist, Co-Director of The Global Brain Health Institute, Author of ‘How Confidence Works’
