Many of our students lack confidence and want more of it. For example, our research team gathered goals from almost 2,700 students nationwide from 14 institutions, for almost 6,500 goals. One clear longing they expressed was a desire for confidence, articulated in their goals such as the following:
- “Improve my self-esteem/confidence.”
- “Build my confidence.”
- “Be more confident in my looks and body.”
- “Grow my self-confidence.”
- “Be self-confident.”
- “Be more confident with my actions.”
- “Be a confident person.”
- “Be more confident in myself.”
- “Feel more confident in myself.”
Every parent can relate. In fact, one study found that among European-American and African-American parents, self-maximizing goals, such as confidence in oneself, are often some of the top parental goals for their children (another study found this especially true for low-income mothers of daughters).
Furthermore, any professor can relate. You may have undergraduate or graduate students in class or as a mentee who are incredibly capable. Yet, they lack confidence. So, how should Christian academics think about and address their students’ lack of and longing for confidence?
Defining Confidence
When properly directed, we should realize confidence is a virtue akin to faith. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines confidence as “The mental attitude of trusting in or relying on a person or thing; firm trust, reliance, faith.” Not surprisingly, one of its earliest examples comes from the Coverdale Bible in 1535, “It is better to trust in the Lorde, then to put any confidence in man” (Ps. 118:8). A few translations of the well-known definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 also use confidence: “Now faith is confidence [hypostasis—only occurrence in the NT] in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1, NIV). Here, though, biblical writers distinguish different types of confidence. Paul could boast that he had reasons for confidence (pepoithēsin) in the flesh (Phil. 3:3-4) or what today we would call self-confidence.
Like the biblical writers, we need to distinguish between God-oriented confidence (a virtue), performance confidence, and “have what it takes” confidence. I sense most students wanting more confidence desire performance confidence, but any proper understanding of performance confidence must start with God-oriented confidence. As professors, we also should pass along “have what it takes” confidence.
Types of Confidence: God-Oriented
Our confidence should first be in God in three particular areas. First, we should not have “confidence in the flesh” or confidence in performance excellence when it comes to our salvation or our own or others’ sanctification (II Cor. 3:4-5). Hebrews talks extensively about this kind of salvation-informed confidence in Christ when we approach God (Heb. 4:16; 10:19).
We should also have confidence in God as our source of worth and value since we are made in God’s image. To denigrate ourselves or others who are made in God’s image is actually a vice (James 3:9). So, when it comes to thinking about one’s intrinsic worth, we need to teach students the habit of thinking highly of their intrinsic value as persons made in God’s image, no matter their “looks and body” (see my recent book, Unleashing the Image of God: Discovering Your Identity, Purpose, Vocation, and Character, for more about this topic).
Finally, our confidence is not in our human abilities gifted to us by God. Our gifts, planning, and strength can always fail, but God does not. God also produces the fruit of our efforts. Paul reminded his readers of this point when writing to the Corinthians:
You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. (2 Corinthians 3:2-5)
Indeed, any competence we have comes from God (Heb. 13:6). We can be confident God cares about us, keeps his word (I John 4:17), and hears our prayers (I John 5:14). Moreover, one cannot have too much confidence in God (though one must recognize that we should not put God to the test, Mt. 4:7; Dt. 6:16). Confidence in God provides the basis for healthy performance confidence.
Types of Confidence: Performance Confidence
Our library has over 300 books on self-confidence. The problem with this word is that it is too vague. After all, self-confidence usually stems from our performance in various identity domains, such as our professional, academic, social, athletic, or creative abilities.
Here is an example of what I mean by performance confidence. I remember not being confident in our basketball team during my senior year of high school. We lost some of our best starters and all of our size from our previous playoff team. Our tallest person was only 6’2”. Yet, I remember going to scrimmage with three Dallas teams from high-level districts before the season started, and we played great. Suddenly, I realized that I should have confidence in our team. This type of performance confidence stems from an accurate understanding of one’s own or one’s team’s performance or potential performance in comparison to the field.
Students likely feel they lack this type of performance confidence in various domains of life. I see it in my graduate students all the time. In fact, that is why one of my students is doing her dissertation research on imposter syndrome.
Three things especially help performance confidence. The first is simply deliberate practice that helps you develop the virtues or second-nature habits necessary to be excellent in a performance domain.1 Deliberate practice requires thousands of hours of practice under a mentor who can correct one’s mistakes and push one beyond one’s normal routines. Mentors are the ones who can and should help you obtain an accurate assessment of the performance confidence you should or should not have.
Second, with your mentor’s help, you can start making accurate comparisons regarding the practice or skill set in which you are participating. With my mentor’s encouragement, I started going to academic conferences and realized I could offer what I thought were better thoughts on a particular topic. We tell students not to compare, but the reality is that we want them first to have confidence in God and then have an appropriate amount of confidence in their performance abilities relative to their peers and the setting of the activity. Skiing a black diamond when you’re a beginner is not the right kind of performance confidence. But after deliberate practice, there comes a time when one is ready for the black diamond.
The third approach to confidence, however, is grounded in recognizing when you have undertaken the appropriate work and practice to achieve a particular level. I remember experiencing a moment of self-doubt right before one of my early career speaking engagements at a university. I felt a whisper from the enemy: “You don’t have anything to say.” I went immediately to the Lord at that time, but I also needed to remind myself of the extensive study I had undertaken on the topic I was speaking about. I had to remind myself of all that practice and study. I had to remind myself that I had what it takes because I had prepared for this moment.
Granted, we need to understand that confidence is only one element of excellent performance. For instance, a study of Olympic champions found ten important characteristics, and confidence was simply one of those. Here’s the list:
(a) the ability to cope with and control anxiety; (b) confidence; (c) mental toughness/resiliency; (d) sport intelligence; (e) the ability to focus and block out distractions; (f) competitiveness; (g) a hard-work ethic; (h) the ability to set and achieve goals; (i) coachability; (j) high levels of dispositional hope; (k) optimism; and (l) adaptive perfectionism.
If you switch out “sport intelligence” for the particular domain in which one is performing, this list could apply to any identity domain in which we hope to achieve excellence (e.g., academic, music, performance, professional, etc.). As academic and life mentors, our job should be to build all of these characteristics in our students.
Of course, there are plenty of people who have performance confidence they should not have. As a point guard in basketball, I tried to avoid passing to those people. They had much more confidence in their shooting or dribbling abilities than they should have had. In this respect, as opposed to confidence in God, performance confidence has Aristotelian virtue-like qualities in that we should not be too confident or underconfident.
You “Have What It Takes” Confidence
There is also a third type of confidence that I think these students perhaps lack. It is the confidence that comes from someone seeing your gifts and personality over time and telling you, “Have you thought about doing or becoming [fill in the blank].” When I listen to admissions interviews from students applying to our master’s degree in student affairs, over half the time, their journey began when someone told them, “I see these strengths in you; have you thought about a career in student affairs?”
Indeed, my own graduate school journey started this way. My father and I were shooting baskets in the driveway, and my dad made the offhand comment that I was the type of student who would probably go to graduate school. I had never thought about it until that time. Yet, when my father spoke, I gained the confidence to begin the quest for performance confidence and excellence. As educators, we should speak those words of confidence into our students when led by our Heavenly Father and Teacher, who also speaks them to us.
