I’ve had hundreds of conversations with women who are struggling. Successful women. Smart women. Women who have built careers, raised families, led teams, and shown up for everyone around them. And in all of those conversations, I’ve noticed a pattern that I can’t stop thinking about.
They’ll use every word in the book to describe what’s going on, except the real one.
They say they’re “overwhelmed.” They say they’re “stuck” or “burnt out” or “just not feeling like themselves lately.” They talk about how they can’t seem to get started on that big project, or how they second-guess every decision at work. They describe scrolling job listings but never applying. Sitting in meetings with something important to say but staying quiet. Saying yes when they mean no, because saying no feels too risky.
They’ll describe all of it in vivid detail.
But they won’t say the word.
Confidence.
More specifically, the lack of it.
Why We’ll Say Anything But That
Here’s the thing about self-doubt: it’s incredibly good at disguise. It doesn’t always show up as someone cowering in a corner or refusing to leave the house. Most of the time, it shows up as busyness. As perfectionism. As overcommitting, overthinking, and over-explaining. It shows up as the woman who’s incredibly capable but somehow never feels like enough.
And because it wears so many faces, we end up treating the symptoms instead of the actual problem.
We optimize our schedules when what we really need is to work on our self-worth. We read productivity books when what we really need is to stop believing we have to earn our place at the table. We call it imposter syndrome, which, by the way, is just self-doubt in a blazer.
There’s also something about the word “confidence” itself that feels almost too vulnerable to say out loud. Saying “I’m not confident” can feel like admitting a fundamental flaw, like you’re broken in a way that everyone else somehow isn’t. So instead, we talk around it. We intellectualize it. We reframe it as a leadership challenge or a mindset issue or a personality quirk.
But here’s the truth: no matter what word you use to describe what you’re feeling, if you’re holding yourself back, shrinking in moments when you know you should be stepping up, or constantly questioning whether you’re good enough, that’s a confidence issue. And it deserves to be called what it is.
The Signs Are Everywhere (Once You Know What to Look For)
Low confidence and self-doubt don’t always look the way we think they do. They’re not always obvious. In fact, some of the highest-achieving women I know are quietly battling self-doubt behind the scenes. Here are some of the ways it tends to show up:
You over-explain and over-apologize. You add “just” to your emails. You say “sorry to bother you” before asking a totally reasonable question. You soften every statement with a disclaimer so nobody thinks you’re too much.
You hold back your ideas until someone else says the same thing. Then you wish you’d spoken first. But next time, you still wait.
You need external validation to feel okay about a decision. You know what you want to do, but you can’t move forward until three people tell you it’s a good idea.
You compare yourself constantly. Her Instagram. Her promotion. Her confidence. You’re convinced everyone else has figured out something you haven’t.
You call it being a perfectionist instead of calling it fear. Because perfectionism sounds productive. Fear doesn’t.
None of these things mean something is wrong with you. They mean you’re human. But they also mean you’re dealing with self-doubt, and the longer you go without naming it, the longer it gets to run the show. If you’re ready to start doing something about it, my 7 Confidence Building Tips for Women is a practical place to start.
Why We’ve Been Sold a Lie About Confidence
A big part of why so many women struggle to even say the word is because we’ve been given a completely distorted picture of what confidence actually is.
We’ve been told it’s a personality trait. Something the bold, outgoing, loud people were born with. If you’re naturally quieter, more introverted, or prone to reflection, the message has been that confidence just wasn’t in the cards for you.
That’s not just unhelpful. It’s wrong.
Confidence isn’t something you have or you don’t. It’s not a fixed trait you’re either born with or permanently without. It’s a skill. It’s something you build intentionally, one small decision at a time. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, speak up when it matters, take the action you’ve been putting off, or choose your own perspective over someone else’s criticism, you’re building confidence.
This is the foundation of the REAL Method™, the framework I’ve used with coaching clients and share in my book, REAL Confidence. Real confidence isn’t about never feeling doubt. It’s about learning to move forward anyway. It’s about developing the kind of inner stability that doesn’t collapse the moment things get hard or uncertain.
And it starts with one thing: being willing to name what’s actually going on.
The Moment Everything Changes
The women I’ve watched transform their careers, their relationships, and their sense of self didn’t start from a place of total certainty. They didn’t wake up one day suddenly full of confidence. They started with honesty. With themselves, first.
Not “I’m burnt out and I need a vacation.” Not “I just need to get more organized.” Not “I’m struggling with my mindset lately.”
They said: I’m dealing with self-doubt. And I want to do something about it.
That shift, from vague frustration to clear naming, is where everything changes. Because when you can name something, you can address it. When you keep calling it burnout or overwhelm or “just stress,” you stay busy treating symptoms. When you call it what it is, you can start actually building something different. I go deeper on what that looks like in practice in It’s Time to Overcome Your Self-Doubt.
You don’t have to feel confident to start working on your confidence. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be at rock bottom or going through some major crisis. You just have to be willing to tell yourself the truth.
You’re Not Broken. You’re Ready.
If any of this landed for you, I want you to hear something: the fact that you’re reading this and nodding along isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you. It’s a sign that you’re paying attention. It’s a sign that some part of you is ready to stop dancing around the real issue and start doing something about it.
The elephant in the room has a name. And once you’re willing to say it out loud, it loses a lot of its power.
Self-doubt is real. The struggle is real. But so is your ability to move through it and come out on the other side with a confidence that’s genuinely unshakeable. If you’re ready to take that next step, grab a copy of REAL Confidence and let’s get to work.
That’s not a personality type. That’s a choice. And it’s one you can make.
