CONFIDENCE

Overcoming
Low Self- Esteem,
Insecurity,
and Self- Doubt
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, PhD
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First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
PROFILE BOOKS LTD
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
www.proflebooks.com
First published in the United States of America in 2013 by
Hudson Street Press, a member of the Penguin Group (USA)
Copyright Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays, Bungay, Suffolk
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 78125 196 6
eISBN 978 1 78283 017 7
The paper this book is printed on is certifed by the 1996 Forest Stewardship Council A.C.
(FSC). It is ancient-forest friendly. The printer holds FSC chain of custody SGS-COC-2061
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Contents
1
Confidence Aint Competence 1
The Difference Between Feeling and Being Able 1
Me, Me, Me (the Narcissistic Society) 3
Wanting Versus Needing Confdence (and Coke) 7
Higher Confdence Does Not Cause Competence 10
Most Confdent People Are Deluded 12
Ignorance Aint Bliss 15
The Perils of Chasing Confdence 19
The Confdence- Competence Cycle 24
Why Feeling Down Can Be a Good Thing 25
The Confdence- Competence Grid 28
2
Taking Advantage of Low Confidence 35
You Can Beneft from Insecurities 35
Low Confdence Protects You 40
Low Confdence Helps You Improve 46
Being Other Focused 50
Successful People Are Rarely Themselves 53
If You Fake It Youll Make It 56
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viii Contents
3
Reputation Is King 61
If Character Is Destiny, Reputation Is Fate 64
Others Value Humility, Not Confdence 70
Everyones a Psychologist 73
Do Others Know What We Are Like? Do We? 77
Why You Should Care About Others Perceptions
of You 80
Self- Knowledge Matters More Than Self- Belief 84
4
A Successful Career 91
What Top Performers Do Better 91
Debunking Career Myths (Confdence, Talent, and
Arrogance) 91
Three Things Top Performers Do Better 102
How to Boost Your Career Confdence (Even Though
You Dont Have To) 112
5
Social Confidence and People Skills 117
How to Master Interpersonal Relations 117
Social Confdence as Presentational Strategy 121
The Toxicity of High Social Confdence 124
The Adaptive Side of Lower Social Confdence 126
How to Use Your Low Social Confdence to Enhance
Your Social Competence 128
Early Childhood Experiences Determine Your Social
Confdence (and Thats OK) 132
Turning Your Low Social Confdence into High Social
Competence 135
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Contents ix
6
A Loving Relationship 151
How to Boost Your Dating Confdence 151
Dating Confdence Is Not Dating Competence 152
Four Ways to Succeed in Romantic Relationships 158
Theres a Time to Fake Dating Confdence 168
7
A Healthier Life 179
Your Well- being Is in Your Hands 179
The Unhealthy Side of High Confdence 183
The Healthy Side of Lower Confdence 197
Low Confdence Extends Life 199
Earning Confdence (Through Well- being) 201
8
Easier Said Than Done? 207
All You Need Is a Bit of Willpower (and Low
Confdence) 207
Embracing Low Confdence 210
Success Is the Best Medicine for Your Insecurities 211
A More Competent You 215
A More Competent, Less Confdent World 217
Final Thoughts 220
Acknowledgments 223
Notes 225
Index 251
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Dear Reader:
If you picked up this book to increase your confdence, you
are not alone. Millions of people have low confdence and most
of them worry about it, not least because it is hard to boost our
confdence at will. The good news is that low confdence is less
problematic than you think. In fact, although society places a
great deal of importance on being confdent, there are no gen-
uine benefts except feeling good. In fact, lower confdence is
key to gaining competence, which is the only effective strategy
for gaining genuine confdence confdence that is warranted
by ones actual competence.
Confdence is feeling able and competence is being able,
but how are the two related? Too many people ignore this
question and simply assume that higher confdence is advanta-
geous per se. Although this assumption is unfounded, it has
nonetheless encouraged a mindless and often self- destructive
quest for higher confdence. Indeed, in much of the Western
world, particularly the United States, the assumption is that
more confdence is always better.
1
If it werent for this assump-
tion, you might not even be reading this book. There is no
reason to be ashamed of our low confdence.
The main difference between people who lack confdence
and those who dont is that the former are unable (or unwill-
ing) to distort reality in their favor. Thats right, the successful
distortion of reality is the chief underlying reason so many
people dont experience low confdence when they should.
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Whereas pessimism leads to realism, optimism promotes the
fabrication of alternative realities lying, not to others, but to
ourselves. There is no reason to envy people who appear con-
fdent, even if they are also successful; their success is usually
the cause rather than consequence of their high confdence.
The idea that we must do something about our low confdence
is by and large the result of popular myths, which are not hard
to debunk.
If you are concerned about your low confdence, this book
will teach you what you can do about it. The main lesson is
that you should aspire not to have high confdence, but to have
high competence, and I will show you how to make that hap-
pen. Confdence will follow more easily when you can back it
up with real accomplishments (and even then, it may be better
to remain relatively unassertive).
Approach this book with as critical and open a mind as you
can. Do not assume that the power to become instantly more
confdent is simply in your hands or that high confdence should
be your goal. Moreover, dont assume that having low confdence
will harm your chances of doing well in life. Or if you prefer to
make these assumptions, be ready to have them challenged.
Tomas Chamorro- Premuzic, PhD
February 2013
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)

1
Confdence Aint Competence
It is a clich that most clichs are true, but then like
most clichs, that clich is untrue. Stephen Fry
The Difference Between Feeling and Being Able
B
iographers are quick to attribute the success of eminent people
to their colossal levels of confdence, while downplaying the
roles of talent and hard work, as if it were in anyones hands (or
minds) to achieve exceptional levels of success merely through sheer
self- belief. In line, magazines and popular blogs grossly exaggerate
the role of confdence in determining fame and success. Consider
the following examples:
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No matter what you do, be sure to love yourself for doing it.
If you have confdence you will reach any goal you have;
but without it, you have no chance of being successful.
If you love yourself, your life will be perfect.
We all admire confdent people confdence is the most
important asset in life and it will always lead to success
and happiness.
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2 CONFI DENCE
We can all teach ourselves to be confdent and then all
our problems will be solved.
Confdent people are ten times more successful than
those who lack confdence.
There are three big problems with these types of claims. First,
it is not easy to make your confdence soar, just like that. If it were,
nobody would worry about low confdence; we would just extinguish
it like we do thirst or hunger. Second, even if we succeeded at delib-
erately boosting our confdence, it would not bring us any genuine
success. Contrary to what some biographers and self- nominated ex-
perts suggest, Barack Obama did not become the frst black presi-
dent in U. S. history because he was confdent; Sir Richard Branson,
the founder of Virgin, did not establish four hundred companies
because of his confdence; Madonna has not sold three hundred
million records because of her self- belief; and Michael Jordan, Mu-
hammad Ali, and Roger Federer did not achieve total domination of
their sports because they felt good about themselves. The reason
these exceptional achievers have confdence is that they are excep-
tionally competent. It takes an extraordinary amount of talent and
even more hard work to attain such levels of competence. In fact,
the only unusual thing about these peoples confdence is that it is
an accurate refection of their competence. This sets them apart
from the majority of superconfdent people, who are just not very
competent.
The third problem is arguably the most serious one. The illusion
that high confdence can help us achieve anything we want puts an
incredible amount of pressure on us to feel assertive, and to trans-
late that assertiveness into success. As a consequence, those who lack
confdence feel guilty and ashamed, and those who feel confdent
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Confidence Aint Competence 3
have unrealistic expectations about what their confdence will help
them accomplish. The high confdence premium is such that people
are prepared to do just about anything to attain and maintain ex-
treme positive self- views, equating feeling great with being great.
The result is a society that mistakes self- importance for importance
and self- admiration for admiration, driving more and more people to
be obsessed only with themselves.
Me, Me, Me (the Narcissistic Society)
Narcissism think Donald Trump or Paris Hilton is a state of
mind characterized by unrealistic feelings of grandiosity and in-
fated self- confdence. Narcissists are self- centered and feel superior
to everyone else; they pay no attention to negative comments from
others and dismiss negative feedback. Narcissists are also manipu-
lative and dont mind exploiting people in order to attain power,
fame, or success.
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The word derives from the Greek myth of Narcis-
sus, a beautiful hunter who was so self- obsessed that he paid no
attention to others. In order to punish him, the goddess Nemesis
attracted Narcissus to a pond, where he fell in love with his own
refection, not realizing that he was looking at himself. One version
of the story says Narcissus drowned trying to kiss his own image;
another version, that he remained on his own by the pond until his
death, infatuated with his own refection and unable to relate to
anyone else.
There are many reasons to suggest that we are living in a narcis-
sistic era. Indeed, the fact that you may worry about your low levels
of confdence is by and large the result of living in a world obsessed
with maintaining infated self- views and high levels of confdence.
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