Recently, I had the privilege of coaching two individuals from very different worlds — one a corporate leader, the other a professional athlete. Despite their different arenas, they both revealed a similar struggle: their confidence was conditional.
They had created long lists of conditions — rules they must meet before allowing themselves to feel confident. Worse still, they approached these conditions with ‘All or Nothing’ thinking: “I must meet EVERY rule before I can feel 100% confident.”
This thinking traps talented people in the exhausting land of never enough.
Here’s a glimpse of the invisible checklist they held themselves to:
I’m not experienced enough.
I’m not strategic enough.
I’m not brave enough.
I’m not empathetic enough.
I’m not leading well enough.
I’m not offering enough feedback.
...I’m just not enough.
(Ouch. That one really hurts, doesn’t it?)
Conditional confidence limits you. It keeps you playing small, doubting your own ability, and missing opportunities to lead with impact.
You’ll spot it when you hear yourself saying:
“I should feel more confident by now...”
“I need to achieve XYZ before I can feel confident.”
“I must be more ___ to be good enough.”
Both my clients — the leader and the athlete — were high performers... yet they were tangled in rules that no longer served them.
Once upon a time, your confidence rules might have been useful for keeping you safe. But now, in a rapidly changing world, are they still serving you? Or are they silently holding you back?
Take a moment to finish these sentences:
I’ll be more confident when...
I won’t feel good enough until...
I’ll know I’m enough when...
Write down your current self-imposed conditions.
Quality-check them: Are they still useful? Are they still true?
Keep the ones that build you up; ditch the ones that tear you down.
Shift to Continuum Thinking: You don’t have to be 100% to be enough. 75% confident is still powerful!
Give yourself permission to grow confidence incrementally — practice, feedback, and persistence will move you from 75% to 80%, then 90%, and beyond.
Confidence isn’t a magical state you suddenly arrive at. It's something you build — one small win, one useful feedback conversation, one courageous action at a time.
When you apply the Feedback Fitness Framework, you move from feedback fear to feedback fitness. You build your inner strength. You stop waiting for “perfect” and start leading boldly, even when you're only 75% confident.
Because confident conversations drive performance — and YOU are ready for them.