I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard someone say it.
“Just be confident.”
As if confidence is something you can switch on like a light.

If you’ve ever felt nervous before speaking, you know what I’m talking about. That tight feeling in your stomach. The dry mouth. The overthinking. The urge to run or hide or magically disappear into the chair.

And then someone says, with all the good intentions in the world—just be confident.
Honestly, I used to believe that too.

But here’s what I’ve learned, both as a speaker and as a coach:
Confidence doesn’t show up on demand. It’s not the starting point.
It’s the outcome.

What people really need isn’t a pep talk.
They need tools. Techniques. Practice. Safe spaces to try and fail and try again. They need to learn how to breathe through the anxiety. How to structure what they want to say. How to rehearse without sounding rehearsed. How to feel prepared enough that they stop obsessing about how they’ll be perceived.

I’ve worked with so many people who thought something was “wrong” with them because they still got nervous. But there’s nothing wrong with nerves. You’re not broken. You’re human.

One of my clients once said, “I’m fine one-on-one, but the moment more than three people look at me, I freeze.”
What helped her wasn’t fake confidence. It was learning how to manage her breath. How to use pauses. How to organise her thoughts. And more than anything, how to stop judging herself in the middle of speaking.

Confidence came later. Quietly. Through repetition. Through small wins. Through real progress.

So the next time someone tells you to just be confident, smile politely.
And then do the real work.
Because you don’t need to pretend to be confident.
You need to build the skills that make confidence inevitable.