Why is self-confidence so fickle?

I can be the most confident person in a room. And the least confident person in a room. Sometimes I can be both in the same room at different times. Why is self-confidence so fickle? Why can’t it stay consistent? After all, confidence is confidence. How can it vanish and disappear so quickly?

I suspect some of this has to do with impostor syndrome. Throughout my life, impostor syndrome swung like a pendulum between being my best friend and my worst frenemy. Impostor syndrome fuels my desire to hustle and holds me back from reaching my full potential. Basically, people who struggle with imposter syndrome believe that they are undeserving of their achievements and the high esteem in which they are, in fact, generally held. They feel that they aren’t as competent or intelligent as others might think — and that soon enough, people will discover the truth about them.

I wake up anxious every day even though everything is fine. It’s a travesty really because it holds me back from enjoying life, doing my most productive work and living my best life. What do I really fear? Worst case scenarios of all sorts. Losing a job, a loved one or just being a failure in general. Not being good enough or enough. But what if I flipped the paradigm and bet on myself?

Why don’t we believe in ourselves? That’s a question as old as time itself but it’s the key to unlocking the joy in the journey. We will do what we have to do every day but if we believe in ourselves, we can actually enjoy the process and realise that we are living the life of our dreams.

Instead of finding joy in work, we often find work in joy. Are we running after results or trying to enjoy the journey? That’s a tension point that runs through the thread of most of our lives in this hyper-capitalist age. And while there are no wrong answers, the noise around us makes it harder to discover the right answer for ourselves.

I think working is good but hustling is bad, at least for me and my mental health. I wasn’t born type A. I was actually a mediocre student but at some point during my O levels, I became a type A personality and student. Why did I become a type A student? Because I had a new best friend and he was the class topper. And I wanted to top him. I did end up getting the best O levels results in my class — even my parents were shocked. And that started my tryst with being type A.

The desire to hustle still comes to me in waves but I’ve mostly resisted it for years. It’s particularly pronounced when I’m at a high point or low point in my life — basically, when my motivation is the highest. But then it recedes as I come back to my normal state. That’s because ironically, I’ve worked hard to build a normal state where I’m happy without hustling. I play tennis thrice a week, do gratitude exercises every morning, don’t over-eat with intention but also let myself eat whatever I want, go to the park every evening with my daughter and have fulfilling weekends with the love of my life. All that said, my greatest source of achievement and fear of failure is still professional. And so the hustle bug refuses to go away.

This results in bizarre situations where I’m content but unhappy. And so to chase happiness and self-confidence, I start hustling. And then I lose my contentment in the process but I’m still unhappy, despite the hustle. I’ve been through this cycle enough times now to realise what I really need to do is hustle differently or re-define what hustle means to me. Hustle for me is a state of anxiety where I put work before everything. I’m not necessarily more productive or effective but I’m in a state of movement. I’m now coming to the conclusion that I need to learn how to both work hard and smart, without entering into the hustle trance of anxiety.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2024.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.