Self-Confidence for Women, Part One - Why We Lack it and How This Lack Manifests in Our Lives

Self-confidence has been defined as belief in oneself and one’s abilities, self-assuredness or a feeling of trust in oneself and one’s abilities. When we say that we are confident in a person, we are saying that we trust him or her. When we say a person is self-confident, we are saying that she trusts in herself.

As women, we were not born with a lack of self-confidence. In fact, we may have exhibited a fair amount of it in our early lives. There are many forces that have contributed to its erosion as we grew older. These forces are cultural, societal and familial. They can include sexism, low expectations or lack of exposure to equal opportunities and over-protectiveness in our families of origin. These forces can be blatant or institutionalized. Not all come from intentions; some come out of ignorance, an acceptance of the status quo or an unwillingness to change with the times.

How does low self-confidence manifest in women? Here are some of the ways:

• Not putting in for a promotion
• Not asking for a raise
• Being reluctant to ask for the sale in their businesses
• Being reluctant to increase their prices
• Knowing they have a great idea for a business or a book but hesitating to take the first step
• Ruling out certain fields of study as they are conce
ed they will not be good enough
• Avoiding public speaking
• Giving in rather than negotiating
• Taking on too many responsibilities because they cannot say “no”
• Not taking action on a strong hunch and thereby missing a good opportunity
• Not taking risks
• Blowing off the compliments and acknowledgements of others
• Not taking credit for our accomplishments
• Not talking about our accomplishments
• Second guessing choices and doubting decisions
• Needing the approval of others
• Comparing themselves to others
• Being envious of others
• Not voicing their opinions or thinking their opinions don’t matter
• Being perfectionistic
• Worrying that they will make a mistake or look foolish
• Internalizing failure and blaming self for the failure
• Taking a setback personally
• Settling for less

The lack of self-confidence causes problems in relationships – for example, a woman with a lack of self-confidence may continue to pick an unhealthy partner or may herself exhibit unhealthy attributes such as jealousy. A woman’s professional life can also be impacted seriously by a lack of self confidence. It may cause her to not see career options or to stay stuck at a certain level professionally. Both of these can greatly influence where she will live, the kinds of goods and services she will be able to buy, the experiences she will be able to have and the people with whom she will associate.

Self-confidence can be learned but first it takes recognizing that the lack of it underlies the current undesirable results in our lives. Once we acknowledge and accept that, the next step is to commit to a program of building self-confidence which will be the subject of the next installment in this series.