Why Confidence Isn't Something You Build, It's Something You Remember
Updated: Aug 20
Sharon Morrow is a Personal Trainer and Hypnotherapist who guides women through powerful resets after separation, divorce, menopause, and life transitions. She is the creator of The Phoenix Project, a mind and body reinvention programme.
If you’ve ever been told to “fake it until you make it,” there’s a good possibility you’ve never reached the “make it” stage. Our minds are constantly responding to the messages we give them. If “faking it” is the initial command, it’s hardly surprising that you can end up feeling like an imposter while trying to appear confident.
What if confidence isn’t something you’re missing? What if it’s something you need to remember? Faking it until you make it is saying, “I don't feel confident at the moment, so I’ll pretend until I do,” and you’re left hoping that one day you’ll feel confident. But it doesn’t work like that.
Sure, you can get better at doing whatever it is you need confidence for, but your ability to believe in and trust yourself without any doubts needs another way of shining. Confidence is not necessarily a skill we need to acquire, but more like a state of being that we need to remember. It tends to get buried underneath years of conditioning, criticism, comparison, expectations, and experiences that teach us to doubt ourselves.
When you were younger and learning to walk, talk, and feed yourself, you didn’t doubt yourself or give up. You just kept doing it until you learned how. There was no faking it. You didn’t need to pretend you could feed yourself first and then hope it worked out. You just did it, badly at first, but you still had the confidence.
Where did your confidence go?
Confidence is often less about what you can do and more about what you believe someone like you is allowed, capable, or worthy of doing. You can be extremely competent and still not feel confident when making decisions, raising your prices, speaking up, and being seen.
Once you understand that confidence isn't necessarily something you need to create, you can begin to see how much of it may have been conditioned out of you.
“You’re too sensitive.”
“You're shy.”
“Don’t make a fuss.”
“You're not very sporty.”
“You’re always so dramatic.”
“Why can't you be more like.”
Children learn by observation, so even if you didn’t hear the words above, you could still pick up on what gets approval and what doesn’t. Eventually, those external messages can become internal beliefs about who you are as a person.
Something as simple as a child hearing “you’re too loud” can evolve into:
Child: “I'm too loud.”
Teenager: “I should tone myself down.”
Adult: “I don't want to dominate the conversation.”
Professional: “I'll let someone else speak first.”
The behaviour changes from child to adult, but the underlying identity hasn’t.
Why affirmations don't always work
Imagine you've spent 35 years believing you're not good enough. Then one day, you write “I am a huge success” on a Post-it note and stick it to your bathroom mirror.
When you read it each day, do you actually believe it? Or does your inner critic quietly respond, “Yeah, right”?
So now you’re arguing with yourself because there’s a conflict between what you want to believe and what you actually believe. The effort you're putting into forcing the new belief can feel exhausting when your deeper sense of identity is still saying, “I'm not enough.”
Sometimes, this can actually reinforce the original belief. If nothing seems to change despite repeating the affirmation, you can end up feeling as though you're failing yet again.
Affirmations like this are much more successful when you question where the original belief came from and whether it’s still relevant today. Once you understand where the belief came from, question whether it still belongs in your life, and begin to release its hold on you, something interesting can happen. The confidence underneath it has room to emerge.
It’s a much more empowering place to begin if you reinvent who you believe you are before you reinvent what you do.
Instead of saying to yourself, “Once my business is successful, I'll feel like a successful businesswoman,” try flipping it around to, “What would change if I began showing up as the successful businesswoman I already want to become?”
This creates space to consider what version of yourself shows up in your business and what decisions she makes that are more in line with your success.
Similarly, when thinking of a personal goal like, “Once I lose weight, I'll feel confident,” ask yourself, “What would it look like to start treating myself as a confident woman now?”
We don’t show up as confident when we achieve something. We show up confidently first, and then we achieve our desires. Perhaps the starting point is remembering who you were before you became self-conscious and self-critical.
You could start by asking yourself: What did she like? What did she wear? What did she say? What did she think? What did she dream about?
When you ask yourself these questions, the tiny ember that still resides inside you begins to grow. The flame starts to burn again, and perhaps, for the first time in a long time, you begin to see your own radiance.
Read more from Sharon Morrow
Sharon Morrow, Personal Trainer and Hypnotherapist
Sharon Morrow is a personal trainer and hypnotherapist who helps women rebuild their strength, confidence, and identity after major life transitions. As the founder of The Phoenix Project, she combines fitness, mindset work, and subconscious reprogramming to guide women through powerful personal reinvention. Drawing from both professional expertise and personal experience, Sharon supports women in reconnecting with themselves and rising stronger than before. She writes and speaks about personal reinvention, resilience, and the power women have to rebuild themselves at any stage of life.
