YOU HAVE NOT GOT A CONFIDENCE ISSUE!
I'm thinking about getting T-shirts printed.
On the front: You have not got a self-confidence issue.
On the back: Letâs figure out whatâs actually going on.
Before I completely offend you - Iâm not dismissing how you feel. Confidence does take a battering. Sometimes we do lose sight of it.
But much more often, confidence is simply the presenting problem.
I'm thinking about getting T-shirts printed.
On the front: You have not got a self-confidence issue.
On the back: Letâs figure out whatâs actually going on.
Before I completely offend you - Iâm not dismissing how you feel. Confidence does take a battering. Sometimes we do lose sight of it.
But much more often, confidence is simply the presenting problem.
The Coaching Conversation That Started This
This weekâs newsletter came directly from a session with one of the most remarkable women Iâve had the pleasure of coaching.
I first met her at an IWD event in Birmingham - she reached out afterwards to say how seen sheâd felt. We stayed in touch, had dinner in London, and when I knew she was having a tough time at work, I invited her to our Taking Control of Your Career workshop. She arrived wanting an epiphany. She got one - a moment of total clarity that her definition of success had fundamentally changed, and that sheâd been staying to prove a point. Not because she wanted to.
So she joined Reset & Rise. And this was session one.
Except sheâd originally wanted to delay it. She was exhausted. Sheâd resigned from a really difficult role, was holding everything together through a handover, and felt emotionally drained. Her instinct was to wait until she felt âbetterâ before she could think clearly.
She came anyway. And Iâm so glad she did.
The onboarding form - and what it revealed
Before every first session, I ask clients to complete an onboarding form. One of the questions is:
âWhat strengths do you know you bring, even if theyâve been overlooked?â
Hereâs how she described herself:
Versatile. Great energy. Knowledgeable. Empowers people. Passionate. Gets things done.
Does that sound like someone who doesnât know who she is?
No!
Yet she arrived at my door saying sheâd lost her confidence - that she no longer had the drive or energy. She was diagnosing herself. And she was mis-diagnosing herself.
This is where coaching gets interesting. Because if Iâd accepted her diagnosis and weâd coached the âconfidence problemâ, weâd have coached the wrong thing entirely.
She wasnât failing. She simply wasnât being allowed to succeed.
When we started exploring the environment sheâd been working in, a very different picture emerged.
Sheâd been hired specifically because she was exceptional at diagnosing business problems. That was literally the brief. Challenge us. Improve us. Identify what isnât working.
And every time she did exactly that - every recommendation, every observation, every piece of expertise sheâd been brought in to offer - she was dismissed.
Over time, that doesnât just frustrate you. It changes the way you see yourself.
She wasnât failing. She simply wasnât being allowed to succeed.
So we took it back a few steps. I asked her what lit her up. What she was doing when she was in flow. And what came out was extraordinary.
What growth actually feels like
She told me about a pattern sheâd noticed across every role where sheâd gone on to be truly successful. Every single one started from the same place.
Deep discomfort. Self-doubt. Imposter syndrome. I canât do this. Why have they given me this job? Iâm not qualified.
One example stood out. She was 26, and somehow ended up as Employee Communications Manager for a FTSE 250 company. On paper, she wasnât qualified. Seven days in, the CEO resigned. Suddenly she was responsible for communicating that to 44,000 employees.
She didnât sleep. She felt physically sick. She was certain theyâd find her out.
And then she figured it out. Less than a year later, she was writing communications for the CEO â so confident in one announcement that she told the HR Director, âIf itâs wrong, you can sack me.â
The following morning the CEO stepped into the lift, looked at her, and said: âNice announcement.â
âLooking back, I realise the thing I enjoy most isnât walking into something feeling confident. Itâs proving to myself that I can do something I genuinely didnât believe I could do.â
Thatâs not a confidence problem. Thatâs what growth feels like.
We mistake novelty for incompetence
This is so common with women. Every promotion. Every new leadership role. Every career change.
We feel out of our depth, and we conclude that we must be out of our depth. As if feeling uncertain is the same as being unqualified.
Theyâre not the same thing.
Feeling uncomfortable is often evidence that youâre stretching into something bigger than youâve done before. It isnât evidence that you shouldnât be there.
Ask yourself this: can you think of the last time you did something for the first time?
The first time you managed a team. The first presentation. The first interview. The first time you became a parent. The first time you started a business.
Were you confident? Or were you just courageous enough to keep going despite feeling completely out of your depth?
The gap between confidence and self-worth
Thereâs something else I want you to sit with.
Every time she told me about a success, she started with how terrified sheâd been, and only mentioned the achievement almost as an afterthought. She remembered the fear more vividly than the evidence.
So many of us do this.
When we reconnected her with the evidence - with what she actually knows about herself at an identity level - the shift was visible. Because she knows how exceptional she is. Sheâs always known. The environment had just chipped away at her ability to access that knowledge.
Hereâs the distinction that matters:
Confidence is how you feel about your ability.
Self-worth is how you value yourself regardless of the environment.
When youâve spent years somewhere youâre overlooked, questioned, dismissed, or simply not set up to succeed - those two things become tangled together. And you start saying âI donât think Iâm confident anymoreâ, when what you actually mean is âI donât recognise myself anymore.â
That distinction is the power move.
Sunflowers and daffodil soil
Towards the end of our session, she said something beautiful.
âI need tall sunflowers. This is a daffodil environment.â
And she said something else that has stayed with me.
âIâm so glad I didnât wait.â
Because sheâd assumed she needed to feel better before she could think clearly. That she had to earn the space to do this work. She didnât.
Perhaps the problem isnât you at all. Perhaps youâre simply planted somewhere that was never capable of growing what you naturally are.
The question Iâm leaving with you
Coaching isnât always about helping someone become someone new.
Sometimes itâs about helping them see themselves clearly again. Helping them separate who they are from what the environment has made them believe about themselves.
So if youâve been telling yourself youâve lost your confidence - can I ask you one thing?
Have you really lost your confidence? Or have you simply spent too long somewhere that has made you forget your worth?
Iâd love to know what came up for you reading this. Drop me a message on Instagram or LinkedIn - I genuinely love hearing from you.
And if this is the kind of work youâre ready to do properly, Reset & Rise is where we go deeper. This is exactly what we unpick together - the beliefs, the patterns, the quiet ways we keep ourselves stuck.
Speak soon,
Sal x
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