Every time I talk to a badass woman, no matter her age, her position in life, her job… she mentions the C-word as a hurdle to overcome. I wanted to dig a little deeper and learn what makes women feel confident as well as what research has to say about confidence.

I found that there are plenty of tricks and tips we use to make ourselves feel more confident in the moment and those are all excellent boosters! However, from research, I also found that real, deep and lasting confidence can only be achieved in certain areas: those we practice, pay attention to, and act upon.

Let’s dig into the research:

Before you ask…yes, there is a relationship between our levels of confidence and our DNA. The good news is that only 25-50% (various researchers’ opinions differ) of our confidence level depends on our genes which means that we have at least 50% to work with!

There are plenty of reasons women seem to feel less confident than men (e.g., the tendency to dwell on failures, not owning our achievements and attributing them to luck, impostor syndrome, etc.); but for this post, I want to focus on solutions.

Here is what Katty Kay and Claire Shipman (Authors of The Confidence Code) offer as a definition of confidence:

Confidence is the stuff that turns thought into action.

Basically, what this means is that if we think we can succeed, we move into action but if we are not 100% sure, we might procrastinate, or simply default to inaction. Does this sound familiar? It sure did sound it to me! It’s all about our assessment of our capability.