Where does confidence come from before you have experience?
It’s often said that confidence comes from experience or competence. The more you do something, the more confident you become.
But what about the first time? That first day at a new job, that first time giving a presentation. By definition, on your first try, you have no experience. So where do you find the courage to even begin?
Anxiety around a lack of confidence often comes from irrational beliefs, such as “I must be perfect on my first attempt.” If you hold this belief, the anxiety triggered when you aren’t perfect can put your body into fight or flight — at the exact moment you need to be calm, thoughtful, and present.
A core idea of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is that we can change these beliefs to more rational ones:
Irrational belief: “If this doesn’t go well, I am a failure.”
Rational alternative: “I’d strongly prefer this to go well, and I’ll do my best — but if it doesn’t, it means I’m a beginner, not a failure.”
Notice the difference in how each belief feels in your body. The first tightens; the second steadies. That steadiness is where first-time courage actually comes from — not from experience you don’t yet have, but from a belief that gives you permission to be new at something.
(This post is a placeholder demonstrating the blog pipeline — Ruth’s full articles migrate here from Blogspot in step 8.)