How to Build Real Confidence in a World Built for Comfort
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
Written by Kenza Tounakti, Online Fitness Coach
Kenza Tounakti is an online fitness coach, Exercise Science graduate, and content creator dedicated to helping women build strong bodies and stronger minds. Through science-based fitness education and mindset coaching, she empowers women to create lasting transformation from the inside out.
If you had asked me a few years ago what confidence was, I would have pointed to the loudest person in the room, the person who seemed certain of themselves. The person who wasn't afraid to speak up, take risks, travel alone, start something new, or walk into a room as if they belonged there.
For a long time, I assumed confident people possessed something I didn't. I thought confidence was a personality trait, something you were either born with or you weren't. I had it completely backwards.
Confidence isn't something people have. It's something they build. More specifically, confidence is what happens when you've spent enough time doing things that scare you and discovering that you're capable of handling them.
Looking back, I didn't intentionally build confidence. Life built it for me.
Growing up in a single-mother household and moving between different countries meant adaptation became a normal part of life. I had to learn new languages, navigate unfamiliar environments, make new friends, and repeatedly start over. At the time, none of those experiences felt like growth opportunities. They felt uncomfortable. Sometimes they felt lonely. Sometimes they felt unfair. Most of the time, they felt difficult.
What I didn't realize then was that every one of those experiences was teaching me something. Every move taught me that unfamiliar situations eventually become familiar. Every new school taught me that being the outsider doesn't last forever. Every challenge forced me to develop skills I didn't know I had. None of these experiences made me feel confident in the moment. If anything, they often made me feel uncertain.
The confidence came later. It came from looking back and realizing I had survived situations I once believed I couldn't handle. That realization completely changed the way I think about confidence.
What confidence really is
One reason confidence feels so difficult to build is that most of us have been taught to think about it the wrong way.
We tend to treat confidence like a feeling. We imagine that confident people wake up believing in themselves, feeling certain about their decisions, and moving through life without fear or doubt. As a result, many people spend years waiting for confidence to arrive before taking action. They tell themselves they'll start the fitness journey, apply for the job, or pursue the opportunity when they feel more confident.
The problem is that confidence rarely comes first. Psychologist Albert Bandura's research on self-efficacy found that one of the strongest contributors to confidence is what he called mastery experiences. In simple terms, confidence grows when we successfully navigate challenges and prove to ourselves that we are capable, not when we think about doing difficult things, not when we learn about them, but when we actually do them.
This is why confidence is really self-trust. Confidence isn't believing everything will go according to plan. It's trusting yourself enough to handle it when it does not. It's the belief that you can adapt, recover, learn, and move forward even when things don't unfold exactly as you hoped.
The most confident people I know aren't fearless. They've accumulated enough experience to know that fear isn't always a reliable indicator of what they're capable of doing. Confidence isn't certainty. Confidence is trust.
The comfort paradox
If confidence is built through adaptation, then we have to ask an uncomfortable question, "Why do so many people struggle with confidence today?" Part of the answer lies in the environment we've created.
For most of human history, discomfort was unavoidable. People had to solve problems without immediate answers, navigate uncertainty, tolerate boredom, and adapt to situations they couldn't control. Life naturally provided opportunities to build resilience, adaptability, and self-trust.
Today, many of those experiences have become optional. The moment we feel bored, we reach for our phones. The moment we feel uncertain, we search for another opinion. The moment something feels uncomfortable, we look for a way around it.
Modern life has become incredibly good at helping us avoid discomfort, which sounds like a positive thing until you realize that many of the qualities we admire in ourselves and others are built through learning how to move through discomfort, not around it.
We've become less practiced at being uncomfortable. When discomfort becomes something we constantly avoid, we miss opportunities to discover what we're capable of handling.
Every time we choose comfort over challenge, certainty over growth, or avoidance over action, we reinforce the idea that discomfort is something to fear.
In reality, discomfort is often the very thing that expands our confidence.
How to build confidence intentionally
The good news is that confidence doesn't require a dramatic life event. You don't have to move across the world, start a company, or completely reinvent your life to build it. You need experiences that challenge the story you've been telling yourself.
One of the most effective ways to build confidence is to keep small promises to yourself, not because drinking more water or going for a walk is life-changing on its own, but because every time your actions align with your intentions, you strengthen trust in yourself. Over time, that trust compounds.
Another powerful approach is to do things before you feel ready. Most people assume confidence comes first and action follows. In reality, action usually comes first, and confidence follows. The people we admire for being confident are often the same people who spent years taking action while feeling uncertain.
Spending time alone is another underrated confidence builder because it forces you to develop a relationship with yourself. Taking yourself out for coffee, travelling solo, trying a new class, or exploring a new place without relying on someone else teaches you that your own company is enough. It reminds you that you're capable of creating meaningful experiences rather than simply reacting to whatever life throws your way.
Most importantly, start viewing discomfort differently. Instead of asking, "How do I avoid this?" begin asking, "What might this teach me?" That simple shift changes everything.
The goal isn't to become someone who never feels uncomfortable. The goal is to become someone who trusts themselves enough to move forward despite the discomfort.
Confidence is created, not found
When I look back on the experiences that shaped me, confidence didn't come from success. It came from adaptation.
It came from moving when I didn't want to move, starting over when I didn't want to start over, and repeatedly stepping into unfamiliar environments that forced me to adapt. Every challenge expanded my understanding of what I was capable of handling, and over time, that growing sense of capability became confidence.
The experiences that shaped me didn't make me confident because they were easy. They made me confident because they taught me I could adapt. If confidence is really trust in your ability to adapt, then it's never too late to start building it. In the past, confidence was often built through the experiences life handed us.
Today, we have the opportunity to create those experiences ourselves. We can choose the difficult conversation. We can choose the unfamiliar path.
We can choose the challenge that expands us instead of the comfort that keeps us the same, not because discomfort is the goal, but because growth rarely happens without it.
Confidence isn't something you find hidden somewhere inside yourself. It's something you build every time you step into uncertainty and discover that you're stronger, more adaptable, and more capable than you once believed.
Ready to build more than just confidence?
As a coach, I've found that most women don't need another meal plan, workout program, or motivational quote. What they're often missing is trust in themselves.
They've spent years starting over, doubting their decisions, and waiting until they feel confident enough to take action. The irony is that confidence is rarely what comes first. It is usually the result of consistently showing up, following through, and proving to yourself that you're capable of handling challenges.
That's why my coaching goes beyond helping women build a stronger body. Yes, we focus on training, nutrition, and creating sustainable habits, but the deeper goal is helping you become someone who trusts herself, someone who follows through on her commitments, navigates challenges with confidence, and stops constantly second-guessing her ability to succeed.
Because the greatest transformation isn't just physical, it's becoming the kind of person who knows she can handle whatever comes next. If you're ready to build a stronger body, stronger mind, and stronger relationship with yourself, I'd love to help.
You can learn more and apply for one-on-one coaching here.
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Kenza Tounakti, Online Fitness Coach
Kenza Tounakti is an online fitness coach, Exercise Science graduate, and founder of Strong Mind, Strong Body Coaching. After experiencing firsthand how fitness can transform not only the body but also confidence, mindset, and quality of life, she made it her mission to help women create lasting change through sustainable habits rather than extremes. Through science-based fitness, nutrition, and personal development, she empowers women to build strong bodies, resilient minds, and lives they genuinely love. Her work focuses on body recomposition, behavior change, and helping people realize they are capable of far more than they think.
