You’re Not Untalented, You Just Don’t Have Enough Delusion

When platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn put everyone’s success on display, it seems like it’s only the girls with thousands of followers, the guy with a dad in the industry, and the folks with enough money to spare who are making their dreams happen. If they’re the ones dominating, is there room for the rest of us to succeed? Absolutely, yes. But the key to personal success includes a secret ingredient: “delusional” confidence.

Confidence is home-grown.

Your confidence is as unique as a thumbprint. It forms from your experiences, your environment, and the people around you. But if you don’t know how to embrace home-grown confidence yet, fake it ’till you make it! Eventually, the act starts to feel real. Take a lesson from this twenty-something city girl’s playbook. I live in Las Vegas, and I’ve been in some incredible spaces simply because I walk into rooms and act like I belong. From getting behind DJ booths to invites to nights out with some of Vegas’s chicest people, confidence revolutionized my social life. It’s even enhanced my professional life, landing me in meetings with some of Las Vegas’s top decision-makers. There’s nothing wildly special about me, I just have “delusional” confidence. If I can access these opportunities, why can’t you?

Confidence is only “delusional” by comparison.

When you dream big, spectators will label your dreams as lofty and unrealistic; as “delusional.” Sure, every big dream was, at one point, “unrealistic.” But embracing the belief that your dream is unachievable is limiting, and it risks shorting your own potential. Sincere confidence is immunized from the influence of comparison. Others’ experiences should not define your own. Assessing your confidence relative to others converts a meaningful solo practice into a competition. And if you expose your confidence to improper influences like this, you’ve already lost.

Confidence is a daily exercise.

Practice makes perfect. The more calculated risks you take, the more organic the practice feels, and embodying confidence will become all the easier. On the day-to-day, calculated risks might be as simple as talking to a group of strangers at a coffee shop, or as bold as cold-emailing the CEO of a company you’ve always wanted to work for. As you make confidence a practice, you will inevitably try and fail. But the risk is worth the reward because trying guarantees that the chance of success is always greater than zero.

Delusional confidence is a sincere, unrestrained belief in your ability. And it’s only “delusional” if you adopt the limiting belief that your dreams aren’t possible.

To maintain healthy confidence, here are three helpful habits to exercise every day:

1. Sincerely trust yourself. Or at least fake it ’till you make it.

2. Take calculated risks. Prove your own resilience.

3. And when you fail, try, try, try again.

   
   

With these habits, success is inevitable, and you won’t need any special privileges or advantages. So when you achieve all you’ve ever wanted, and the time comes to celebrate your successes, be sure to raise your glass and make a toast to delusional confidence.