The Duality of Confidence When You're Over 50

by Wendy Perrotti

Are you more confident than you were when you were younger?
Are you less?

If you answered YES to both you're not alone.

There are, in fact, very legitimate reasons for "feeling more confident and comfortable in (your) own skin" one minute, and wondering "what happened to my confidence – why am I constantly getting in my own way," the next.

You're not crazy.

The truth is you've had years of weathering gossip, judgment, and well-meant advice that hurt more than it helped.

Hopefully, you've also started appreciating yourself (a bit?) for all of the wins, big AND small, along the way.

Chances are, you've also lived through some things that you thought would kill you but didn't.

This well-earned lens of discernment and agency is a major confidence booster. Of course you're more confident than ever.

I'm betting all of that life experience and wisdom has also lead to your wanting to try some new stuff, shake things up or lean into the next new evolution of yourself, and THAT's probably when your confidence flails.

In those moments, you may find that you’re even LESS confident than your younger self.

Here’s why.

Your brain is much, much more likely to embed the memories of things that did not go well in your life than the ones that did. (It thinks it’s protecting you by doing this.)

Because of that, your internal database is skewed to your real-life negative experiences. The more experiences (aka years), the more negative the database.

So, when you’re taking on something new (and therefore risky) – your database shoots out a whole lot more warnings than it did when you were younger.

And that erodes your confidence.

The good news is there’s a relatively easy fix.

While your brain may not have embedded all the little wins along the way, it DID let you hold onto anything that had some emotion attached to it.

And after all these years, you’ve got a bunch of those stored up.

The next time your confidence is flagging, close your eyes and conjure up some of those triumphs. Don't forget to include the horrid times that your thought would kill you but didn’t. They count.

Bottom line, you’ve actually got much more evidence of success (you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t) than failure. It’s just that your wiring keeps the failures front and center so you need to flex some mental muscle to recall the good stuff.

I promise, it’s worth the effort.