Confidence returns when clarity returns Confidence returns when clarity returns
You DO NOT have a confidence problem
If I had a £ for every time a woman started working with me believing she lacked confidence, I would be a very unhappy millionaire.
Which sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Unhappy millionaire.
But the reason I’d be unhappy is because if women never realised it wasn’t actually a confidence issue, they would continue moving through life carrying this quiet undercurrent of:
‘I’m simply not good enough.’
And I need you to hear me when I say this:
That is rarely the truth.
What I know to be true after more than 20 years in recruitment and nearly 7 years coaching women through career transitions is this:
Lack of confidence is usually the symptom - not the root cause.
But because it becomes such a repeated feeling, it slowly starts becoming a low level personality trait and it attaches itself to our identity.
It becomes:
‘I’m just not a confident person.’
‘I’m not good in interviews.’
‘I’m not leadership material.’
‘I’m not brave enough.’
And over time, those thoughts stop feeling like thoughts.
They start feeling like facts and the ripple effect than results in staying too long in roles that no longer fulfil you. You’re underpaid, under valued and probably under utilised.
We (the collective we) Play smaller than we need to, actively avoid opportunities we actually want.
Convince ourselves the next level is somehow ‘for other people.’
And the longer this cycle continues, the more believable it becomes.
So naturally, most women try to solve the wrong problem.
They come to me on a quest to become ‘more confident.’, or they go on a qualification frenzy, signing up for courses, staying endlessly busy - Hoping somebody notices them.
Or, and this one is more common than you think - they avoid the whole conversation completely because they feel too exhausted to even think about what they want anymore.
And underneath all of it is the same fear:
‘What if I make a change and it’s just more of the same?’
So instead, we stay where we are.
Familiar dissatisfaction becomes safer than uncertainty.
But staying disconnected from what you actually want slowly erodes you.
And this is exactly why clarity matters so much.
Because clarity is not just:
‘What job should I apply for next?’
Clarity is:
What do I actually want my life to feel like now?
Who have I become?
What matters to me at this stage?
What am I no longer available for?
What kind of work allows me to thrive instead of just survive?
That’s the real work.
One of the things I say all the time is that mid-career women are some of the most conditioned people I work with.
Not because they lack ambition.
Not because they aren’t capable.
Not because they aren’t intelligent.
But because survival became louder than self-trust.
We become brilliant at functioning.
Brilliant at coping.
Brilliant at delivering.
Brilliant at being needed.
But somewhere underneath all of that competence is often a woman quietly asking herself:
'Is this actually what I want anymore?'
And that question can feel terrifying.
Because once you ask it, you can’t really un-ask it.
I’ve sat across from women who believed they had completely lost themselves.
Women who genuinely thought their best years were behind them.
Women who had convinced themselves they were the problem.
And then something shifts.
Not because they suddenly become fearless.
Not because they magically transform overnight.
But because they finally create enough space to hear themselves properly again.
And honestly?
You can watch them come back to life.
I think this is the part people don’t talk about enough.
Staying stuck in something misaligned changes you.
Your nervous system normalises dissatisfaction.
Your body adapts to surviving.
You become so used to overriding yourself that eventually you stop trusting your own instincts altogether.
And then we call that ‘lack of confidence.’
But most of the women you perceive as confident are not necessarily more capable than you.
What you’re often witnessing is:
Self-trust.
Alignment.
Decision.
Movement.
Women who stopped abandoning themselves long enough to hear their own truth again.
And no - they are not perfect.
They do not have it all figured out.
They are not fearless.
They’ve just stopped waiting for certainty before allowing themselves to move.
One thing this week
Instead of asking yourself:
‘How do I become more confident?’
I want you to ask yourself this instead:
‘What would become possible if I got really clear on what I actually want?’
Not what looks impressive.
Not what feels safest.
Not what everybody else expects.
What do you want now?
And if you don’t know yet, that’s okay too.
Clarity rarely arrives in one huge lightning bolt moment.
Sometimes clarity starts with:
I don’t think I want this anymore.
I think I’ve outgrown this version of success.
I’m tired of surviving my own life.
That honesty is often where everything begins.
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