Confident by Choice summary

Confidence is like a scorecard, right? Every time something goes right, we give ourselves a point. Someone says “yes” to a date – bing – point for confidence. A boss gives us a raise – bing – another point. And when life hands us rejection or failure the points painfully slip away. 

While we carry that score around in our heads, we tend to envy those shiny, good-looking types who always know what to say. They always have more points. Maybe they were even born with a surplus.

Actually, no. That idea is way off base. Confidence isn’t handed out at birth. Confidence is something you do. Think of it less as a noun and more as a verb – something active, something you can build and practice.

The musician Ed Sheeran is a perfect example of everything that confidence isn’t. Confidence isn’t genetic, and it isn’t reserved for extroverts or those who don’t experience insecurities. When Sheeran was young, he had a lazy eye, a stutter, and red hair that caused him to stand out even more. He was bullied so much that he cried before school most days. 

But the turning point came when, to help with his stutter, his uncle handed him an Eminem album. And it worked! After memorizing every lyric and rapping along, Young Ed actually trained his way out of his stutter. By sixteen, he dropped out of school, moved to London, and began grinding his way through the music scene. While most people played a gig once a week, Sheeran clocked in over 300 shows in his first year.

Sheeran still struggles with self-doubt, but he uses it as motivation to continue practicing and improving. He chooses confidence. He built up the courage needed to step out on stage, night after night, knowing that sometimes it’ll go well, sometimes it won’t.

The thing to keep in mind is that confidence doesn’t magically appear after you’ve mastered a skill. On the contrary, confidence comes before competence. It’s what gives us the courage to start. It’s that little fire in you that says, “I can do this.”

Science backs this up. Researchers have shown that confidence grows through small steps. You take a risk, succeed in a tiny way, and that win gives you proof you can handle more. Then the cycle repeats, slowly building you up until you actually have control over your confidence.

This is what the author calls the Confidence Cycle. It begins with micro-energy – the spark of excitement about an area you want to improve. Then comes micro-courage – just enough bravery to push through the discomfort. Next is micro-action – taking a small step forward. And finally, micro-proof – the evidence you gain from having done it, which fuels your next round of confidence. 

Over the next four sections, we’ll get into the finer points of each of these stages.