My fear of posting, speaking, applying and starting, almost cost me million-dollar opportunities.
For years, I believed confidence was something you earned once you had enough experience, success, proof.
I always assumed women struggled more with self-worth.
Then I started working closely with men.
What I discovered surprised me: many of the men I worked with carry an enormous pressure to justify their place in the world: to succeed, to provide, to achieve, to prove their value.
Different stories. The same wound.
But recently, I came across a sentence in the book “Jump into the water” by Anabella Shaked that completely changed the way I think about confidence:
"Most moods are a flexible expression of the fluctuations in our sense of self-worth."
Read this again. That sentence hit me hard. Because confidence isn't just a skill, but a reflection of how worthy we feel.
When my sense of self-worth dropped, I became more anxious.
More sensitive to criticism.
More hesitant to take risks.
I overthought every post, application, conversation, opportunity.
Then, another sentence in the book stopped me: "To avoid failure, you have to avoid life."
Isn't that what so many of us do?
We wait until we're ready, more experienced or certain.
Meanwhile, life keeps moving.
The opportunities pass.
Someone else applies, gets on stage, raises their hand.
The fascinating part is that none of this starts with confidence.
It starts with self-worth.
Because when your value isn't attached to the outcome, failure loses its power.
You become willing to speak before you feel ready.
Ironically, that's exactly when confidence begins to grow.
This is why I believe personal branding has very little to do with LinkedIn.
It's a mind-internal job.
Before we build visibility, we have to build a relationship with ourselves.
Everything else is simply an expression of that relationship.
A question I've been asking myself this week:
Where in my life am I waiting to feel confident... when what I really need is to remember my worth? In business, marriage, freindships?
How valuable we believe we are in that moment? and what do we do about it once we notice it?
With love,
Anna.
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