Celebrating a Decade as a Confidence Coach
As I’m celebrating a decade being a confidence coach, there are still days I marvel that I get to do this work. Particularly because the first 40 years of my life I thought confidence was something you either had or didn’t have. And I didn’t really have it.
Despite a successful fifteen-year corporate career in the medical devices space, I never felt truly confident, and I certainly had no idea that how we feel about ourselves is something we can change (insert mind-blown emoji here!).
But doing a complete career change just after my 40th birthday blew up a lot of what I thought I knew and forced me to find a different way.
What I now know is this: waiting to feel confident is what keeps many women stuck much longer than they need to be.
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Confidence Isn’t the Foundation
For years I’ve shared about the misconception that confidence comes before taking action. Many of us wait until certain conditions are met, thinking that’s when we’ll feel confident – once we (fill in the blank): lose the weight, get the degree, find the relationship – once some condition is met, THEN we’ll feel confident.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. We need to get into action in order to build our confidence muscle. But even then, it’s going to fluctuate. And that is because confidence is not the foundation – we must go deeper to create lasting results and transformation.
Trying to skip that step results in frustration and exasperation towards yourself: “I have done this huge thing, why in the world am I holding back from taking action towards this?!” The reason is because your self-concept has not caught up with you. Your ‘internal operating system’ needs an update.
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How It Shows Up in Daily Life
How this shows up in daily life, most frequently:
– Procrastination
– Imposter syndrome
– Overthinking
– Perfectionism
When you rely on confidence, you end up in a cycle of hesitating, overthinking, holding back – not because you’re not capable, but because you don’t feel ready yet.
And that delay comes at a cost.
The cost of missed opportunities, the cost of reduced visibility, the cost of wasting immeasurable time thinking and rethinking. Bottom line: a slower path to the level you’re already capable of holding.
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The Real Work is Expansion
Because beneath confidence sits something far more influential: your self-concept.
The way you see yourself – your identity – drives your internal operating system.
And when your self-concept doesn’t match the level you’re stepping into (or already in), something subtle happens: you pull yourself back.
So, the real shift isn’t “how do I become more confident?”, it’s “how do I expand the way I see myself?”. Expanding what you believe you are capable of and what is possible for you. This is the key.
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Where This Becomes Real
There was a time in my life when my circumstances could have easily defined me.
Around the age of 7, I began losing my hearing. As I slowly lost what started out as normal hearing and speech, over the course of 15 years, my parents took me to a plethora of hearing health professionals to get to the bottom of what was happening and any solutions to stop it.
During that process, my parents were told I wouldn’t graduate from high school and not to encourage me to attend college as my hearing would likely be so bad by that point that I would flunk out.
In my darkest moments I feared living out my life in my parents’ basement on a farm outside a tiny town (population 1,200!) in northeast South Dakota.
But despite that information, something deep within me knew that somehow, some way, that was not going to be my future. I was determined to not allow it to be. And as I write this from my home on the French Riviera, it indeed hasn’t been (HUGE shout out to Danielle Steel novels for showing me what could be!).
What I understand now is this: circumstances don’t define your trajectory, your identity does.
Spoiler alert: no cause was ever discovered, and I did go completely deaf by age 22, but I’ve been a successful cochlear implant user since 1997.
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This Is the Work We’re Stepping Into in London
If you’ve ever found yourself holding back your voice, questioning your readiness or capabilities, or wondered if you are ‘enough’ to step to a level you desire, this isn’t just an idea, it’s a pattern.
And this conditioning comes at a cost – usually in every aspect of your life. Because the longer you wait to feel ready, the longer you delay the level you’re capable of holding and operating at.
This is what we’ll be stepping into deeper when we’re together at the London Women Thrive event.
Not just understanding self-concept and expansion, but recognizing it, in real time, where your identity is still playing smaller than your capability. My mentor, Dr. Claire Zammit, refers to this as “your inner glass ceiling”.
To help you begin alleviating this old conditioning and outdated internal operating system, I will be sharing my 3-step, Self-Concept Shift. This tool will allow you to walk out of the room and begin taking immediate action towards expanding your self-concept.
And when your self-concept expands your confidence stabilizes, your visibility increases, and your impact grows.
Name: Angela Irwin
Professional Title: International Confidence Coach & Speaker
Bio: Angela Irwin is a TEDx speaker and international Confidence Coach helping women expand their self-concept to unlock confidence, visibility, and leadership. Blending psychology, neuroscience, and 15 global corporate leadership, she challenges women to be seen before they feel ready – and also champions access to sound through her nonprofit.
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