We often connect our confidence to external factors - for example, you may feel confident when you get a job promotion or you have a new hair style or you receive a compliment from your manager. This is known as conditional confidence because you feel confident because of a particular reason. If these external factors change though (for example, you get demoted or lose your job; you have a bad hair day), and if you haven't internalised the feeling of confidence, then your confidence can go when the external factor goes or changes. 

When confidence is linked to external factors, such as your manager’s approval, or your friends loving you organising everything in your group, there is the additional risk that you won’t take certain actions that are right for you, for fear that this confidence will take a dip if you do something they don’t like. For example, maybe you need to let your manager know of a problem that will have long term business impacts but you know they won’t like to be made aware of this so you don’t tell them; or maybe you don’t have the time or energy to organise the tickets for the festival this year but you push yourself to do it anyway as you don’t want to face the disappointment of telling your friends you can’t this time. 

On the other hand, non-conditional confidence is accepting yourself and having self-worth regardless of any external factors - you are separating your feelings of self-worth from your capabilities. If you don’t receive a compliment you still know you have value; if you have a bad hair day you know that you offer more to the world than just great hair. I think non-conditional confidence is true self-confidence because you are totally trusting in yourself in any given situation. It is still nice to get a compliment from your manager or friend but this is then the ‘cherry on the cake’ and not the whole cake.

When you struggle with imposter syndrome you often will experience conditional confidence - you only think you are good when you do X/Y/Z [perfectly]. You may have linked your confidence to your ability to do a particular skill and this is generally on a scale of competence where you need to feel like you achieve a minimum standard, which is often much higher than anyone else would have set. You don’t always value yourself, your journey, and the effort it takes to sometimes just show up and try. You have said to yourself, on some level, that you will only feel confident and worthy when you have achieved X rather than appreciating yourself and having self-worth now whilst still striving and working towards a goal.

If you have a sense of self, and understand yourself and your values, you have non-conditional confidence. It is independent of your skills and circumstances. You are unaffected by external factors because you have disassociated your feelings of confidence with specific situations and value yourself as an individual. I know this sounds vague and quite spiritual, but it is an important concept so you can understand how you are currently viewing your world, and to see if a different perspective may be more useful to you. 

A practical way of doing this is to stop focusing on the ‘how’ of a situation - how you will do a particular job, or perform a particular skill - and instead focus on the outcome you are trying to achieve - your purpose or ‘why’. The how is conditional on your ability to do certain things whereas the why is about something bigger than just the actions you need to take - it is your reason for doing it and this is non-conditional.

I talk more about this subject in my book which shares lots of strategies to help you overcome imposter syndrome. You can sign up for notifications for when it will be released here.