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The Reinforcing Loop
There’s a strange myth in modern culture, which is that we think confidence comes first. At school the loudest student was the boldest. They went first, they got chosen and they ultimately won. But that’s not how it works in reality. Confidence is not a personality trait. It’s a by-product.
On June 13th last year, I wrote something in a journal entry that felt simple at the time but has grown heavier the more I’ve lived with it.
The confidence acquired through an increase in competence is the result of an equal gain in clarity from developing that competence in the first place.
In other words, confidence doesn’t come from hype but from clarity, and clarity comes from competence. This is a self-reinforcing loop.
Let’s explore this loop in more detail.
The First Layer: Competence
Competence is earned in obscurity. It a capability developed through early-morning practice, through uncomfortable repetitions and from the confusion that makes you feel slightly stupid. In the gym, it’s learning how to lock in properly before you lift the bar off the floor. In Software Engineering, it’s stepping through a codebase until you understand why the system behaves the way it does and not just that it works. In parenting, it’s learning your child’s emotional patterns instead of reacting impulsively. Competence is built through friction.
Aristotle wrote:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
I agree with Aristotle, but I’d like to introduce a more complete picture. I believe that competence is repetition guided by attention and intention, not just repetition alone. This is the difference between pattern recognition and really understanding how something works under the hood. Therefore, I believe most people miss the point that competence alone doesn’t produce confidence. Plenty of competent people still feel like imposters. Why? It’s because they didn’t acquire the next layer. They lacked attention and intention necessary to build clarity.
The Second Layer: Clarity
True competence produces clarity.
You know you’re improving when confusion turns into intuition. Pattern recognition alone doesn’t foster understanding. It’s the difference between hearing and listening or watching and seeing. Conscious awareness is a pre-requisite to attention and intention. Attention and intention then takes you from recognition to intuition. You go from memorising steps to understanding systems.
You’re no longer asking “What should I do?” and you start to ask “Why does this behave this way?”. That shift changes everything and it also separates the good from the great. In athletics, you stop chasing numbers and start understanding recovery, adaptation and stress. In business, you stop chasing tactics and start understanding incentives, leverage and timing. In relationships, you stop reacting emotionally and start seeing dynamics unfold in real time. Clarity also reduces noise and when the noise reduces so does anxiety.
As Seneca wrote:
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Clarity shrinks the unnecessary ramblings and ruminations of the mind and you start to see what is actually going on. Then when you start seeing clearly, something powerful emerges…
The Third Layer: Confidence
Real confidence is quiet not rambunctious. It doesn’t need to announce itself, argue on the internet or over-explain. It doesn’t posture. It simply acts. When you understand how a system works, you stop fearing the unknown or the uncertain. Imposter syndrome dissolves not because someone told you you’re capable but because you understand the how, the why and the what. In other words, you’ve seen the edges, so you stop being intimidated by the surface. This is why mastery feels calm.
As Bruce Lee said:
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
Again, a great quote about repetition, but I believe that repetition coupled with attention and intention leads to deeper understanding, and that understanding results in a calm and quiet confidence.
The Reinforcing Loop
Here’s the cool thing about this loop…
Confidence makes you attempt harder things and harder things demand new competence. New competence deepens clarity and clarity strengthens confidence.
This applies everywhere:
- The athlete who learns the mechanics of movement.
- The entrepreneur who understands cash flow and incentives.
- The academic who sees through theory into structure.
- The parent who understands emotion before reaction.
It’s a universal law of nature and it’s what makes humans dreamers and creators.
The Antidote to Imposter Syndrome
Imposter syndrome thrives in vagueness. When you only know what to do and not why it works, you feel exposed. You’re standing on borrowed certainty. However, when you understand a system or a concept from first principles, you can rebuild the system or that concept from the ground up, understand it’s strengths and weaknesses, consider alternative designs or approaches. That’s true competance right there!
A Final Thought
Natural confidence doesn’t exist. One’s willingness to be confused long enough to become competent is what leads the inevitable by-products that are clarity and confidence. You need to stay with the friction long enough for clarity to emerge and when clarity comes, confidence follows. This loop is available to anyone and everyone…
- under a barbell.
- behind a keyboard.
- at a kitchen table at 2am with a crying child.
- inside a classroom.
- inside a business.
- inside your own mind.
Confidence is not given. It is grown and it is earned. Slowly. Deliberately. From the inside out.