Competence and Confidence

Today in class we had to present a business idea and pitch it in front of our 25 classmates. I’m usually someone who HATES speaking up - I don’t like the attention, I worry about what other people think, and I get scared that I’ll forget what I’m meant to say.

But alas, I couldn’t avoid it today when our lecturer made us do it. The entire time other people were presenting, I could only focus on trying to perfect my own presentation in my head.

I hated every step I took to get to the front of the class. But I did it anyways. I don’t remember most of what I said, except for the fact that I stumbled about five times, repeated the word ‘like’ about twenty times, and ended my pitch with the words ‘so…yeah!’.

But what really struck me was what my professor said after it all. He said he was glad to see all of us do it, because even though not all of us may have had the confidence, we all had the competence.

That really stuck with me - not only because the words were a beautiful alliteration and rhymed, but because I realised how often I confuse the two. If I’m not confident about something (which can happen often) I automatically resort to thinking that I must not be competent at it - but that doesn’t always have to be the case.

Realising this made me wonder how many opportunities in life I must have missed until now just because I didn’t feel confident, even though I might have had the skills. My only hope is that I can carry this idea with me into the future and be a little braver each time I reach the end of my comfort zone.