Very few people feel confident all the time. Self-confidence is something that most people aspire to, but find difficult to maintain — especially during tumultuous times. Furthermore, confidence can impact achievement — and achievement can impact confidence. This cyclical effect may occasionally need to be broken to achieve success.
The Connection Between Confidence and Achievement
Most people won’t deny that there is a connection between confidence and achievement. The more confident you are, the less anxious you are, and the more likely you are to achieve your goals.
But it’s a little more complicated than that.
If you’ve ever felt less than confident or felt as though you couldn’t achieve what you want, the mechanisms behind that are complex. A few core theories could help us understand those human traits:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Under the Hierarchy of Needs, the human experience is broken into tiers. The first level is “Physiological,” such as food, water, and rest; without this, you can’t concentrate on anything else. Second come the “Safety Needs,”; the ability to feel secure. Then comes “Belonging and Love Needs,” which are defined as our relationships with other people. Next are “Esteem Needs,” the feeling of accomplishment. Finally, is “Self-Actualization.” You can’t achieve self-actualization without meeting your Esteem Needs.
Terror Management Theory: Under Terror Management Theory, religion — and other sociological coping mechanisms — have been created as a method of dealing with the fear of one’s own mortality. As we have witnessed particularly during the pandemic, Terror Management Theory is key to the idea that people will create elaborate fictions to avoid things that they fear. This can also have broader applications for confidence and achievement. People protest, rant and spout conspiracy theories but produce very few tangible results. Others who manage their fears or acknowledge them and act anyway are ahead of the game in accomplishing their goals.
The most effective confidence builder of all is overcoming fear of failure. Failure is a brilliant teacher and must be embraced as a learning moment. In fact, failure teaches us to discover what is needed and wanted next time and to implement those insights until we improve. “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again” was the wisest piece of advice your parents ever gave you. If you follow it and plough back into the task with different actions you might make significant or incremental changes but everything positive counts as a success and as noted earlier, actual accomplishment brings its own feeling of confidence.
Sociometer Theory: Under Sociometer Theory, self-esteem is a gauge of one’s social interactions and relationships. In essence, it serves as a meter for either the positive or negative interactions we have with others.
Imposter Syndrome: While not as universal as the other concepts, The Imposter Syndrome is critical to discussing confidence and achievement. The Imposter Syndrome occurs when people who are otherwise knowledgeable, competent, and well-qualified feel they aren’t qualified to be in their position. When people lack self-confidence, it’s often believed they have a reason not to be confident, such as incompetence, lacking practice or insufficient experience or knowledge. They constantly doubt themselves and feel as though they aren’t as good as others. Ironically, those who are most skilled tend to have Imposter Syndrome, and some who aren’t competent have been known to overestimate their competency.
Together, these theories show that people can falter when they feel uncertain, isolated, attacked, fearful, incompetent or socially inept— and when people cannot acquire the self-confidence they need, they may be paralyzed and unable to act. Achievement, therefore, requires that people feel comfortable and confident in their own skin.
The Importance of Self-Confidence
People’s experience is multi-faceted. Every person has an entire hierarchy of needs — and they need to meet those needs to focus on achievement.
When people aren’t confident, it impacts their lives in many ways. First, they’re not likely to take risks that they need to take to achieve success. They won’t go for promotions or pick up projects that they could excel at. They aren’t able to move up, sideways or forward.
Second, they may not be able to perform at their best, either. They may not feel confident enough to really take the ball and run with it; they may find themselves deferring to others even when they know they are correct.
Self-confidence and achievement seem to be inextricably linked. But that can be a good thing. When confidence is enhanced it can become easier to achieve goals — and sometimes, it’s true that people need to “fake it” until they can make it.
How does Image Consulting Enhance Self Confidence?
We as image consultants are often approached by clients who want us to help build their confidence. Fortunately, image consultants are in the business of building confidence with the tools at our disposal, the ABC’s: Appearance, Behavior and Communication.
Long after our services, clients have told us many positive results and describe feelings of enhanced confidence. They reported for example that their transformed appearance was actually quite a confidence builder. In the course of our work many of us discover what messages the clients would like to project and help them create that image. Far from just adopting superficial changes, our clients often reported a change of perspective. They said that when they saw themselves looking different they act in a different manner, almost as if they were taking on a new persona which they “grew into.”
Some of us also train our clients and groups in presentation and communication skills. Since public speaking is one of the greatest fears of professionals, under our coaching they had to practice speaking skills, hand gestures, eye contact, posture and audience rapport to reach an acceptable level of competence. With continued practice, their confidence level was frequently enhanced.
How do we Know that Image Consulting Enhances Self Confidence and Improves Goal Achievement?
Over the years, as Image Consulting expanded its tools, techniques and array of skills, consultants witnessed quite profound changes in confidence in many of their clients. Anecdotal success stories were reported by us all, but we had no empirical evidence. In 2004 a study was done by Central Michigan University for the Association of Image Consultants International, (AICI), to test the hypothesis that image consulting has an impact on self-esteem and goal achievement. The results were encouraging. When the Hartman Self-Esteem Index was tested on consultants before and after the image services over 60% of clients showed a gain in self-esteem scores. Not only that, clients’ responses to a set of direct questions asking about their goal achievement following their image consultation sessions revealed a strong belief that they had achieved, or nearly achieved, their goals. Goal achievement was strongest in the area of appearance, weakest in the areas of professional development and personal development. However, all achievement was above an average level.
Talk to top notch actors and they will tell you how many takes it took for the Director to accept their performance. Many of course, but the final success brought a sense of achievement and elation, two building blocks of self-confidence. Image consultants at AICI felt validated by the test results and to discover that our own clients reported the same positive feelings, long after our services.
