Losing Confidence is Normal When it is Not Deeply Rooted : Here is Why

Anonymous Client: I have lost my confidence. How do I find it again?
Me: Pardon me?

For me, what I’ve come to realize, and the philosophy I’ve chosen to embody after all I’ve been through, is that there’s no such thing as “confidence.” At least, not in the way we often speak about it in our modern, type A, high-achiever, performance-driven world. What does confidence even mean?

Before I lost everything that gave me the illusion of being confident, I thought I had it. On the surface, I was confident. I was an elite athlete in amazing shape, a good-looking young man excelling in school, relationships, and life in general. I wasn’t afraid to talk to women, and I was fully dedicated to my craft, motivated, and seemingly on top of the world, consciously.

But unconsciously, it was a different story, as I came to realize two years later during a struggle with a chronic, multi-systemic health condition. This condition stripped away everything I thought defined me: 50 pounds of muscle, my ability to train and play hockey, my energy to socialize and go out there in the world, and my drive to continue my studies. It removed my capacity to perform, and with it, my so-called “confidence.”

That’s when I realized my confidence wasn’t confidence, it was a sense of certainty rooted in my ability to perform. Can we truly call that confidence? I don’t think so, because when my ability to perform disappeared, so did my confidence. I also discovered that my confidence was a mask, one I wore to protect myself from the subconscious belief that I wasn’t enough. Deep down, like many others, I was just scared. I was afraid of failure so I made sure I did all the studies, all the books, the mindset, the protocol and the training so that I became confident enough to bypass this feeling of never being enough and the fear of not achieving my dream of being a pro hockey player. Deep down, unconsciously, I was just afraid of not being accepted and loved so I needed to make sure I was perfect everywhere including physically and emotionally.

In essence, my “confidence” wasn’t confidence at all—it was compensation. Real, unconditional confidence is something entirely different. Let’s dive deeper into this exploration of confidence.

The Difference Between Trust in Your Abilities and True Confidence

"To me, confidence is not only about how many hours you practiced, all the rehearsal you did, how your past experiences ended, it is much more about how you are grounded in a space of unconditional love within yourself and how free you are from your deeper subconscious beliefs of inadequacy, insecurity and scarcity."

A common misconception is: "Practice, and you’ll be confident." Yes, practice is a big part of having confidence in certain areas of life, like sports, our jobs, communication, etc. This is circumstantial confidence and to have confidence in your ability to do a free throw, you have to practice it. But when it comes to deep-rooted confidence, your confidence will not only fall to the degree to which you practice but also the degree in which you are able to be with every part of yourself, the story you tell yourself about who you are and the limiting belief you hold in your mind. Practice gives you certainty in your abilities, but it doesn’t build deep-rooted confidence. Think of it as putting armor on a weak body, it might protect you for a while, but how long can you have it on you without crumbling?

I’m absolutely not saying you shouldn’t improve your craft or abilities! But understand that these are tools to build certainty, not unconditional confidence. This distinction explains why some athletes are incredibly skilled but lack the confidence to speak publicly or why great public speakers might avoid activities outside their expertise to avoid feeling their inner experience of inadequacy and insecurity.

This isn’t true for everyone, but some people who excel in specific areas do so as a way to compensate for insecurities elsewhere. I strongly believe that no matter how  mastered you become in your craft, genuine confidence comes not from what you can do but from who you are at your core.

You Can’t Lose What You Never Truly Had

This seems logical, doesn’t it? But, unconsciously, we often act as though confidence is something external we can gain or lose. We chase material things, relationships, or physical perfection to fill the void within. We seek the car to feel this void, we chase the girl or guy to feel that we are enough, we build more muscle or lose weight to look better to have the feeling of assurance, but we try to fill a void with outside that can only really be filled with inner work.

For most people, what they call “confidence” is actually a fragile sense of assurance tied to circumstances. When those circumstances change, the feeling disappears. For example, an athlete might feel confident at their current level but lose that confidence when competing at a higher level. This “confidence” wasn’t grounded, it was conditional and based on what they could do, not who they were.

Unconditional Love: The Missing Piece

True confidence is directly tied to your capacity for self-love. Unconditional love means embracing all parts of yourself, the parts you’re proud of and the parts you’re not. Loving the “good” and the “bad” knowing there’s no such thing as a “bad” part of you.

Loving yourself isn’t about only celebrating your best moments; it’s about looking in the mirror on your worst days and saying, “I love you.” Why is this important? Because real confidence doesn’t disappear after a failure or a physical change, it’s rooted in your ability to love yourself, no matter what and knowing that no matter what happens it won’t put your worth in danger.

When we think of confidence, we often imagine someone attractive, talented, or successful. But true confidence is found in those who remain grounded and clear in their self-worth even when they’re not at their best and even when the circumstances change.

I believe that what we truly seek when we talk about confidence is:

1. Assurance in who we are and what we do.

2. Self-respect and the absence of the need to please or prove.

3. Love for who we are, not for a version we think we need to be.

4. Being accepted, and realizing it has nothing to do with others’ opinions but only our perception of ourselves

You Can’t Lose Something That’s Always Been There

Again, seems logical right? Confidence and real love are always there and are always available inside of us, but, because of our ego, society, conditioning and learning, we have a big tendency to embark into the illusion that love is out there and that confidence is a muscle to work on. Again, like if we are not enough, we also have to work on getting the confidence to feel that we deserve the feeling of confidence and love… The only way you can lose confidence is when it is conditional confidence based on certain circumstances. For example, saying I am confident to shoot a free throw does not mean that you are confident, but that you have a feeling of trust and certainty within your capacity to shoot a basketball. But, will you lose this sense of certainty if after 2,3 games you miss all of your shots? If yes, it is because you based your confidence on what you did in the past and you collapse this vision with who you are and who you can be.

But go back to when you were a child. There was no concept of confidence or its absence. You acted from a place of possibility and certainty because you simply were. Over time, you learned to tie your self-worth to achievements, appearances, and external validation.

Now, it’s time to return to your core. Who are you without your muscular body? Without your accolades? Without your smile on tough days? Who are you, truly?

But, how am I supposed to love myself if what I love is only the good parts?

I get it. I am a recovering overcomer and fighter, someone who felt the need to overcome and fight everything that wasn’t going my way because my worth was attached to it. I loved those parts of myself, and a significant part of my identity was tied to this "context" of who I thought I was.

But the question is: "Why do I value overcoming and fighting so much?"

No matter who you are, you’ve been conditioned by people, society, and circumstances to believe certain things. When you were a young and free child, being was the only thing you thought you needed to have to be loved and accepted. At some point, you have learned that being was not enough... So, as I did, you may have learned that you gained attention or approval from a coach, a teacher, or someone important when you fought hard. It became your way of doing things because you were loved, accepted, and valued for that particular behavior. Then, what was once only a natural mechanism became your worth and identity.

But why do some people view their pattern of overcoming as limiting, something that keeps them from achieving their goals and becoming who they truly want to be? Why does identifying as a fighter not resonate at all for some, while for others, it feels like their most inherent strength and life tool?

I share this because the same context, being an overcomer and a fighter, once served me well. It helped me navigate challenges like being bullied, getting cut from a hockey team, or recovering from an injury. I learned to associate this with who I was. However, this same energy also kept me in a mild fight-or-flight mode, preventing me from accessing the calm and acceptance I needed to heal from a chronic illness.

Things began to change when I realized there was nothing to “overcome” in that situation. Instead, there was a lot to accept, surrender to, and love, all while taking aligned actions toward my healing goals.

Again, there’s nothing "bad" about this pattern, but you have to realize that the parts of yourself you don’t like, and even the parts you do like, are probably rooted in past experiences or conditioning. It’s also important to understand that just because something served you in the past doesn’t mean it will always serve you in the future. Anything based on fear will not serve you in the long term, while anything rooted in love will.

Furthermore, the concept of “good” or “bad” is only in your mind. The parts of yourself you don’t like need to be seen, heard and loved like the part of you that you do love.

To put this in perspective we find unconditional confidence by realizing that the things we think we lack to be confident and the things we dislike only exist in relation to something else.

In your opinion, what makes someone dislike their body?

They have seen other bodies and preferred the image and symbolism of those other bodies they prefer. But could they dislike their own if they had never seen another body? Thus, they don't accept their body because they believe it should be different. But again, this is a limiting belief.

To build unconditional confidence, one must learn to fully accept oneself and understand that the things we have difficulty accepting are as they are, but it is we who believe something about that characteristic. Accept your strengths and weaknesses. Recognize that every aspect of us, even those we like less, is part of our uniqueness. For example, most of us have two arms, but if we learned that people from another country have three arms and are much stronger, we would believe we are weaker and dislike the fact that we have two arms. But in reality, it's the same body; the only thing that has changed is our perspective on that body. And whether it's an athletic quality, a physical flaw, or a mental pattern, the concept of 'it shouldn't be that way' only exists in relation to something else. So the reality is that we dislike the perspective we have of ourselves or of the characteristics we possess." trying to avoid certain parts of yourself by judging them as “bad” is like trying to remove one of your arms because you don’t like it. This only creates resistance, and what you resist persists. You’ll remain stuck in a mild fight-or-flight state, fighting against reality. Ironically, this energy could be channeled differently to help you achieve your goals and reach your full potential. This can happen when you accept things as they are realizing that they are not inherently bad while also taking the action you want in alignment with what you want to create. 

Finally, having preferences and valuing certain things is perfectly fine. However, when these preferences prevent you from truly loving yourself, accepting all that is, and accessing a deeply grounded level of confidence, one that remains intact despite the circumstances, this is where you might want to explore your limiting beliefs, inner context, and fears more deeply.

Instead of avoiding and judging you weight for example, how can you love and accept your body as it is, while still doing the action that matches what you prefer? You are not acting from a fear of not being loved or accepted due to your weight, but in a space of creation where your body does not define who you are and you get to create a life that inspires you. Nothing is "wrong", but what is your state when you act?

To explore why certain parts of yourself don’t feel worthy of love, try this inquiry:

For the “good” parts:

1. Why do I value this part so much? How has it served me or is serving me now?

2. What’s on the other side of this trait? (For example, “If I’m always inspiring people, I feel loved…”)

3. If I am not X (an achiever, an overcomer, a fighter, an athlete, a perfect woman, etc.), what might happen? And then? And then?

For the “bad” parts:

1. What is it about this characteristic that makes me feel it is unworthy of my love?

2. What fear lies behind being X?

3. If I had nothing to compare or relate to, how relevant it is to not love this part and how can live with it and also let go of the fear with it?

4. What experience or conditioning might have led me to believe that being or doing X is “wrong”?

Let me know if you'd like further refinement or adjustments!

A Better Question: What to Do When You FEEL Like You’ve Lost Confidence

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. If confidence isn’t something you can lose, what do you do when it feels like you have?

1. Acknowledge the Feeling
   Recognize and accept the feeling without judgment. This part of you, like a scared child, simply needs to be seen, heard and loved.
   
   

2. Give Yourself What You Truly Need
   Often, what we think we need (like muscle, performance, success, etc) is not what we need. If we go a step deeper by asking “and then” we will probably come to the conclusion that why we are seeking those things is finally to be loved, accepted, recognized, understood, etc. By being aware of it you can give what you need. So, go deeper and give yourself that love directly. Maybe, it will come in the form of a gentle kindness speech to yourself: “You’re safe. I love you. It’s okay. You don’t need to be perfect.” or maybe you will want to just rest in a child position or give you a big gentle hug for 2 minutes.
   
   

3. Don't get stuck with the story

You feel something like fear, anxiety, uncertainty, or anything that makes you think you’ve “lost” it—it’s okay. But don’t create a story around it. For example: You feel something and have the thought, maybe I don’t have the edge anymore. Don’t spiral into a narrative that defines who you are by saying things like, Oh no, I’ll mess this up, and then I’ll still be less than them. What if that happens? I’ll never get…

Don’t put meaning, don’t judge it, let it be, it means “nothing”.

4. Challenge the Thoughts
   Ask yourself:
   

   • What makes me think I’ve lost confidence?

   • Is it true that confidence depends on this circumstance?

   • For example, if you believe you’ve lost confidence because you haven’t scored a goal in several games, question that belief. Is it really true that scoring defines your confidence?
     

5. Reframe the Situation
   Shift your perspective:

   • If I knew for a fact, that I am confident but that there is just a small fear inside of me, how would I feel, what would I do, who would I choose to be?

   • If I knew I would make the next goal, how would I feel?

   • If not scoring does not define anything about who I am, how would I feel, who would I choose to be and what would I do?

Then use your power to choose to change so that this situation can empower you instead of limiting you. You have the opportunity to use the law of cause and effect, one of the seven hermetic laws, to your advantage. We often think that only the cause can have an effect on the effect, but the effect has a profound effect on the cause. So changing the effect( A.K.A how you react to the “loss” of confidence and the fear) will directly change the cause (let’s use the same example of the basketball) and you will not make the same shot as if you were to stay in the mindset that you have lost your ability and your confidence. But, it all started with the recognition that you and your” confidence” is not in danger.

© 2025 Mikael Lavallee-Gravel All right reserved Mikaellavallee-gravel.com