How To Stop Performing Confidence and Start Owning It

Participating in the performance always felt off to me. When I see performers on social media, both professional and amateur, I find myself wondering if they’ve ever felt what I used to feel underneath the polish: hollow, terrified, and waiting to be found out. I’m intimately acquainted with those feelings from years of living that nightmare.

True confidence is harder to access than most people admit, and harder still when the version of yourself you are showing the world doesn’t fit quite right. 

The Performance I Gave

I used to believe people could see through me. That if I performed well long enough, I would eventually slip up and someone would notice the terror and uncertainty underneath and name it out loud. In those moments I could feel it physically. My cheeks got hot, a stomach drop and I would shake uncontrollably for a few minutes.

But they never did. 

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

I was never much of a social media performer, but I did put it on at work. I gave stellar performances that earned recognition and attention, which only made these feelings more intense. Because then what? I wasn’t equipped to handle what came with the success and attention I worked hard for. It usually led to some form of self-destructive behavior, a quiet way of sabotaging what I had built before anyone could confirm I didn't deserve it, or take it from me when I least expected it. 

It looked like choosing comfort over the discomfort of growth. Sometimes, I would disappear. Jobs left. Friends ghosted. My senses became overwhelmed and I would collapse inward, needing to retreat completely from everything I had built.

The Incongruence Nobody Talks About

Internally I felt so uncomfortable. I presented as confident and put-together, but carefully. Not too attractive, because too much makes people uncomfortable. I had become an expert at managing my own visibility.  

From the time I was a young girl, I learned I needed to occupy a very specific amount of space in order to keep the people around me comfortable. The discomfort of others taught me early that I was too much as I was. As an adult, I existed in a narrow band of acceptable visibility, calibrated to keep people close enough to approve of me but not close enough to really see me. That level of ongoing  self-management became exhausting in a way that was hard to pin-point until I stopped doing it.

When I pivoted into content creation, I could no longer maintain that calibration. The work required me to show up fully and own it, or fail. and the gap between who I was performing and who I actually was became impossible to ignore. The incongruence was costing me. 

What Confidence Actually Is

Confidence is experiencing mastery over your mind and body in situations that previously made you over-explain, collapse or disappear into what everyone else wanted. It’s not a destination. It’s a practice, built through small, consistent acts of self-trust, chosen repeatedly even when they feel uncomfortable. It’s saying no and standing on business. 

The feeling of being ready doesn’t show up before you act. It arrives because you act. It comes when you choose yourself rather than waiting for someone else to. The truth is, they are going to choose themselves. You should do the same. 

When you become the love of your own life and treat yourself accordingly, something shifts. Disrespect that used to feel tolerable starts to feel like what it actually is: unacceptable. And you find the clarity to handle it the way you would if someone were treating someone you loved that way. Because now, you do love yourself and you remember you are not that child who was vulnerable and had to tolerate things just to survive. 

You are not that child anymore. The one who had to tolerate things just to survive. You have choices she did not have. Use them.

What Owned Confidence Looks Like

Real confidence is quieter than you might expect. It’s not a performance and it doesn’t need an audience to confirm it. It comes from knowing you have your own back, regardless of who else shows up.

For me, confidence took on a very specific shape. I developed a mental Domme who acts as a bouncer you might see at a popular night club. 

She Gatekeeps me when I’m feeling scared, vulnerable or low.

My inner Domme if you will.

She lives in my head. A big, brown woman who is not afraid to tell me the things I subconsciously know, but don’t want to hear. She gatekeeps me when I am feeling scared, vulnerable or low. My inner Domme if you will. She helped me stop lying to myself. She was strong for me when I couldn’t stand up for myself. I haven’t needed her for a while, but I know she’s still there and knowing that matters.  

When I am honest with myself, I move with clarity and confidence. I recommend reading Whole Brain Living by Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a neuroanatomist, author, and public speaker. Taylor began to study severe mental illnesses because of her brother's psychosis. The book created a significant shift in how I understood and related to myself and others. It’s worth your time.

Takeaway Advice

One practice I recommend is looking honestly at the ways you might be lying to yourself. You don’t have to do anything about it yet. Just see it clearly and be honest with yourself about what’s actually there. 

You’ll know you are lying to yourself when you have a strong automatic emotional reaction to something someone said or did. It shows up as offense taken too quickly, a compulsion to justify or over explain your position, or a particular irritation toward someone who does a thing you can’t quite explain. That charge you feel is worth investigating. It’s usually pointing somewhere you haven’t looked at yet.

Sit with the discomfort and see what happens next. It doesn’t sound like much but this usually ends in having to admit some unflattering things about yourself, and that is where the real work begins.  

I believe in you. You can do hard things and you will be better for doing the hard things. 

Be uncommon.

Before you go, I want you to know something. If any part of this landed somewhere tender, that’s worth paying attention to. You are not too much. You are not too far gone. You are simply someone who is ready to stop performing and start living. If you need more than a blog post, please reach out. To me, to someone you trust, to a professional who can hold space for what you’re carrying. You are wanted here and worthy of the support. And you are more than capable of doing the hard thing.