How come some are confident without money, status, OR looks?

Today I want to share a “WAIT, WHAT?!”-moment with you. (It’s one of those moments when you find out that something you’ve believed your entire life doesn’t hold true.)

I always used to assume that self-confidence is a product of having the right looks, money, and status.

Following that logic, what you need to become truly confident is to either to look better, make more money or earn more social status, right?

Well, if that’s true, why is this then the case?

1. Why have I come across several good-looking people with terrible self-confidence?
2. Why have I have come across even more not-at-all good-looking people with amazing self-confidence?
3. Why do I have several wealthy friends (both self-made or rich parents) who are still awkward and lack confidence in social settings?
4. Why do I know loads of people who live paycheck to paycheck who have an abundance of self-confidence and social status?

These observations reveal that money, looks and status don’t seem to be a straight path to confidence.

Here’s where you probably expect me to argue that there’s no correlation between success and self-confidence. But here’s where we arrive at my “WAIT, WHAT?!”- realization:

While being well off won’t automatically make you more confident, it does work the other way around: Acting with confidence will make you better off.

You could say that I had walked around believing that the sun rises because the day breaks. In reality, the day breaks because the sun rises.

When we act with confidence, we become more attractive. (Because self-confidence is attractive.)

When we act with confidence, we become better off in life. (Because we need to take certain risks and divert from the safe path to find success.)

Read more: How to have a high social value.

Nowadays, I ask myself:

1. What does my inner, cautious voice tell me is the SAFE thing to do?
2. What do I actually know is the RIGHT thing to do? (To do what I truly want in life.)

Luckily, we can learn to act with confidence even when we don’t feel confident: We can accept that it’s OK to be afraid and make the right decision anyway.

Doing the right thing instead of the safe thing is the essence of acting with confidence.

How confident we feel when we start off is irrelevant. What matters is our actions.

Confidence is what we do every day.

Read more: How to be more popular.

So enough about me. I’m interested to hear about you. At what points in life have you decided between what’s RIGHT and what’s SAFE? I’m interested to hear about your choices in the comments below!