Picture the most confident person you know. Maybe they’re the one who speaks up in the meeting, takes the front-row spot in a new workout, or asks the question everyone else is thinking. It can look effortless from the outside, but usually, confident people have built enough trust in themselves to know they can handle whatever comes next.
That kind of confidence is often less about personality and more about practice. It comes from a set of habits that make you feel capable, even on the days you’re second-guessing yourself.
According to clinical psychologist and NYU Assistant Professor, Dr. Rachel Goldman, confidence isn’t always an innately gifted personality trait. It can be a skill, and like any skill, it’s built through repetition. Dr. Rachel’s book, When Life Happens, explores this exact idea and she shares with us what confident people do differently.
Confidence, Defined
Most people equate confidence with never feeling self-doubt, but Dr. Rachel says that may be a misread.
“From a CBT perspective, confidence is the belief that you can handle whatever comes your way, even if things don’t go perfectly,” she explains. CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy, is a goal-oriented form of talk therapy that looks at how thoughts influence feelings and behavior.
Confidence is also not the same as self-esteem, which is a broader sense of your own worth. Confidence tends to be more specific. You can feel completely capable while running a meeting and totally unsure of yourself on a first date.
Here’s the part most people seem to get backward: Confidence usually shows up after you take action, not before.
“Oftentimes, we build confidence by doing the thing, gathering evidence that you can handle it, recognizing that even if the outcome isn’t perfect, you’ll be okay, and then doing it and being okay,” Dr. Rachel says.
How To Build Confidence
The confident people Dr. Rachel works with aren’t dramatic about it. Their habits are almost boring because of how consistent they are.
“Confident people have routines that support both their mental and physical well-being,” she says, pointing to sleep, movement, regular meals, and stress management as the foundation everything else is built on.
From there, it’s a mindset shift more of a mindset shift than a personality change. Confident people “notice their thoughts without automatically believing them.” They feel self-doubt and then keep moving anyway.
Dr. Rachel points to Albert Bandura’s research on self-efficacy, which is the belief in your ability to handle a specific situation, as one of the most well-established explanations for how confidence grows. Self-efficacy grows through what Bandura called mastery experiences, or doing the hard thing and realizing you can handle it.
Her advice for putting that into practice: Stop asking, “How do I become more confident?” and start asking, “What’s one small step I can take today?”
Habits That Work Against You
There are a few patterns that may feel protective, but tend to backfire. Waiting to feel ready before acting is the biggest and most common one.
All-or-nothing thinking (hello, perfectionism) is another. Believing something has to be done perfectly or not at all shuts down growth before it starts.
So does comparison, which Dr. Rachel points out is rarely a fair fight to begin with. “We’re comparing our behind-the-scenes to someone else’s highlight reel.”
Leaning too hard on external validation can leave your confidence dependent on other people’s opinions instead of your own track record.
A CBT Trick To Use Today
Dr. Rachel’s favorite tool is simple enough to use right now. When a critical thought shows up, pause and ask yourself, “What story is my brain telling me right now, and is it actually true?”
Look for the evidence for and against it, then land somewhere balanced—not necessarily more positive, just more accurate.
Her second favorite tip is to imagine that a friend brought you this exact thought. What would you tell them?
“We tend to be much more compassionate with others than we are with ourselves,” she says. That shift in perspective alone can soften an inner voice that’s gotten a little too harsh.
When Self-Doubt and Confidence Coexist
Here’s the most freeing thing Dr. Rachel told us: Confident people still doubt themselves, sometimes regularly.
“Confidence and self-doubt aren’t opposites,” she says. “They can coexist.”
The difference isn’t the absence of insecurity. It’s refusing to let that insecurity make your decisions for you.
Discomfort works the same way. Most people wait to feel comfortable before trying something new, but Dr. Rachel says it usually happens in the opposite order.
“Discomfort is data,” she says, and the only real question is what you do with it.
So no, you don’t need to wait until the nerves disappear. Show up a little uncertain, take the small step anyway, and let the confidence catch up. It always does.
