Confidence

[LBQwomenchat]

Hey all,

At the Women's Programme HQ in Manchester at the LGBT foundation talking about confidence.

We want to know what makes YOU feel confident?

[valerie]

setting realistic goals and achieving them.

[scouser]

Money, love, respect, family, friends, friendly people. 

[Musette]

Age: realising finally that I don't give a stuff what other people think of me because life's too short to worry about it. And that, frankly, most people aren't thinking about me at all anyway.
I was trying to think of some other things but actually it all boils down to that, pretty much.

[Artist]

Believing in myself

[Chewwy]

Good feedback, from colleagues or friends.  Oh, and getting to where I'm supposed to be. 

[cigarettes and matches]

Same as Artist, believing in myself.

[theonlywayisup]

I'm confident enough. 

[Musette]

Believing in myself

But what does that mean? And where does it come from? Is it innate or did you have to work at it?

[Artist]

This is  a very good question Mussette.
When I read this question for the first time - WHAT makes you feel confident - it is asking us for outside source of our confidence. In my view that is contradiction.
What would happen if we are getting bad feedback at work, or being back stabbed or having deceiving friends? Or if we lose our job and money is tight? Then we still need to be confident that you will  find a job or be confident that you can improve your performance or have a confidence to evaluate some of our relationships and release negative ones from our life and find new positive connections.
So confidence is in my view, believing in yourself and not validating yourself against external influences. t is knowing yourself as well, so knowing where are your weaknesses and strengths so you can recognise if feedback you are getting is genuine and true.
So it is innate and you have to work on it - getting to know yourself. I learnt through interactions with different people - ones that were really good and deceiving ones. I think I learnt a lot from deceiving ones 

[Grey]

Age 
I'm not sure the ratio of confidence to survival skills
The experience of having gotten this far somehow is certainly a huge factor

[Musette]

^

This is  a very good question Mussette.
When I read this question for the first time - WHAT makes you feel confident - it is asking us for outside source of our confidence. In my view that is contradiction.
What would happen if we are getting bad feedback at work, or being back stabbed or having deceiving friends? Or if we lose our job and money is tight? Then we still need to be confident that you will  find a job or be confident that you can improve your performance or have a confidence to evaluate some of our relationships and release negative ones from our life and find new positive connections.
So confidence is in my view, believing in yourself and not validating yourself against external influences. t is knowing yourself as well, so knowing where are your weaknesses and strengths so you can recognise if feedback you are getting is genuine and true.
So it is innate and you have to work on it - getting to know yourself. I learnt through interactions with different people - ones that were really good and deceiving ones. I think I learnt a lot from deceiving ones 

Thanks Artist, that's a really interesting answer.
I think a lot of what you've described comes with age and experience (hence Grey's answer, and my own).
I've been around long enough, and am honest enough with myself, to know my strengths and weaknesses and to accept them. To know what I'm good at and what I want out of life and to realise that being confident plays a large part in achieving that.
It is an interesting question, and if I'd been asked 10, 20, 30 years ago, I'm sure I'd have given very different answers.

[scouser]

^ agree, but looking back for me, when I was younger, fitter slimmer, working without any responsibilities, i.e.: children etc..and money wasn't tight, I was very confident and self assured, or so I thought.
Like others have said, age, experience and the wisdom that comes with it is invaluable and thinking about now, although I am not financially secure, my confidence is better than it has ever been really!

[cigarettes and matches]

Having the confidence to try something new.  It may not work out but you won't know unless you try.

[Artist]

^ True. Getting out of your comfort zone, being confident in your potential.
Also to fall and raise again.