September 2025
Confidence has very little to do with how you look or sound, and everything to do with how safe your mind feels in the moment. It’s an internal state and you have more control over it than you may think…
“Be more confident!”
It’s advice we hear all the time, often delivered as if confidence was a switch you could simply flick on. But if it really was that easy, far fewer people would struggle with self-doubt, anxiety, imposter syndrome or the quiet sense of “not being enough” that follows them into work, relationships and everyday life.
The truth is, confidence is not a personality trait. It is not reserved for the loud, the bold or the naturally outgoing. Confidence is a learned internal experience – and that means it can be developed, strengthened and reclaimed.
To me, as a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist, confidence doesn’t mean something is broken and needs fixing. Instead, it’s something that’s already present, waiting to be accessed in the right way.
What confidence really is (and what it isn’t)
Many people believe confidence means:
- Never feeling nervous
- Always knowing what to say
- Being outgoing or assertive
- Having no self-doubt
In reality, confident people still feel nervous. They still have doubts. They still experience uncertainty. The difference is not the absence of fear, but the relationship they have with it.
True confidence is the quiet knowledge that you can handle what comes next, that you can cope, even if things don’t go perfectly. You don’t need to be flawless to be capable.
Confidence lives less in your circumstances and more in your nervous system, your internal dialogue, and your expectations of yourself.
Where confidence gets lost
No-one is born lacking confidence. Watch a small child learning to walk – they wobble, they fall, they get up again and they keep on trying without questioning their worth.
Confidence often becomes eroded through life experiences such as:
- Critical parenting or schooling
- Repeated failure without support
- Bullying or social rejection
- Traumatic or embarrassing experiences
- High-pressure environments with little encouragement
Over time, the mind learns patterns:
“Better not speak up.”
“What if I get it wrong?”
“People will judge me.”
These patterns are not flaws. They are protective strategies – your mind is trying to keep you safe from discomfort or rejection. Unfortunately, what once protected you can later hold you back.
Confidence and the subconscious mind
Much of confidence (or lack of it) is driven by the subconscious mind – the part of you that runs habits, emotional responses and automatic thoughts.
You might consciously know you’re capable, yet you still feel a tight chest before speaking or a racing heart in social situations. Maybe your mind suddenly goes blank when you’re under pressure. This isn’t a lack of logic – it’s the subconscious responding to perceived threat.
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy works by gently communicating with this deeper part of the mind, not to analyse the past endlessly, but to create new expectations about the future.
When the subconscious learns that you are safe, that you are capable and that you have coped before and can cope again, then confidence begins to feel natural rather than forced.
Confidence is built forwards, not backwards
One of the most empowering ideas in solution-focused work is that you don’t need to relive or rehash every past event to move forward. Instead of asking, “Why am I not confident?”, a more useful question is: “What will life look like when confidence is no longer a problem?”
Start imagining:
- Speaking calmly and clearly
- Feeling steady rather than panicked
- Recovering quickly from mistakes
- Trusting yourself more
Now your mind begins rehearsing success rather than failure. It’s worth noting that the brain doesn’t strongly distinguish between imagined experiences and real ones, so when you repeatedly visualise coping well, feeling calm and responding confidently, you are training your nervous system for those outcomes.
Small shifts create big change
Confidence doesn’t usually arrive in one dramatic moment. It grows quietly, through small internal changes such as:
- Feeling 10% calmer than before
- Speaking even when your voice shakes
- Noticing self-criticism and letting it pass
- Responding rather than avoiding
These shifts compound. A person who once said, “I can’t do that,” may begin to think, “I might be able to handle this.” That thought alone can change behaviour – and behaviour reinforces belief.
You don’t need to become someone else
A common fear is that confidence will change who you are – that you’ll become louder, harder or less authentic. In reality, confidence allows you to become more yourself.
For quieter people, confidence might look like speaking when it matters, holding boundaries without guilt or feeling comfortable in silence. For others, it might mean taking risks, being seen or trusting their decisions. Confidence doesn’t need to erase sensitivity or thoughtfulness. It simply removes the constant self-doubt that drains energy and joy.
The role of compassion in confidence
Harsh self-talk is one of the biggest confidence killers:
“I should be better by now.”
“Why am I like this?”
“Everyone else finds this easy.”
Guess what? Confidence grows faster in an environment of compassion. When you treat yourself with the same patience you would offer a friend, your nervous system relaxes. When it relaxes, your thinking becomes clearer. When your thinking is clearer, confidence naturally follows. This is not about “positive thinking” or pretending everything is fine. It’s about responding to yourself in a way that supports growth rather than fear.
Confidence is a skill – and skills can be learned
Perhaps the most hopeful truth of all is that confidence is not a mystery and it is not reserved for a lucky few. It is shaped by expectations, rehearsal, emotional regulation and internal language. These are all things that can change.
Solution-focused hypnotherapy helps people access confidence by reducing unnecessary anxiety and strengthening calm responses. It helps you develop future-focused mental rehearsal and it encourages the mind to notice progress.
You don’t need to “be fixed.” You don’t need to relive everything that went wrong. You simply need the right conditions for confidence to re-emerge.
Moving forward
If confidence has been holding you back, it doesn’t mean you are weak or broken. It means your mind learned a pattern that is no longer serving you. And patterns can change.
Often, confidence returns not with a roar, but with a quiet realisation that you handled something better than you thought you would. From there, everything starts to shift.
If you would like help boosting your confidence, why not book a free consultation.