Confidence is overrated, and here's why

Professionally, there are some stock phrases that, when uttered, give me pause. Be confident. It's all about confidence. It's how you carry yourself. How often have I heard all this? I submit that the people saying this, don't truly understand what confidence is. I say this not out of derision, but due to some things I've observed over the past decade.

The last person to say this to me was an ex-colleague. He was looking for a new job because his contract was about to expire, and shared his resume for my perusal. In it, he asked for a whopping five-figure salary and claimed to be experienced in microservices, APIs, DevOps and several technologies that I know for a fact we didn't use in the workplace. Of course, he could have learned all this on his own time. But implying professional experience in technologies one has only experimented with in a personal capacity, is fundamentally dishonest. You know what he told me while discussing his resume? "You need to be confident. Ask for what you deserve."

You see, there is a huge problem with that statement, in this particular context. Yes, having the audacity to tell such big whopping lies on your resume could be construed as confidence. But from where I sit, it reeks of desperation. This guy had spent the last seven years at his desk doing very little. And when the time came for him to leave the company, he found himself alarmingly out of touch with the needs of our industry. And lacking any other viable alternatives, he opted to lie on his resume. Do confident people need to lie? Do people who are secure in their abilities, need to paint this huge glorious picture of themselves that don't match the genuine article?

Building up the image.

And the sad part is, I've felt actual confidence... and this ain't it. My ex-colleague, if he gets hired at that salary, is going to spend his days looking over his shoulder. Brazening out a lie is not confidence - it's bravado, at best. And it certainly isn't clever.

I know because I've been in that position before. I spent six years in a desktop support job doing very little in the way of useful work, and I did not dare leave the company for fear of my inadequacy being exposed. But I didn't lie. I enrolled in a course and spent a year obtaining a Diploma. When I left the company, there were genuine credentials backing up my resume. Sure, they weren't grand, but they were authentic. I was an inexperienced developer with qualifications, selling myself as... an inexperienced developer with qualifications. I didn't have to be afraid of being found out. There was no falsehood to catch up to me.

Confidence is not about talking big...

...sometimes it's about talking small. And it's even less about showing others how awesome you think you are. When you don't have to constantly put up a front, things get easier. People don't have big expectations of you, and you don't feel any pressure to maintain that facade.

At work, I defer to people all the time, because even though they're younger, they're more qualified and I'm not shy about admitting it. Hell, I would admit it even if it wasn't true. They actually have a term for this: Tai-chi.

Redirecting the flow of attention.

One thing about deferring to others is, it takes the heat off you. Keeps you under the radar. There's no need to appear to be the smartest person in the room; it's not a goddamn competition.

"They can't stop you, if they don't see you coming." -  Izey Victoria Odiase 

Sometimes confidence includes being willing to let others think you're not confident. The most dangerous people are the kind who are willing to be underestimated. At some point, you're gonna have to decide - are you a silent threat, or a harmless balloon filled with hot air? I know what I'd rather be.

Not needing to prove shit

The need to prove yourself is damaging to the psyche in the long run, and sure as hell does nothing for actual confidence.

There's a meme going around the Internet. The picture below is just one of its many incarnations.

When someone says you can't do it, do it twice and take pictures!

Not gonna lie - ten years ago, that was me. I was young and eager to show that I could conquer anything that was thrown at me. That made me easy to manipulate... because I was hungry. I was eager to prove, to myself and others, that I could make it as a tech in this industry.

A decade later, it all seems so juvenile. Sure, be good enough to do it. Be good enough to do it twice, even. But why the need to "take pictures"? So you can rub it in the faces of those who can't do it? So you can prove you're better? That's not confidence. That's adolescent-level bullshit. If you really are as good as you say you are, there is no need for validation. Especially not of that sort.

In fact, I've come to realize that the people who repeatedly try to show me that they're confident, are almost certainly the least.

Elevating others

You've heard of the people who constantly put others down in order to look good at their expense, right? Same goes for those who make a big production of pointing out someone else's mistakes just so they can look good in comparison. Well, here's some news for you - it doesn't work. In fact, it stinks of insecurity.

If you want to appear confident, do the exact opposite. Praise people. Highlight their good points.

That's the "what". Now, for the "who".

Who you praise is just as important, if not more so. Don't praise people who are obviously in a position to do you favors - like a superior or a Director. That's merely bootlicking. Praise people who are at your level, or better still, lower. That projects confidence. It shows that you're secure enough in your place that you're not afraid to give others the credit.

Bullying others is not confidence.

Conversely, if you try to one-up someone obviously not above you, you're just a loser who needs to punch down to feel like a big man. That never looks good. People who need to win just for the sake of winning, are practically the dictionary definition of the word "pathetic".

Don't be that guy.

In conclusion

Understand this: most people's facades of ironclad confidence are pretty much bullshit anyway. Once you get past their fronting, you'll recognize their insecurities for what they are, and learn to deal with your own. Because you'll know that you're not alone in feeling like a drop of piss in an ocean.

Nobody's a hundred percent sure of themselves all the time, and that's perfectly OK. It's not a cut-and-dry, binary one-or-zero equation. No program starts out being completely functional, and no software developer is the finished article. Confidence and personal growth, much like debugging, is an iterative thing. It has to be earned. There is no instant formula.

With utmost confidence,
T___T