Why Confidence Isn't Something You Build (And What Actually Works Instead)

Written By Erika Chalkley

For years, I thought confidence was something I needed to build.

Like most women, I always felt like I needed to become more.

More interesting, more productive, more beautiful, more intelligent before I could really succeed.

I approached confidence like a ladder.

Another personal development course, another certification, another strategy to finally feel “ready”.

Until I realised I’d been approaching it all wrong.

Confidence isn't something you build.

It's something you remember.

Why Sensitive Women Struggle With Visibility

If you’ve ever hesitated to share your voice, struggled to promote your work, or felt paralysed by perfectionism, it isn’t because you’re not cut out for success.

It’s because you’ve been conditioned to disconnect from your natural confidence and power.

Women, and especially sensitive, thoughtful, visionary women, have been trained to doubt themselves.

We live in a culture that equates confidence with charisma: loud, extroverted, attention-grabbing.

The kind of energy that takes up space without hesitation.

But when your gifts and energy are more subtle, relational, intuitive - this model of confidence can make you feel like you're somehow lacking, in need of improvement, not yet “ready”.

And so we set about trying to build confidence, to add improvements onto ourselves.

Which often has the detrimental effect of undermining the true source of our innate confidence and power.

The power of true confidence.

I believe real confidence isn’t loud at all.

It’s not bravado or fearlessness or always knowing your next move.

It’s not found in your results or achievements.

True confidence is quiet. It's embodied. And it begins with self-trust.

I believe real confidence isn't about adding more to yourself.

It's not another skill to develop or quality to cultivate.

It's actually about less.

It's about stripping away everything that isn't you.

Peeling back the layers of conditioning, the "shoulds," the inherited beliefs about who you need to be to be worthy.

It's the steadiness that arises when you stop trying to prove yourself and start allowing yourself to simply be - messy, brilliant, sensitive, intuitive, contradictory, imperfect, you.

Your body knows the difference between performing confidence and embodying it. One creates tension and exhaustion. The other creates ease and aliveness.

It's not about being fearless. It's about feeling the fear being able to welcome it, befriend it, collaborate with it.

It’s definitely not about needing to become more. But rather, daring to believe that who you already are, beneath all the layers, is enough.

The Teaching That Changed Everything

In Buddhism, there's a concept that changed (and likely saved) my life: primordial purity.

It's the idea that beneath all the layers of conditioning, shame, doubt, and fear, there is an essential, unshakable goodness within you.

It's not something you have to earn. It's not dependent on your productivity, your performance, or your perfection.

It just is.

This truth helped me finally understand that the shame I carried, the constant "not enoughness" was never mine to begin with. It was inherited. Cultural. Structural. Systemic.

I didn't need to keep striving to fix myself.

I needed to come home to myself.

And that changes everything.

When You’re Seen for Who You Really Are

The most powerful transformations I’ve witnessed, in my own life and in the lives of my friends and clients, haven’t come from more doing, more hustle, more effort.

They’ve come from being truly seen.

When a wise teacher, a true friend, or a loving coach mirrors back your essence - not your roles, your habits, or your fears, but your primordial purity - something inside softens and reawakens.

You breathe a little deeper. You’re able to come out of hiding. You begin to trust yourself again.

And from that place? You stop gripping so tightly. You stop striving. And paradoxically, your brilliance begins to pour through - gently, easefully, joyfully.

Confidence Is a Reclamation

When you strip away everything that’s not you - the people-pleasing, the overfunctioning, the self-doubt - what’s left isn’t a void.

What’s left is your aliveness, your essence, your presence.

Whole, wild and naturally radiant.

And that’s where real confidence lives, not the performative kind, but the kind that rests relaxed from your bones.

The kind that doesn’t need applause or validation to know its own worth.

The kind that lets you lead your life, your work, your art on your own terms.

Your Invitation

If you’ve been gripping tightly, trying hard to get it all right, waiting to feel "ready" before you take up space -

Let this be your reminder:

You don’t need to become more confident.

You just need to come back to the truth of who you are.

That is your power. That is your presence. That is your path.

And if you’re ready to explore this more deeply, to stop striving, soften and start shining, I’d love to support you.

~

Ready to stop performing and start being? My 6-week journey Feminine Fire: Fuel Your Brilliance is for women ready to reclaim their authentic power and build businesses that honour their true nature. We'll work with your body (not against it) to transform these patterns into sustainable success.


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Erika Chalkley
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