Confidence is not what is gifted, what you are born with, what just appears by chance, nor what is reserved for some selected few. Rather, you build it intentionally, and one of the ways to build confidence is by preparation. When you prepare for something well, maybe a task or an assignment, you will reduce uncertainty, increase your ability to perform, and boost your overall confidence. You may say that preparation does not guarantee perfection. It is true, but at least, it provides the foundation upon which confidence can be built on.
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There is a reason why, before a football team goes for a competition or a match, they will be training and preparing ahead of time. This is not just to sharpen their skills, but to boost their level of self-confidence to trust in their abilities. Someone can be talented and still lack confidence, and end up being defeated. Also, a student who studies regularly and constantly, and solves past questions, when the exam comes, he will walk into the hall calmly. Even if the questions seem tough, he will be confident because he knows he has prepared to handle it. One of the reasons behind people's failures is not lack of ability, but lack of preparation.
Preparation has a way of giving clarity to an individual. When you have taken time to plan, prepare, practise, and rehearse, you will understand what lies ahead, and you will know what you are up against. You will agree with me that fear often comes from the unknown. But when you enter into a situation which you have prepared for, you will know what to expect. It is your preparation that will replace fear with a sense of awareness. As a public speaker for example, if you rehearse your speech several times before coming to the stage, you will discover that the confidence you will exhibit will be on another level. Because you have understood the points well, you will be able to have control of the moment, and you will also control your nerves, and will speak clearly. This is confidence.
Preparation also strengthens your competence. You tend to deliver and do well in a task or an assignment that you have prepared extensively for. Preparation increases skills, and the more skilled you are, the more confident you will naturally be. Athletes train daily, not because they feel like it, nor because they just want to build strength, but because they need to build trust in their own body. This is the same way that public speakers rehearse their speech, so as to trust their words and the usage of them. As a leader, you also need to prepare by acquiring more information, learning, and thinking critically in order to make better and more informed decisions. When you know you have put in more work, you will trust yourself more, and the trust will mature into confidence.
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Another very important benefit of preparation is resilience. When you see someone who is well prepared, they are hardly moved by challenges. Even if things do not go as they had intended or planned, their preparation will help them to see other alternatives. The more prepared you are, the better you will be at thinking ahead. You will be thinking "what if this happens, how will I solve it?" "if things go south, what will be the way out?" You see, when you are prepared, nothing will sway you off your feet, and nothing will take you by surprise. The mental readiness that you build through preparation will help to reduce anxiety, and will increase your confidence. Confidence here does not mean that you are believing that things will not go wrong, rather you will know that you will be able to handle whatever happens.
It is worthy to note that preparation is not what you do just once, it is a lifetime adventure, and what you do continuously. Reading a few pages each day, practising constantly, improving your skills one step at a time, etc, may look like something small, but when these habits get compounded over time, they will build your confidence level to the point that it will become natural and not forced.
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