The Secret to Unshakable Confidence (with Russ Harris) | Ep. 429

In this episode, Kimberley Quinlan and Dr. Russ Harris explore how to build real, lasting confidence—not by eliminating fear, but by learning to take action alongside it.

What to Expect in This Episode:

• Why everything you’ve heard about needing to feel confident before taking action is a myth
• The five hidden reasons you might be struggling with self-confidence (and what to do about them)
• A powerful mindset shift that helps you move forward, even when anxiety and self-doubt are loud
• How to use your personal values to guide you when confidence feels out of reach
• The truth about “fake it till you make it”—and a more authentic, compassionate alternative
• Simple, science-backed tools from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help you take courageous action today

How to Build Confidence (Even When You’re Full of Self-Doubt): Lessons from Russ Harris

Do you believe that confidence is something you either have—or don’t? According to bestselling author and ACT therapist Dr. Russ Harris, that’s a myth.

In this insightful conversation between Kimberley Quinlan and Russ Harris, we explore what real confidence looks like—and how you can take courageous action even when fear and self-doubt are loud.

Let’s dive into the practical, science-backed tools Russ shares to help us build authentic confidence.

What Confidence Really Means (Hint: It’s Not What You Think)

Most people believe confidence means feeling certain, fearless, and ready—but that’s the modern definition. The original meaning comes from the Latin word confides, which means “with faith.”

Confidence isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the act of doing what matters—even when fear is present.

According to Russ, real confidence is about trusting yourself to show up, not magically feeling calm before you begin.

Why “Fake It Till You Make It” Is Unhelpful

The phrase “fake it till you make it” might be catchy, but Russ Harris strongly disagrees with it. Confidence should be about fidelity to yourself—not pretending.

Instead of faking anything, Russ recommends being honest with yourself about your inner experience (sweaty hands, racing heart, self-doubt) and learning how to work with it, not hide it.

The Five Hidden Reasons You Might Lack Confidence

In his book The Confidence Gap, Russ outlines five major reasons people struggle with confidence:

1. Excessive expectations

2. Harsh self-judgment

3. Preoccupation with fear

4. Lack of experience

5. Lack of skill

As Kimberley points out, the real issue often isn’t our ability—it’s these hidden beliefs and thought patterns that get in the way.

Want More Confidence? Focus on Action, Not Feelings

One of Russ’s most powerful reframes is this: You don’t wait to feel confident in order to act. You act first, and the feelings may follow.

Confidence isn’t something you feel before doing the hard thing—it’s something you build by doing the hard thing. Like riding a bike, the more reps you get, the more natural it becomes.

Try This: A Values-Based Approach to Confidence

Instead of asking, “How can I feel more confident?” try asking:

• What would I do if fear and self-doubt weren’t in charge right now?

• What matters most to me in this moment?

• How do I want to treat myself and others, even in discomfort?

Russ encourages using values—not feelings—as your compass. Your values are the qualities that matter most to you: being kind, courageous, patient, honest, or authentic.

The Power of Mindfulness and Defusion

Both Kimberley and Russ emphasized the role of mindfulness in confidence-building.

Mindfulness helps you:

• Unhook from anxious thoughts

• Stay focused on the task at hand (instead of how scared you feel)

• Allow feelings to be there without letting them control you

One helpful tool from ACT is cognitive defusion—learning to see your thoughts as thoughts, not facts.

Try saying: “Thanks, mind. I know you’re trying to help.” Or label a recurring thought like: “Ah, there’s the old ‘I’m not good enough’ story again.”

What If There’s No Proof You’ll Succeed?

Many listeners asked, “What if I have zero evidence that I’ll succeed?”

Russ’s response: You don’t need proof—you need practice.

Success is never guaranteed. But when you consistently show up, take action aligned with your values, and allow fear to ride along, your confidence grows naturally.

Confidence Isn’t Permanent (And That’s Okay)

Even Russ Harris, a bestselling author and renowned therapist, admitted he still gets anxious before interviews. Confidence isn’t static—it’s normal to feel confident in some areas and wobbly in others.

What matters is this: Can you stay in the game, stay open to feedback, and keep moving forward?

Give Yourself Permission to Be Imperfect

Russ ended the episode with one of his favorite quotes from Ernest Hemingway:

“The first draft of anything is shit.”

Whether you’re parenting, public speaking, dating, or starting a new job—let it be messy. Confidence comes not from perfection, but from persistence.

So go ahead: do the hard thing. Let fear come along for the ride. And remind yourself—confidence grows with every step you take.

Want to go deeper?

Grab The Confidence Gap or The Happiness Trap by Dr. Russ Harris—both packed with powerful exercises to build long-term confidence, ACT-style.

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Transcription: The Secret to Unshakable Confidence (with Russ Harris) 

Kimberley: Hello, my friends, welcome back to your anxiety toolkit, the show where we talk about how to build your life, the one that you love while managing anxiety, OCD, panic disorder, and all the challenging emotions that come with that. I’m Kimberly Quinlan. I’m a licensed anxiety specialist. And today we are uncovering something that many of us chase, but often feel it is completely out of reach.

And that is. unshakable confidence. Here’s the truth. Most people believe that confidence is something that you are either born with, or you magically gain when you’re ready. But you’re about to learn that this is a myth. What if the real secret? Two confidence is something entirely different and with fully within your reach to answer this question.

I’m honored to welcome Dr. Russ Harris, doctor therapist, father, internationally renowned trainer and of health professionals and bestselling author of the happiness trap and the confidence gap right here. Russ’s work has revolutionized how we understand confidence and has helped millions to take action.

Despite fear and self doubt in today’s episode, we’re going to discuss the misconceptions that keep us stuck and reveal practical science based strategies to help us take confident and courageous action, even when fear is loud and self doubt creeps in. If you’re sick of hearing that you have to fake it until you make it, you will love this episode.

Russ is going to teach you the secret to gaining and maintaining confidence. So welcome, Russ. I’m so thrilled to have you here.

Russ: Oh, thanks so much. And, uh, and thanks for inviting me. Thanks for that glowing introduction. I always get so embarrassed when people say those things.

Kimberley: Not at all. You have been on my bucket list of guests that I have wanted for the longest time.

I’m so, so honored that you’re here.

Russ: Oh,thank you. Thanks so much.

Kimberley: So, We are constantly getting asked about how to get confidence so that you can do hard things. We talk a lot here on this podcast about, you know, it’s a beautiful day to do really hard things. And a lot of people do feel like they’re lacking the confidence to do that.

So in your book, which as you can see, like I’ve got sticky tabs all the way down, you talk about confidence being a game.

Russ: Right.

Kimberley: What do you mean by that?

Russ: Well, I mean, probably the first thing to say is, in terms of the title of the podcast, there is no such thing as unshakable confidence. Even the most confident people on the planet will find at times they get shaken and, uh, they get anxiety and self doubt.

This is just part of being human. And I think. Even before answering your question about the game, it may be useful just to talk about the two different meanings of confidence. Because the word comes from the Latin, confides, meaning with faith and Or, you know, fides, we get words like fidelity and so forth.

And the original meaning of confidence was an act of faith, an act of trusting yourself, trusting yourself to do what’s important or what’s necessary. Even if you’re terrified, even if you’re full of self doubt, full of anxiety, it originally had nothing to do with how you feel. And then what’s happened over the last century is the, uh, popular use of that term has started to change.

Like many other words in English language, it’s started to get a different meaning. And now what most people mean when they talk about confidence is an absence of fear, an absence of anxiety, an absence of self doubt. They mean an absolute sense of certainty and assurity that I feel, you know, that I can just do it and there’s no doubt there.

And, um, you can still find the old definition in the dictionary, but it’s being replaced by the new definition, a feeling of certainty or assurance. And this is a big problem, because when you’re stepping out of your comfort zone, trying new things, facing up to challenges, It’s a given that you will have anxiety.

It’s a given that you will have self doubt. And so what we’re going to talk about in this podcast and in the book is a more realistic sense of confidence that’s based on the old meaning of the term rather than the more popular connotation.

Kimberley: Yeah. I’m so grateful that you’re saying that because so often we do think of confidence meaning you’re not uncomfortable.

Russ: Yeah.

Kimberley: If you’re confident, it must be easy. Yeah.

Russ: Would you agree? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you know, I’m pretty confident at giving interviews, uh, I’ve done lots of podcasts and so forth, but I still always have high levels of anxiety when I do them. You know, I don’t know if the camera’s picking this up right now.

My hands are quite red and sweaty here and you know, that’s my little telltale sign and you know, it’s always. Awkward for me when I do public workshops and trainings and people want to come and shake my hand and they’re like dripping with sweat because Um, I’m very confident at giving workshops and trainings, but that doesn’t mean no anxiety That means what I what I do is I trust myself to do what’s necessary to to talk and deliver the goods Even after all of these years, self doubt shows up, anxiety shows up, fear of failure shows up.

It’s not like that stuff has magically disappeared. But what I’ve managed to do over the years through acceptance and commitment therapy, mindfulness practices is learn how to unhook from those doubts and those fears, how to open up and make room for that anxiety and sort of let it flow through me without it.

Carry me away so that I can take action and do what I need to do. And, and that’s kind of what I would call genuine confidence or authentic confidence there. And so you were talking before about, um, what did you say? How many people asked this question?

Kimberley: Well, I was sharing with you before just for the listeners.

So I did poll social media on questions they wanted to ask about confidence. And, you know, I was really expecting like, you know, I kind of had an idea of what was going to be asked and about. 80 percent of people who polled and it was a ton of people asked, is it simply fake it till you make it? I was blown away.

Russ: I hate that saying. I really do. You know, again, come back to. Comfy days, you know, fee days is about fidelity. Fidelity means being true to yourself. So the original meaning of confidence is really, it’s also about being true to yourself. So there’s nothing that you want to fake. It’s about being real. So while I am with you, I didn’t need to tell you that I was feeling anxious and having sweaty hands.

You wouldn’t have known, right? And so without that information, I don’t know what assumptions you would have made. I don’t need to fake to you and go and say, Hey, I’m feeling really good. I’m feeling really positive. No anxiety here. You know? Yeah, this is great. Why do I need to do that? What I want to do is be honest with myself.

I’ve got anxiety. You know, it’s not terrible at this point in time. You’re, you’re very. You know, easy person to talk to. And, and you’ve already told me that if I say stupid things, you can chop it out and make me look good. So, you know, that’s taking the pressure off. Right. But I’m not faking it. I’m being honest with myself.

I’ve got racing heart. I’ve got anxiety. My self doubt is chipping in. It’s early in the morning and I may well kind of garble what I’m and your first question about the game really threw me as well. I wasn’t expecting it. So all of that stuff showing up there. But why do I need to fake that? Why do I need to tell you, oh, yes, I’ve got no anxiety.

I feel great. Let’s just be myself, be real with you and be real with me. You know, no faking.

Kimberley: Right. So the golden question here is how does one. Lead with confidence. How does one act with confidence, behave with confidence or, you know, and you can sort of just, I love dispelling the myth. So like, what does it look like for someone who is listening today, who.

feels that they don’t have enough confidence to do the thing they want to do. How might they do that?

Russ: That’s a great question. I think what we need to do is kind of have a look at when someone asks that question, what they’re really saying is this, I can’t do the things that I want to do unless. Self doubt, anxiety, and fear of failure disappears.

As long as I’ve got these uncomfortable feelings in my body and these kind of uncomfortable thoughts in my head, I can’t do what really matters to me. And so the first question I would want to ask as a therapist would be, Okay, I wave a magic wand. And all of this anxiety and self doubt, all those difficult thoughts and feelings, it’s like water off a duck’s back.

It just has no effect over you. Then what would you do differently? What would you start doing? What would you stop doing? What would you do more of? What would you do less of? How would your body posture, your facial expression, the things that you say and do, what would that look like? What would be different?

And so help each person to kind of get their idea of what it is that they want to do differently. Bye. And then the aim is to start doing that stuff while making room for anxiety, letting it flow through you, while unhooking from all that unhelpful mind chatter, so it doesn’t pull you out of what you’re doing.

So confidence can look very different for different people. I’m in a setting now where, uh, where Because so many of your listeners are, you know, dealing with anxiety, I’m kind of opening up and talking about mine, but perhaps in a different setting with a different audience, I wouldn’t be doing that. You could argue that, you know, confidence is being able to share what’s really going on.

Deep inside you and share that with people that might be in this particular setting, but in a different setting, it might not be that, you know, so it varies. So I guess each person really needs to ask themselves, what would I be saying and doing differently if I wasn’t letting these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings dictate my actions, dictate my choices.

Kimberley: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in the book, you actually have some prompts and I went through it even myself and sort of journal down like the answers you’d ask some questions about how I would act and what would I do, how would I be with the relationships or showing up at work and so forth. And I thought that was a really great way to get really clear from a bird’s eye, like what would it look like if I did have components in this one area?

And I’ll share for me. I’m really confident in many areas and not confident in others. It’s not universal across all areas of my life, so it was great to sort of isolate those. What I thought was really cool is you listed the five reasons people lack. self confidence in the book. You said excessive expectations, harsh self judgment, preoccupation with fear, lack of experience and lack of skill as those reasons.

And that really spoke to me, for me, like in the area that I wrote down. So do you have anything you want to share about those five reasons that people do?

Russ: Yeah, I think the first three are sort of Fairly self evident out there, you know, people judge themselves and can’t do it and that kind of stuff the sort of Preoccupation with their own feelings.

I’ve got to get rid of this anxiety. It’s kind of often Perfectionism I’ve got to do it perfectly I’ve got to do it brilliantly comparing yourself to others all of that is just going to ramp up our Anxiety and make it harder for us to focus on what we do and you know you’re a big advocate of mindfulness and Probably one of the most important things about mindfulness is it just helps you do things better.

If you’re not focused, if you’re not engaged, if you’re distracted, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. You’re not going to do it very well. The more focused you are, the better you’ll do it. So if you’re all caught up in your thoughts or you’re preoccupied with your feelings, your attention is diverted away from the thing that you’re trying to do.

And it’s inevitable then that your performance or your ability to do that is going to go down. Lack of skills and lack of experience, you know, are also very important like the first time I hopped on a bicycle. I was in my early thirties. Um, since then I’ve been on a bike about four or five times and I can manage to stay up for about four or five minutes.

Before I fall off the bike, you know, and I’m not particularly motivated to learn how to do it. But let’s suppose that I was let’s suppose I said to you kimberly, you know It’s like, um, I want to ride a bicycle, but i’m not gonna do it until I feel confident. What would you say to me?

Kimberley: What would I say? I would say do it, not confident.

Russ: And if I said to you, well, but no, I’m not confident enough to get on the bike. What would you say?

Kimberley: You’re going to have to practice, like do lots and lots and lots of reps and it’ll get easier with time.

Russ: Exactly. You know, it’s. you know, what any parent would say, my, my parents never taught me to ride a bike, but parents that do teach their kids to ride bikes, this is what they tell them.

Of course, you know, you will fall off and you’ve got to fall off and you’ve got to wobble all over the place. And of course you’re going to feel scared. It’s only once you’ve been riding that bicycle over and over and over, and you know how to correct your balance and do all that stuff, then. Then your anxiety will reduce and then your ability to ride will get better and so one of the key things in in the confidence game i guess is uh you know playing this game better so that you can get more of what you want is this basic idea that the actions come first the feelings come later you can’t expect.

Realistically to feel confident at something until you’ve done it over and over and over and over again, develop the skills, develop the experience. Like, for example, if you’re playing guitar and you may play for hundreds or thousands of hours in your bedroom and be really good, but if you haven’t had the experience of playing guitar in front of a large audience, then the moment you get out there to do that, there will be lots and lots of anxiety.

So it’s not just about the skills. It’s also about the experience. And. Here’s the thing. When you first start learning a new skill or trying out a new challenging experience or stepping out of your comfort zone, obviously, at that point, it’s unrealistic to feel confident. You just have to do the practice over and over again.

Then, if you’re lucky, after you’ve practiced thousands and thousands of times and done it so that it really comes naturally, then you may start to get those feelings of confidence. But initially, can I make room for the normal and inevitable anxiety that goes with learning new things and leaving your comfort zone?

Kimberley: Yeah. And I love that you listed these cause nearly every, as you’re talking about it, I’m thinking about a couple of examples with myself is one of the reasons I think we. Don’t give ourselves a chance to have the experience is our excessive expectations that I’ll get it right within a couple of guys, that it should be easy once I do it a couple of times, but it usually takes like dozens to feel confident mastering something.

And I do think too, so many people, especially on social media, I hear all this talk about imposter syndrome of people imposter, I have imposter syndrome when really it’s just that they haven’t. Done it enough, .

Russ: Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I think there’s kind of, I, I think you’re right.

I think there’s a significant subset of people that haven’t done it enough, and their imposter syndrome is a realistic appraisal of that. It’s another, there’s another group of people that have done it really well and then the mind says, well, you still need to do.

20 years ago, I think it was, I remember going to a big conference. It was, it was a therapy training conference and a presenter asked, you know, would someone here volunteer a sort of negative narrative or story that you have about yourself? I put my hand up and I said, well, I’ve got this story that I’m a lousy therapist and I don’t know what I’m doing.

Um, presenters said, yeah, I have that one too. You know, hands up, uh, who else in the audience, uh, has this narrative? Almost every hand in the audience went up. And that’s when the light bulb went on for me. I thought, wow, therapists are really screwed up, aren’t they? But what I’ve realized is that, you know, the imposter syndrome is common whether people, you know, whether it’s appropriate because they don’t actually have the skills or knowledge, but it’s also quite common in people who actually really are doing things very well.

And I found it quite common in high achievers, you know, as long as I work really, really hard, you know, no one will find out that I don’t know what I’m doing, you know?

Kimberley: Which it does. And then it’s obvious, like, that’s why these are so interwoven. They’re often very self judgmental, you know, they’re high achievers, but they hold the expectation so high and beat themselves up if they make a mistake.

And so I love that you identified those because I think it’s an easy way for us to catch. What’s actually sort of, it’s, it’s not our ability to do the thing. It’s usually these things.

Russ: Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, thank you for highlighting that because it is simple. If you lack the skills, if you lack the knowledge, then imposter syndrome is telling you that’s what you need to do.

But if you’ve got the skills and you’ve got the knowledge, then imposter syndrome is just your mind, you know, just giving you a hard time because of course we. all want to do well and we don’t like it when we fail and that’s just that your mind’s kind of relatively unhelpful way of trying to help. It’s kind of saying watch out, you know, you’ve got to do this well, you don’t want to get, you don’t want bad things to happen, but it’s um, I kind of quite often talk about your mind as like an overly helpful friend.

You know, have you Kimberly had one of those overly helpful friends in your life that was just trying so hard to help they became a nuisance? Um, yes, you’re, you’re willing to say that on, on YouTube.

Kimberley: For sure. For sure. And they’re usually well intentioned, but it’s so unhelpful and it’s so. Makes things harder.

Russ: And, and so kind of, a lot of the time when our mind is doing this negative self talk and it’s saying, I need it. It’s really just trying to help. It’s basically when it starts judging us, it’s just kind of saying, look, you need to do these things. You need to pay attention to these things. When it starts warning us of what might go wrong, it’s trying to protect us.

It’s trying to keep us safe. Unfortunately, it’s just doing it in a very unhelpful way. So we want to be able to learn how to. Unhook from that and find more effective ways of kind of steering our actions, uh, through tuning into our values and, and really thinking it through what are effective actions that I can take and what’s going to be more helpful and useful here.

Kimberley: Yeah. So I want you to share a little more than that, but first I just want to go back to one thing that’s coming to mind. Forgive me because I can’t remember the name of the person, but someone has a TED talk about the research of standing in a Superman pose. To get confidence, which I think might be sort of where the fake it till you make it view comes from.

Like, you know, if you stand before you, and I’ve had clients say that that was helpful, but what is your stance on that model to gain the confidence to do the things? Cause you, you beautifully at the beginning of the book talk about the actual goal isn’t confidence. The goal is to do the things you want to do with your life.

What are your thoughts about the Superman pose?

Russ: I think the way it’s commonly portrayed is as you say, it’s part of the fake it till you make it. Let’s look confident here. But if you actually think about that posture, it’s a posture that’s very effective for taking action. It’s a posture of openness.

It’s a posture where you’re grounded. Your feet are on the floor. An exercise that I often do in my workshops, uh, this exercise that I got Steve Hayes, actually, who I believe is you’ve had on the show before is I’ll ask people to get into a posture. That represents you at your worst dealing with the challenges in your life.

Um, just about everybody gets into this posture where they’re hunched up, you know, they may be curled into a ball or sometimes there’ll be in this aggressive posture where they’re fighting, but it’s kind of scrunched hunched posture. And then I kind of say, now get into a posture that represents you at your best in dealing with the challenges in your life.

And everyone stands up, and they’re straight, and their arms are out, and their chest is out, and, you know, it’s this stance of, I am ready to take on the world. So I think of it in terms of, what Posture is going to help you take action. Uh, what posture is going to help you engage with your audience? What posture is going to help you take in the most information from your environment?

That does happen to be the sort of Superman pose, but it’s not about trying to control your feelings. It’s about preparing yourself for what you want to do. Um, and

Kimberley: I love that you spoke to that little nuance cause I think that’s really, really important. Okay. You talk in the book about the difference between a value focused life and a goals focused life.

Russ: Okay.

Kimberley: And the relationship with confidence. How might we use values? A lot of times we talk about values here on the podcast and I often get questions like I don’t really know what you mean, like what would that look like? So do you want to sort of share with your idea on, because it’s such a huge piece of the book.

Russ: Yeah, sure. I will. I’ll just also. Before I answer that, just let you know that, you know, my anxiety levels have really dropped now because I’m into the podcast, I’m into the flow, I’m kind of in the game, my hands are, the sweat’s kind of disappeared now. Again, this is what happens as we really engage mindfully in what we’re doing.

Let go of trying to control our feelings. Then they fluctuate, they vary, you know, probably if you asked me some really challenging question right now, then. Go up again, but, you know, this is the nature of anxiety. It fluctuates, it comes and it goes and so forth. So there’s different definitions of values.

You know, the confidence gap is based on this model called acceptance and commitment therapy act for short. And in the act model, we define values. You know, basically is desired qualities of action. So your heart’s deepest desire is for how you want to behave as a human being. Deep in your heart, how do you want to treat yourself?

How do you want to treat your body? How do you want to treat your dog and your cat? How do you want to treat your friends, your family? How do you want to treat your environment? So it’s basically how you want to Treat anyone or anything that you’re interacting with. What, what qualities do you want to put into that interaction?

So, you know, if, if I ask, you know, most people, you know, how do you want to treat your children? And I said, well, I want to be kind and loving and patient and fair and honest and open. And, you know, uh, so Those are your values when you’re losing your temper and yelling at your kids and shouting at them. Is that you kind of being who you really want to be?

Well, no, that’s you hooked by your anger and your frustration and treating your kids in a way that you probably don’t want to, you know, so it’s really just getting deep in your heart. What are the qualities that you really want to bring to your actions? Just that simple phrase. You know, how do I want to treat?

this person or this activity or my body or myself or whatever it is I’m interacting with.

Kimberley: So can I share a personal example of this? I’d be just curious. So as I did this, I was actually thinking of my children. I have a teenage child now and this is wonderful. I love this stage, but I’m also finding that my confidence Is wavering, it’s not consistently, it’s not going down, but it’s up and down depending on the hour or the day.

And I’m still showing up according to my values. I’m still loving and kind and firm, but flexible and so forth. But then I still will have moments, usually as you know, like late at night when your head hits the pillow where my brain then is not confident in how I handled things. What might you suggest for those who are showing up according to their values as best as they can?

Yeah, it’s not perfect.

Russ: Yeah, I’m glad to hear that. Yep.

Kimberley: Yeah. But the confidence is up and down and not consistent. How might I handle or somebody with a different scenario similar to handling those moments where confidence is on a downswing?

Russ: Yeah. Well, you know, the first thing is to recognize that’s normal.

When, if we just stick with parenting as the example, when your kids are doing things and you’ve experimented with different ways of responding and you found what works for them, then you get more confident. Ah, well, you know, if I lower my voice and I use this phrase and I kind of, you know, firmly state the case, then I know that, you know, Jess is going to respond like this.

And so you kind of get, but then one day you do it and Jess doesn’t respond that way. And she starts throwing things across the room. Then I wasn’t expecting that. So your confidence just disappears. Right. But again, it’s like, all right, so what’s my new way, you know, anxiety, I’m sure you’ve. discussed this many times on your podcast.

It’s a, it’s a useful emotion. Um, in, in many contexts, uh, it kind of heightens your reflexes. It raises your awareness. It gives you energy. It prepares you for action. So if you don’t fight that anxiety, you can actually utilize it to deal more effectively with challenging, stressful situations. And, uh, it’s kind of, The more challenging and unexpected the situation, the more likely it is you’re going to have anxiety and self doubt.

It’s going to come creeping in. But then we can come back to that older meaning of confidence, acting with faith. Well, okay, can I trust myself to experiment and try different things? And, you know, if I screwed it up on that particular occasion with Jess, we kind of, well, Can I talk to her about it the next day and, you know, address it from a, from a different space and a different perspective and come at it when we’re both a bit calmer and so forth, you know, so it’s that willingness to go back in and try again and try again until you find something that works because unfortunately people are.

Unpredictable at times. I

Kimberley: I know, I was going to say, why do they keep changing? Just as I master something, it gets taken from me.

Russ: I know, it’s terrible, isn’t it? And so, I mean, I just think the most important thing probably is, is just. to recognize it’s normal. Your confidence will fluctuate. And, uh, of course, self compassion is very important.

As parents, we’re going to screw it up over and over and over again. And I would be worried if I met someone who was absolutely confident in their parenting abilities and yes, I’ve got it all under control. I got my kids perfectly handled. I know, you know, I’d be thinking you’re probably a very, uh, Authoritarian parents, or you’re, or you’re just oblivious, you know, to all the ways in which you are less than perfect, you know, we shouldn’t aim to be a perfect parent, aim to be a good enough parent, you know.

Kimberley: Right. So thank you for that. That brings me to some questions that the listeners asked, which are more specific to them. One, it brought to mind, and I want to go is, they were saying, what about if I have no evidence? That I will, like you talked about beautifully, like the real unshakable confidence is just the faith that you’ll keep trying and keep going.

What if they don’t have any evidence at this point that they will be able to do this hard thing that they’re trying to achieve?

Oh, that’s a great question. Well, I mean, the first thing is, you know, that’s a very important question. Have you actually got the skills? Have you actually practiced it? Have you actually got at least some experience in that area?

Because if you haven’t, you’re setting yourself up for failure. You know, it’s not like one of those action movies where you can just jump in the cockpit of a helicopter. Oh, I think I can fly this thing. You know, that doesn’t work in real life. So, so have you got the skills? Have you done the practice?

Have you got the experience? That’s the first thing. Then, if you have, the next thing is just kind of recognizing there are no guarantees in life. You never know what’s going to happen when you step out the door. If you’re asking for guarantees. It’s a waste of time. You will not know. But what you can do is increase the chances through practicing, through trying things out.

You talk a lot in your podcast about exposure. You can think of this the same way, kind of, uh, do smaller challenges, practice in less challenging situations, then build up to more challenging situations, build up to more greater degrees of difficulty so that you gather that evidence. You can see for yourself, yes, I can deal with this.

Yeah, sometimes life throws knocks you around in ways that you couldn’t possibly prepare for and we all afraid of this. I don’t know how I would cope if X, Y, and Z happens, but in fact, most people actually cope much, much better than they expect. And so again, it’s like, all right, well, I’ll just do the best that I can with the skills and experience that I have.

And, uh, of course, anxiety is going to come along for the journey, but let’s make room for it. Let’s not fight it or run from it. If you’re asking for evidence that I know I will succeed, it doesn’t exist. There is no way. You know, if you read the autobiography of pretty much any famous person, whether it’s a rock star, business person, movie star, They’ll all tell you about their failures, like if they didn’t, it’d be a really boring autobiography.

Oh yes, I’ve just achieved everything and it was brilliant. There will be that kind of stuff, you know, going on.

Yeah.

Russ: There’s no guarantee.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Russ: But you can increase the chances by preparation, you know.

Kimberley: Yeah. Being willing to fall a lot of times on repetition. Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s, I think, a good lesson, I think.

Because the real, true, confident people are the ones who have fallen a lot.

Russ: Yeah.

Kimberley: And have gotten up and tried again. Yeah. I think that that is always surprising to people because I, you even referenced Michael Jordan in the book, I believe that he failed many games and lost many hoops and failed many layups to be the best in the world.

Russ: Yeah. On 26 games, he was trusted to take the game winning shot and he missed. 26 games.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Russ: But he’s considered the greatest basketball player in, in history.

Kimberley: Yeah. See, that’s just, it’s pretty cool. It’s sort of a relief to hear that. So another question somebody had asked is, how can we not let other people’s view of us affect our confidence?

Russ: Oh, well, again, you know, we’re social animals and other people’s view of us is important. So we have to be a bit realistic about this. We don’t want to be overly determined by other people’s point of views, but we don’t want to just completely neglect what other people think of us. That’s going to create problems too.

It’s about finding a balance. So it’s a very hard question to answer because it’s going to vary so much depending on the situation. There’s a general rule. Things you want to ask yourself, who is this person? What do they mean to me? How important are they in my life? You know, if this is a close intimate relationship, someone that I love, someone that I care about a lot.

Then hopefully this can be a relationship where we can talk about these things. If I’ve upset you or if I’m doing things that you don’t like, can we talk about it? Can we address it? And so forth. If it’s like a workplace situation where you have to present a, a new product or project to a big audience, some of who may be hostile, that’s a very different situation.

Part of your aim there is to win them over, but of course there’s going to be some anxiety and some doubts about that. Again, it’s just unrealistic to think you can go into those situations without any of that stuff showing up. So there isn’t a simple answer. You just got to, what’s the social situation?

Who is this person? What outcomes am I looking for? You know, I guess the most general advice I can give. is that don’t automatically buy into the judgments that your mind is coming up with. If you know your mind’s going to say, Oh, this person doesn’t like me, or this person’s going to judge me, recognize that’s an old story.

It’s been showing up your whole life. And again, this is your mind as an overly helpful friend. It relationships are important. Social interactions are important. Your mind’s just going, watch out, don’t screw it up, but it’s not doing it in a very helpful way. So, ah, thanks mind. I know you’re trying to help.

That’s okay. And then kind of come back and get present, open up, make room for the anxiety, come back to your values. Who do I want to be in this relationship? What do I want to put out there? And rather than being guided by that kind of voice in your head, be guided by your values. And, uh, yeah. Carefully track, pay attention to what’s happening in a close relationship, in a trusting relationship, you can ask the other person, say, you know, my mind tells me that you’re judging me and doing this, that is my mind on track here is my mind way off.

And hopefully in a, in a good trusting relationship, you’ll get an honest answer to that. That will be useful.

Kimberley: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s you sharing the book about diffusing from thoughts.

Russ: Yes.

Kimberley: And I think it’s, there’s a, there’s an activity in the book. And again, I really encourage everyone get the book because it’s really cool to go through, but an activity where.

You ask, what actions would you do? And then it says, like, what will your mind have to say about this? Right. Your brain might be like, I can’t do that. And I wouldn’t be good at it. Let’s say, let’s say in this case, we will use the example of someone has decided they want to do something. And face their fear because they’re sick of fear holding them back and they go to do it and their brain has a lot to say, it’s going to say, you can’t do it.

You won’t do it. Well, you’re going to be embarrassed. It’s going to go wrong. Maybe you’ll hurt somebody and so on and so forth. And you talk about learning the skill of diffusion. This is something I practice, and I’m curious to know what your thoughts are is, would you also practice that about other people’s thoughts about you?

Russ: Yeah.

Kimberley: Meaning, is what I’ll go, okay, they’re labeling them as thoughts, observing them as thoughts, but then if someone has an opinion about me, I also say, that’s their thoughts about me.

Russ: Yes, very much. That’s very useful. Or you can say, Oh, okay, mind reading again, or, Oh, yeah, right. Here’s that old, they won’t like me story, you know, anything that just helps you to kind of notice that thinking process.

And if possible, It’s often helpful if you can put a playful label on it. So, you know, that often takes a bit of the power out of it. Oh yeah, he’s that overly helpful friend or, Oh, thanks mind. I know you’re trying to help or, Oh, here’s the, you know, they’ll hate me story. You know, that kind of thing, you know, it doesn’t get rid of those thoughts, but it takes the power out of them.

You can see what they are and you can see that again, all of this stuff is just your mind trying to protect you. It’s kind of saying this is important. Watch out. You might get hurt. It’s just doing it in a very. inefficient way. And, you know, I think I also just wanted to pick up on a point that you made earlier that, you know, no one’s confident in every area of their life.

If you, uh, you’ll be confident in some areas and not other areas. And that confidence, again, usually relates to the amount of skill and experience you have in that area. If you take someone and you get them to do something brand new that they’ve got no clue about how to do, and they’re confident about that, Then we would call that overconfidence, we would call that misplaced confidence, we might call that psychotic optimism, you know, this is what happens.

I mean, we see my backgrounds in medicine and every year. There are doctors that get struck off the list because they do operations that, uh, exceed their skills and their experience. They become overconfident and think, yes, I can do that. And they kill people, you know, it doesn’t happen very often, but you know, there would be at least.

One case a year where something like that happens, you know, and we see this in businesses when the CEO becomes overconfident and, and of course, we see this with criminals when they get overconfident, they end up in prison. So that’s probably a good thing, but I’m laughing the, uh, you know, you don’t expect to feel confident at things that you don’t have the skills and experience to do.

So no one can be confident in every area of their life.

Kimberley: Yeah. And that’s the piece I think too, that I’m so glad you mentioned is so often, what, why would we expect ourselves to be confident facing fear? It’s a scary thing. It’s, it’s, but wait, I’m actually going to renege what I just said, because you even mentioned in the book that you can have fear.

How did you word this so beautifully? I’m going to be mad at myself. You talked about. It’s not the presence of fear based on the research, it’s where their attention is. Does that make sense? Let me read. Let me go. It says research show, here I found it. Research showed that the presence of anxiety did not reduce test performance.

It showed that anxiety was similarly high, but the differentiating factor was the task focused attention.

Russ: Absolutely. Yeah. So when anxiety is high, can I keep my attention on the task? So in Australia, the big. The big national sport is AFL, Australian Football League, which is very different to European soccer, as you would know, being an Aussie.

Yes. Um, and you know, so AFL is huge and lots of AFL teams now, uh, kind of adopting the ACT approach, when if you run out onto a pitch in front of 40, 000 spectators, not knowing if your contract is going to be renewed with all the pressure on you, you’re going to have high levels of anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. You can’t, under those circumstances, run out onto the pitch feeling calm.

Even if you could, that wouldn’t be a good thing to do. That would be an example of what psychologists call relaxed incompetence. You know, your anxiety actually enhances your performance. A lot of people, a lot of sports people, a lot of business people, a lot of movie, you know, actors don’t even call it anxiety.

They’ll call it an adrenaline rush, or they’ll talk about being revved or amped. It’s the same experience, it’s just a different label. So you want that. You need that. If, as that player, you’re giving all your attention to the feelings of anxiety in your body, instead of the ball and where it’s going and your other team players and where they are, then you’re going to be in trouble.

Your performance is going to go down. So it’s not about the anxiety.

Kimberley: That’s so true of an exposure when you’re facing a fear, too, I think.

Russ: Yeah, absolutely. When

Kimberley: we put too much attention on The fear and not on the thing that the goal in which or the value in which you’re acting from.

Russ: Yeah, absolutely.

Kimberley: Amazing. Amazing. Listen, I want to be respectful of your time. I could ask a million gazillion more questions, but maybe one day we’ll have you back on the show to talk about more things.

Russ: I’d love to come back.

Kimberley: Is there anything that you feel that you want to sort of say to bring it home in terms of people gaining the confidence they need to do the thing they want to do?

Russ: Well, I think, you know, in the book I’ve put lots of inspiring quotes, but the one that I like best is from the great American writer, Ernest Hemingway, who said, the first draft of anything is shit. And I love that, you know, uh, it’s, uh, it’s like, I’ve written 10 books now and it’s always hard to get started.

Uh, you know, my mind’s always like, Oh, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I come back to that quote for a long time. I had it written on a, on a stick it note, which I had on my computer. And it’s just, you know. The first draft of anything is shit. Give yourself permission to do it badly, do it poorly, whatever it is.

And then you’ll learn from that experience. And then next time it’ll get a bit better. The second draft might be a little bit less shit and the third draft might be a little, you know, and then after 10 drafts, maybe you’ve actually got something fairly decent, you know, yeah. It’s the same for riding a bike or parenting or all of these things, give yourself permission to do it poorly and then learn from that experience.

So, you know, personal growth comes from stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new things. And that means. There will be discomfort. That’s why we call it the comfort zone. Discomfort usually takes the form of anxiety and self doubt. Step out of the comfort zone, make room for the anxiety, do it over and over and over and over again until you’ve built up the skills and the knowledge and the experience that you need to do it at least reasonably well, and then you have genuine confidence.

Kimberley: Mm. Thank you so much. Where can people hear about you, get in contact with you, read more of your books?

Russ: Well, my best known book is actually The Happiness Trap and the, the, the website that goes with that is the happiness trap com. So that’s probably the best place.

Kimberley: And I have to say, I am the biggest fan of the Illustrated Happiness Trap.

Russ: Oh, lovely. Yes. Yeah, the, the little pictures and cartoons that really,

Kimberley: that was brilliant.

Russ: Oh, thank you.

Kimberley: Amazing. It’s one of my favorite books. It’s a book that I have all my clients read at least once a year because I feel like it’s something we need to go back to over and over again to pick apart new, new tools and new ideas.

Russ: Oh

wow. Oh gosh. That’s fantastic. Lovely. .

Kimberley: Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. I’m so grateful. Anytime, you know, we, we can support you. Let us know.

Russ: Thanks so much. It’s a pleasure.

Kimberley: Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbtschool. com should not replace professional mental health care.

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