How Awkwardness Can Make You Confident (Yes, Really!)
Confident people are masters of awkwardness.
If you’re in that liminal space—where you know who you are inside, but you’re not showing up as that person in the outside world—this one’s for you. If you feel like you’re stuck behind a glass wall, watching yourself perform a smaller version of your life while the real you waits to be activated—this is the key.
The Myth of “Natural” Confidence
We treat confidence like a personality trait.
We assume it belongs to the pretty people, the wealthy people, the effortlessly cool people who always seem to have it all together. And because we don’t feel like those people, we assume we’re not built for confidence.
But let me offer you a different frame:
Confidence = Experience.
That’s it. That’s all it is.
Confidence isn’t magic. It’s exposure. It’s repetition. It’s familiarity. You’re not confident because you’re special—you’re confident because you’ve done the thing before.
So what happens when you haven’t done the thing yet?
You get awkward.
Uncomfortable.
Clumsy.
Cringe.
Awkwardness Is the Bridge
That awkward phase you’re trying to avoid?
That is the path to confidence.
Let’s say you’re stepping into entrepreneurship for the first time. You’ve worked jobs your whole life. You’ve never built a business. Why do you think you should feel confident doing something you’ve never done?
You shouldn’t.
Confidence in entrepreneurship comes after you’ve stumbled through launching things, rebranding them, changing your offers, getting ghosted, flopping your first sales call, and still choosing to keep going.
It’s not a flaw that you feel awkward right now.
It’s proof that you’re in the right place.
Awkwardness is just the transition state between where you are and where you’re going.
Master the Skill of Awkwardness
Yes, awkwardness is a skill. And you can train it.
When you start treating awkwardness like any other learnable skill—like playing guitar or learning a new language—you stop judging yourself for not being good at something right away.
You allow yourself to practice.
To suck.
To keep going.
But most adults avoid new experiences altogether because we don’t want to feel the embarrassment of being bad at something. We associate awkwardness with failure, when really it’s just data. It’s part of the learning curve.
And if you can master the skill of awkwardness, you unlock the real prize: courage.
Training Your Awkward Muscle
Want to start a business but afraid of looking stupid?
Cool. Don’t start the business yet.
Instead, go take a dance class.
Not because it relates to your business—because it doesn’t.
But because it forces you to practice feeling awkward in a low-stakes, safe environment. You’re sweating. You’re stumbling. You’re watching yourself move in a mirror while your brain screams you look ridiculous.
And yet—you keep going.
That’s the muscle.
Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between dance-class discomfort and entrepreneurship discomfort. All it knows is that your heart is racing, your armpits are sweating, and you’re still choosing to stay.
That’s exposure therapy for your next-level self.
Awkward Now, Confident Later
The reason confidence seems so rare is because most people don’t survive the awkward phase.
They let the discomfort stop them.
They think awkwardness is a sign they’re not ready.
They misunderstand what the middle feels like.
But awkwardness is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign of progress.
So if you want to become someone who shows up fully in your life…
Start awkward.
Stay awkward.
Build your capacity to be seen in the mess.
Because the payoff is real, and it’s massive:
You stop waiting for the fear to go away.
You stop needing perfection to start.
You become someone who moves—regardless.
That’s courage.
That’s leadership.
That’s the gateway to the life that’s actually yours.
TL;DR? Confidence is the reward.
Awkwardness is the training.
Courage is the bridge.
Walk it.