building confidence and taking risks

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I recently coordinated a book club for Moms with daughters in middle school and high school.  The goal was to bring a group of women together to read some books on raising tween/teen girls.  We could share our triumphs and our struggles and prepare ourselves for these years as they often come with unique challenges. This month we read The Confidence Code and our daughters read The Confidence Code for Girls.  I cannot recommend these books highly enough and honestly the information is relevant whether you are raising boys or girls. Today, I am going to share two main things I learned from the book that can help you build confidence in your children and yourself.

Having studied psychology, I thought I knew a lot about confidence but this book got me to think about it in a different way.  Confidence is a complex and muddy construct.  It is not the same as self esteem or self image, although they are related.  Confidence is part genetics, part nurturing and environment, part hormones (testosterone makes us take more risks) and part choice.  Yes, that is right, we can choose to become more confident.

The book is laden with interesting interviews, examples and research and I found all of it fascinating but two parts have stayed with me the most.  One is about risk taking and the second is about decision making.

The authors conclude that part of building confidence is the ability to take risks.  I think I am a rather confident person.  I make decisions easily and I don't question my decisions (another key component of confidence).  But I rarely take risks.  If there is a choice between safety and risk, I choose safety EVERY TIME.  If I find something I like at a restaurant, I order that same thing every time.  I don't push myself outside of my comfort zone at all. And I have kind of rationalized this as "I like what I like." But this book reminded me that I need to take more risks in my life.

"Nothing builds confidence like taking action, especially when the action involves risk and failure.  Risk keeps you on life's edge.  It keeps you growing, improving and gaining confidence.  By contrast, living in a zone where you're assured of the outcome can turn flat and dreary quickly.  Action separates the timid from the bold."  

From The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, pg 141

The authors found that by taking small repeated risks, we build up confidence.  And by offering our children "graduated exposure to risk"  we are giving them opportunities to succeed and to learn from  small failures.  They state, "Confidence, at least the part that is not in our genes requires hard work, substantial risk, determined persistence and sometimes bitter failure (Kay and Shipman, pg 123)."  I realized that I am not doing myself nor my kids any favors by living my life risk free.  I do an okay job of letting my kids take appropriate graduated risks but I will admit it is not my initial instinct.  My instinct is to protect them fiercely.  However, my end goal is to raise strong, independent confident people.  So, I have been able to push them to take risks and deal with my own anxiety about it. However, I am less likely to do the same for myself.

One of my children is a fabulous risk taker.  In fact, in 66 days, on his 18th birthday, he is going to jump out of a plane and skydive! While I am having heart palpitations simply writing that, I am SO PROUD of him.  He is looking fear in the face and doing something that scares him.  He forces himself to do scary things every day and he is inspiring me to face some of my own fears and take some risks too.  All of my kids are better risk takers than I am.   And I am proud of all of them. Kate is applying to be a student ambassador at her brand new school this week even though she doesn't know anyone else doing it.  Will is trying so many new things this year and looking for internships all over the country and traveling abroad this January. But I have not been a good role model for them as far as this goes.  I am a huge encourager but I would like to model bolder, more risk-taking behavior.  So, I am taking their lead and I am going to try to push myself to take graduated risks every week.  Honestly, making the video on IG when I have a cold and writing this post after a two year hiatus even felt risky for me.  But I am also making an appointment with yet another professional to help with my fear of flying.  I plan to ask my kids weekly what brave things they are doing and how they are pushing themselves.  And I plan to show them that Mom is taking risks too.

The second area that we can help our kids become more confident in is decision making.  The ability to make decisions and feel good about our decisions (even if they don't work out) is key to confidence. How does this translate into parenting? We need to empower our kids with more decision making opportunities.  I see so many parents making every single decision for their kids. I think they do it for ease and to save time but let me tell you that when they get to high school or college, there are huge decisions they need to make on their own.  We need to let them practice with small decisions while they are young.  We need to communicate and remind them when they have made good decisions.  And when they make a bad one (and we all do), we need to help them reframe it to see what that decision taught them for next time.

There are so many other fabulous nuggets of wisdom in this book but I wanted to share just a few today.  I encourage you to take more risks in your life and support your kids in doing so too. Let me know in the comments one risk that you'd like to take.


Note: The Confidence Code is for adults and The Confidence Code for Girls is best suited for middle school girls.



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