134 | Why High-Performing Women Still Don’t Feel Confident
episode
Career Growth for Working Women | Career Advancement, Visibility, Promotion, Raises
14 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why do high‑performing women often feel less confident than their results suggest?
Have you ever looked around at other people in leadership and thought, they just seem so much more confident than I am? A lot of high performing women believe confidence is the thing standing between them and their next promotion. But what if confidence isn't actually the starting point? What if the real issue is that you've spent years overlooking your own evidence of impact? In today's episode, we're talking about why confidence is built through clarity, not personality, and the shift that changes how women see themselves professionally. Are you ready? Let's dive in.
Welcome to Career Growth for Working Women. If you're feeling tired in a way rest alone won't fix, or successful on paper but unsure what's next, you're not broken. You're not alone. I'm Shannon, a promotion and compensation coach, and this space is about helping women grow their careers with clarity, confidence, and sustainability, not pressure or hustle. Take a breath, settle in, and let's talk about what's really going on beneath the surface. Hello! Welcome to the show. I want to start today with something a woman said during a coaching session that I think so many high-performing women quietly believe. She looked at me and said I think I just need more confidence. And the way she said it made confidence sound almost mysterious.
Like it was this thing other people naturally had, and she somehow had missed out on it. Like everyone else had been handed a handbook she never received.
How does the habit of dismissing personal accomplishments keep confidence low?
Now, what was interesting was that while she was saying this, she had already spent the last 20 minutes describing incredibly high-level work she had been doing inside her organization. She was leading projects, improving systems, managing cross-functional communication, solving problems leadership didn't even fully see yet. People trusted her constantly. Coworkers came to her for answers. Her manager relied on her heavily. From the outside, she looked incredibly capable, but internally. She felt unsure of herself, and She also admitted something that I think many women experience but could rarely say out loud. She said I look around at other people in leadership and they just seem so much more confident than I am.
And what's interesting is that from the outside, many of those people probably looked at her and assumed she was confident too. But internally, she was constantly comparing herself to people who had appeared more polished, more certain, more authoritative, more ready, more. And every comparison became more evidence that she somehow wasn't there yet. That comparison spiral becomes emotionally exhausting over time. Because no matter how much she accomplished, her brain kept moving the finish line. And I think this disconnect exists for a lot of women because many high-performing women assume confidence is supposed to come first. Like first you become confident, then you speak up, then you advocate for yourself, then you pursue leadership opportunities.
But for many women, confidence actually comes after confidence. They fully recognize the value they already create. And that can change everything. Because now confidence is no longer about personality. It's about evidence. I asked her something during our conversation that I completely shifted the direction of the coaching session.
What is the ‘goal‑post moving’ pattern and why does it drain confidence?
I said What evidence are you currently using to evaluate your own value? And she just stared at me for a second. Because she had never thought about confidence that way before. Most women evaluate themselves emotionally. Do I feel confident? Do I feel ready? Do I feel qualified enough? But feelings fluctuate constantly. Evidence is different. Evidence is concrete. It says, I solved that problem. I improved that process. I led that initiative. I created measurable impact. I helped produce meaningful results. And what became clear very quickly was that she had spent years creating evidence while emotionally dismissing it the entire time. Every accomplishment got minimized, every win got brushed aside, every compliment got redirected.
So internally, she never fully absorbed the reality of how capable she actually was and
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do high‑performing women often feel less confident than their results suggest?
0:00–1:50
2
How does the habit of dismissing personal accomplishments keep confidence low?
1:50–3:56
3
What is the ‘goal‑post moving’ pattern and why does it drain confidence?
3:56–5:14
4
Why is confidence built on evidence rather than feelings?
5:14–7:05
5
How does creating an “evidence of impact” document change self‑perception?
7:05–8:54
6
Why do promotion conversations feel especially uncomfortable for many women?
8:54–10:42
7
What practical steps can listeners take this week to start documenting impact?
10:42–12:35
8
How does documented evidence accelerate career advancement compared to personality alone?
12:35–14:05
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Career Growth for Working Women | Career Advancement, Visibility, Promotion, Raises
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144 | Becoming Impossible to Overlook
143 | Why High-Performing Women Become the Default Problem Solver featuring Eric Dingler