Discomfort is key.
As a kid who grew up in domestic violence shelters, I’m very familiar with discomfort.
The discomfort of being the new girl at school over 20 times. The shame of being the girl with an alcoholic father. The embarrassment of being the daughter whose mom spoke with a strong Polish accent in an area where everyone else sounded the same. The physical and emotional discomfort of being a child living in a shelter or government housing in areas other people avoided. I was the kid who showed up at birthday parties with embarrassingly cheap gifts (like stickers from a cereal box — this stands out as a particularly uncomfortable memory).
Back then, being uncomfortable wasn’t optional for me. I didn’t choose those circumstances — and yet I feel stronger because of them.
My challenges and successes as an adult — like building a side hustle as a life coach that became a full-time business — taught me I actually need discomfort to know I’m on the right track. It’s a necessary hurdle you face as you navigate change. And as an adult, I know change is usually worth it. My childhood experience assured me that I would be able to handle the scary emotions as I built my business and even encouraged me to lean into them. Very few people are willing to tolerate uncertainty and rejection. And frankly, that’s why so many people don’t realize their dreams.
I don’t run from that awkward, unpleasant feeling because I know now that discomfort is OK. Avoiding it feels like taking a weakening drug.
Discomfort is an inevitable part of many life experiences, and I’ve learned that being comfortable in discomfort is the secret to confidence, which is the gift my early challenges left me with. If you want to seek out and create an expansive life, there’s no getting around the feeling of being afraid sometimes (or a lot of the time).
As an adult, I’ve moved countries three times, sought out opportunities some people said I was unqualified for (like launching a tech career in NYC with no college degree, which I did successfully), and then left that well-paid tech career to pursue life coaching. Through all of those risky decisions, I had one thing on my side: my tolerance for discomfort.
Authentic confidence is simply a willingness to be uncomfortable.
Think about that for a second. If you’re willing to be rejected, wrong, or laughed at (fill in the blank of any scary future-tripping experience right here), you become unstoppable. If you’re sitting there saying, “I can’t do that,” you’re wrong. We can all afford to be just a little bit more willing to step out of our comfort zone. Willingness to experience negative emotion makes you powerful. It puts you in the arena to win.
And this means that anyone can, in fact, become more confident.
Over the years, I’ve identified six key habits that authentically confident people tend to share:
1. Identifying their priorities
What is it that’s most pressing to you right now? When our goal is greater than our fear, we’re more willing to be uncomfortable in the pursuit of it.
If falling in love is your priority, then online dating is going to be worth the nerves to navigate. If building a business is your serious dream, putting yourself “out there” is going to be a daily discomfort. When you’re clear on forging ahead toward what matters most, an undercurrent of being uncomfortable almost all of the time is something you’re willing to put up with.
2. Setting boundaries
I’ve never met a confident, boundary-less person. Have you?
Boundaries can feel scary to enforce, which is why we avoid them. We say yes when we mean no. We’ll add one more thing to our plate because that co-worker needs your help just one more time, doesn’t he?
When we’re in our integrity (and in a place of confident, calm steadiness), we say what we mean. That means we don’t contort ourselves to please others. We’ll choose a fleeting uncomfortable exchange, “Actually I can’t help with that right now, Mark!” to achieve longer-lasting comfort so that we can use our time and energy on our priorities.
Canadian addiction expert Dr. Gabor Maté shared on my podcast recently, “If you have to choose between guilt or resentment, choose guilt every time. Resentment is soul suicide.”
Boundaries even with a side of guilt are healthier than the alternative.
3. Connecting to something bigger than them
The most confident among us often work with a bigger picture, whether it’s a contribution to society, a deep sense of faith, mysticism, or an intuitive inner calling. This fuels us.
When we know that the actions we’re taking, the thing we’re creating, or the work we’re doing comes from something deeper than our own personal gain, we stay on track. When someone has a strong why that’s personal to them), this makes the required discomfort worth it.
4. Taking very little personally
This is perhaps the holy grail of authentic confidence.
At our core level, we know that if we fail or mess up somehow, it’s not the end. We all have a history of failures (or as I prefer to call them, “unwanted outcomes”).
Failure is unavoidable no matter who you are. The thing we really fear is the judgment we receive around perceived failures from people we love, from people who will say “I told you so,” even from strangers on the internet.
If you’re holding back on starting a podcast or launching a side hustle, for example, you will not succeed if you live in fear of receiving a virtual rotten tomato (as in, a single negative review or comment).
I’ve come to realize that the real struggle comes from thinking criticism shouldn’t happen.
Herein lies the freedom: It should happen. No one on planet Earth is an exception when it comes to not being universally adored. It will happen, especially the more you succeed. Can you let it be and not argue with it?
5. Risk-taking
When our tolerance for discomfort is there, we’re not afraid to take bigger actions.
In so many cases, success is a result of simply having your hat in the ring and taking the volume of actions required to win. Most people “play it safe” without realizing that there is, in fact, risk with inaction.
When we don’t act, take risks, or remain willing to fail (hey, we’re OK with being uncomfortable, right?!!) something terrible happens: Nothing.
What’s an action that feels risky right now that could, in fact, pay off? And if a fear of discomfort around an imagined outcome (she rejected me!) wasn’t holding you back, what action would you take today?
6. Self-reliance
In my opinion, self-reliance is the most valuable quality a person can possess. It’s the knowledge that we’ve “got ourselves” when unwanted outcomes arise.
Life is nothing if not unpredictable and always changing, but what about your inner steadiness? That’s up to you. When we can tolerate discomfort — which is little more than a feeling — the world opens up to us. We receive more of what we want. We get luckier. People wonder about that secret gift we were born with.
“Aren’t some people just naturally confident?” is a common question I receive. And it’s something most people assume — just like, “He’s tall. She has blue eyes. He’s confident.”
As if it’s fixed.
It’s not.
The question isn’t, “So, how can I be more confident?”
The real question is, “Well, am I willing to be uncomfortable?”
Susie Moore is a world-renowned life coach, author, and host of the top-rated Apple podcast, Let It Be Easy. She’s a sought-after expert for media outlets and has been featured on the TODAY Show, Good Morning America, Dr. Oz, Business Insider, Forbes, Oprah, The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, and Marie Claire. Check out her podcast.
