--- title: "The Confidence You’re Waiting For" id: "22263" type: "post" slug: "the-confidence-youre-waiting-for" published_at: "2026-10-26T00:00:00+00:00" modified_at: "2026-10-25T11:53:48+00:00" url: "https://keithblakemorenoble.com/the-confidence-youre-waiting-for/" markdown_url: "https://keithblakemorenoble.com/the-confidence-youre-waiting-for.md" excerpt: "You have a list of things you’ll do once you feel more confident. Every reason on it makes sense. Here is why that list never seems to get any shorter." taxonomy_category: - "Confidence" - "Identity" - "Leadership" - "Mindset" - "Overachieving" taxonomy_post_tag: - "confidence" - "courage" - "Hesitation" - "Promotion" - "Readiness" --- [Skip to content](#content) # The Confidence You’re Waiting For - Published October 26, 2026 You have a list of things you’ll do once you feel more confident. Every reason on it makes sense. Here is why that list never seems to get any shorter. [PrevPrevious blogAuthority versus Arrogance](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/authority-versus-arrogance/) #### Table of Contents Even though you’ve probably never written it down, you have a list of all the things you’ll get round to doing in your role once you feel more confident. You know the sort of thing – change the way a particular meeting is run, or make a certain decision on your own without seeking everyone else’s input, or make adjustments, no, make *improvements* to the way your job is structured, and so on. And if you were to look at that list, you’d rightly argue that every item on the list has a perfectly good reason for still being on the list, waiting until you feel more confident. ## Every Reason Made Sense. It’s a perfectly natural instinct, to feel that you want to wait until you are actually ready before you do something. After all, nobody sensible rushes headlong into things half-cocked; that way lies disaster. Which is precisely why this particular issue is so hard to see, because it *seems* so sensible. Let’s look at Ruth, who was promoted to head of her department after several years of working with her team. A well-deserved promotion. Now, for most of those years she’d been working as part of the team, she sat in the dreaded Monday Morning Meeting – 90 minutes of going round the room listening to interminable updates (which, let’s face it, could have been done via a simple email), leaving the important decisions which actually needed discussion being squeezed into the last 10 minutes with everyone desperate by that point to just leave and get on with some actual useful work. Ruth always thought the entire thing could be a well structured 30 minute meeting instead. And now that she was in charge, this was her chance to change it. Which she decided to do. Once she felt a little more established – no sense in coming across as the leader who changes things for the sake of it, better to get a little more established first. Perhaps after the next quarter end, once the structure had bedded-in and she felt a little more at home in her role. It got the upcoming audit out of the way too before changing things. All very sensible, she told herself. So sensible, so comfortable waiting for the right moment, that before she knew it 18 months had gone by, and still the Monday Morning Meeting ate up 90 minutes of everyone’s time. Until one week, when the meeting room was closed for a refurb and the only other available room was available for 45 minutes. So that Monday, left with no other choice, Ruth ran the meeting in 30 minutes. Not because she felt more settled, not because she felt more confident, but because, frankly, she had no other option. She kept the meeting to 30 minutes that week and for all future weeks too. Funny thing was, about three weeks later, she noticed that she’d stopped dreading the Monday Morning Meetings, and she was now feeling a lot more confident about running things! The confidence she’d been waiting for those 18 long months actually arrived roughly a month after she made the change which had been waiting for it… > So what’s on your list? And how long has the oldest item been sitting there? ## Competence Taught You To Wait Here’s what makes this so tricky for so many people. Usually throughout life, confidence comes from competence. If you study properly, then you build competence in the subject, so you have confidence as you walk into the exam. When you know your product or service inside-out, then you have confidence when you face questions about it. As you’ve continued to experience this through life, unconsciously you start to believe that the feeling of confidence tells you when you are ready; when the feeling is there, you proceed, whereas if it’s not there then you need to prepare some more. But… Think of something you do now about which you are very confident – you know you could do it, without question. Now think of how confident you felt the very first time you did that thing. Like most, you probably were not very confident at all. That’s because the confidence comes after, growing based on all the times you did it successfully. The thing is, you’ve been doing it for so long and you’ve felt confident about it for so long, that you forgot the action came first and the confidence followed. Sometimes, what you are being asked to do (such as when you step into a new role) is not something you can prepare for in the usual way – there’s no brief you can study for a job you haven’t done your way yet. Which means that the feeling you are waiting for before you do it, has nothing to be built upon… ## The Wait That Proves Itself This is where it gets costly. Each morning you check for The Feeling. And because it’s not there yet, you mistake that as proof that you are still not ready, that you need to wait a little longer. The reality is that the only reason the feeling isn’t there is because you haven’t started. Think about, for example, learning to drive. You didn’t build the confidence and then start learning to drive; the confidence in your ability to drive came from doing the lessons. The only reason you don’t have the feeling, the confidence, whatever feeling you need, is because you haven’t started. And another day of waiting isn’t going to make it magically appear, it simply continues to delay you getting started and getting confident. All of which costs you heavily in time and results. It also, however, teaches you a bit about who you are, namely that you are someone who isn’t ready yet. ## Confidence And Courage Confidence is a feeling, which we get from the proof of having done something previously and having it go reasonably well. Which, when you think about it, means that confidence can only arise after the action. Courage, on the other hand, is a decision. It is a decision to take that next step even if you don’t feel confident about taking it at all. Which means that courage is available before the action, before any evidence. People so often think that confidence and courage are the same thing, when they are demonstrably not. Which is why they mistake a lack of confidence as a lack of courage, and use the lack of confidence as the reason not to do something. When really, they can supply the courage to do it. The courage can often be found when the reason for doing is bigger than the missing feeling. ## It Was Never REALLY About Skill Take another look at your list of things you need to get round to doing once you feel more confident. I would be very surprised if much of the stuff on that list is about skill. It’s far more likely that they require you making a decision, deciding to just Do It, or of resurrecting a part of you that you had mothballed when you stepped into your new role. If that last one sounds familiar, I wrote about how those early decisions take hold in [Still Being The Person You Chose in a Hurry](https://KeithBlakemoreNoble.com/still-being-the-person-you-chose-in-a-hurry/) . In other words, what’s actually on the list is doing the role as yourself. The problem is, you are probably waiting to feel confident enough to do it – and that confidence only comes from actually doing it! So, something for you to think about this week – if you knew that the confidence you need would arrive a few weeks after you started, when would you start… This is what the [Leading Without Losing Yourself](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/courses/leading-without-losing-yourself/) course in the [Club](https://KeithBlakemoreNoble.com/work-with-me/the-overachievers-club/) explores, in rather more depth than a single blog allows. Check it out, see what you think. On the other hand, if you prefer something a little more relaxed and fun, take [The Overachiever Quiz](https://KeithBlakemoreNoble.com/work-with-me/the-overachievers-club/what-kind-of-achiever-are-you/?#quiz) – 10 fun questions to find out what kind of overachiever you are, and what to do with that information. ## Connected Podcast Episode In the accompanying episode, we look at why waiting to feel confident keeps capable people waiting, and what courage offers when the feeling hasn’t arrived ### Episode 040 – The Confidence Illusion Waiting to feel confident before you change something in your role? Discover why confidence arrives after you act, and what the waiting costs you. [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/009-operating-from-inherent-worth/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/009-operating-from-inherent-worth/) [Listen…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/episode-040-the-confidence-illusion/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/episode-040-the-confidence-illusion/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/episode-040-the-confidence-illusion/) ## Relevant Related Blogs and Episodes [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/still-being-the-person-you-chose-in-a-hurry/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/still-being-the-person-you-chose-in-a-hurry/) ### Still Being The Person You Chose in a Hurry The snap decisions you made about who to be in a new role rarely get reviewed. Years later, you may still be living by them. [Read](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/self-image-guilt-and-the-quiet-rules-youre-living-by/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/still-being-the-person-you-chose-in-a-hurry/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/still-being-the-person-you-chose-in-a-hurry/) [more…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/self-image-guilt-and-the-quiet-rules-youre-living-by/) ### Authority versus Arrogance Afraid of sounding arrogant, so you water down what you know? Authority and arrogance are two separate settings. Here is why that matters. [Read more…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/authority-versus-arrogance/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/authority-versus-arrogance/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/authority-versus-arrogance/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/episode-039-speaking-with-authority/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/episode-039-speaking-with-authority/) ### Episode 039 – Speaking With Authority Do you soften things you’re sure of so you won’t sound arrogant? Discover why authority and arrogance are separate, and what the softening costs you. [Listen…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/episode-039-speaking-with-authority/) ### Episode 026 – Done Is Not Failure Is your work sitting almost finished because completing it feels like exposing it? Discover why done is not the failure. Undone is. [Listen](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/026-done-is-not-failure/) […](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/005-how-responsibility-quietly-expands/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/026-done-is-not-failure/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/026-done-is-not-failure/) #### Keith Blakemore-Noble Keith Blakemore-Noble is The Overachievers Coach. For over sixteen years he has worked with driven, capable individuals to identify and restructure the internal patterns that keep them stuck despite their success. A former Chartered IT Professional and Fellow of the British Computer Society, Keith brings a systems thinker’s precision to mindset change. He is the founder of The Overachievers Club, host of The Overachievers Podcast, and author of six published books including The Masks We Wear and AntiManipulation, with his forthcoming Overachiever-based book in development. He uses Mindset Mastery, his bespoke blend of hypnosis, NLP, and coaching, to create rapid, deep, and lasting change.