Confidence
A resource sheet for artists who question their worth, their voice, or their right to be here
What Confidence Isn’t
Confidence isn’t loud and it doesn’t always feel like certainty. It certainly doesn’t erase self-doubt, and it doesn’t guarantee charisma, power, or ease onstage.
Confidence isn’t a fixed state you either have or don’t — it’s something that builds in relationship with experience, risk, and the possibility of failure. And it rarely arrives before you need it. More often, it shows up because you needed it — or because you acted despite its absence.
The Myth of Authentic Confidence
The idea that confident people are free from fear or doubt is a myth.
Some of the most outwardly self-assured artists are performing a version of confidence — a role they’ve rehearsed. It’s easy to confuse this polished surface with inner steadiness. But the gap between appearance and felt experience can be wide.
Real confidence is quieter. It makes space for uncertainty. It allows room for contradiction. It doesn’t need to pretend.
How Confidence Gets Built
Confidence tends to form through:
Repeated experience of competence
Encouragement from trusted others
Safe failure
A sense of agency or choice
Environments where dignity and growth are supported
Confidence tends to build in environments where effort is acknowledged, risk is tolerated, and growth is possible, not punished.
When that feedback is missing — or distorted — we may instead internalize:
I’m not good enough
I’m only valuable when I succeed
If I fail, I’ll be rejected
I shouldn’t take up space
These beliefs can become embedded, often without our awareness.
What Gets in the Way
Some artists were never given the space to explore freely, fail safely, or speak without correction. Praise may have been conditional, or withheld. Comparison and competition may have been constant. Confidence doesn't flourish in those conditions. In its place - vigilance does.
If you’re constantly monitoring how you come across, trying to match an ideal version of yourself, or shrinking to avoid criticism, it’s not because you’re faulty. You’re just adapting to a sector that often demands such acts of allegiance. You’re protecting something important.
But over time, the cost of protection can become too high.
A Few Shifts That Help
From performing confidence → to allowing uncertainty
From being fearless → to acting with fear present
From needing to feel ready → to being willing to begin
From self-judgment → to self-inquiry
From comparing upward → to returning to what matters
These shifts may not make doubt disappear, but they may soften its grip.
At The Green Room
At The Green Room, we often work with artists who feel unseen, stuck in self-doubt, or caught in a performance of confidence that no longer feels sustainable.
Counseling can offer space to:
explore the roots of internalized inadequacy
reconnect to what’s real and grounded in your work
restore a sense of agency that doesn’t depend on perfection or praise
Sessions are available in English or German, online or in Köln.
Final Thought
Confidence isn’t the absence of fear. It’s not a stable state or an ideal self. It’s something that flickers — and still carries you forward.
Sometimes it shows up in the quietest of ways:
When you take a risk without knowing the outcome.
When you return after failure.
When you speak — even if your voice shakes.
Confidence is not the flame. It’s the act of lighting the match.
Author: Heather O’Donnell - psychologist, artistic-systemic therapist and founding director of TGR The Green Room