When it comes to boosting people’s confidence, we hear the same pieces of advice all the time:
The problem with these phrases is that they assume people can simply build up courage on their own to achieve their goals. It makes us think that if we just put in the effort and try hard enough, we can become confident.
A lot of the times, we can’t.
“I knew there was something wrong about him.”
How many times we heard someone say this, or thought this in our heads? Whenever we feel conflicted about someone we meet, we hear the same thing over and over: “trust your gut.”
We might spend days, months, or even years trying to figure something out. Is there a good chance of succeeding in this new job? Should I trust her? The wheels in our head spin as we think of all the variables and how they’ll play out.
And still, we keep hearing that we should just listen to our instincts. Complicated questions, simple answer. What should we do, and where did this whole idea of the gut instinct come from, anyway?