Realistically, almost every skill we have, regardless of how perfected our skills may be, have been taught to us by another person. A question to then consider is, is confidence something we generate inside ourselves?

When I think about the ways people gain confidence, I think about the photos, including quotes on Facebook, that inherently volunteer themselves in our newsfeeds time and again. For instance, these photos might include messages saying, “You can do anything, because you know yourself” and “You are the best version of yourself, today!”

Still, I wonder where the confidence behind these quotes is being derived; can we say our confidence’s entirety came only from ourselves?

Maybe instead of taking confidence in our abilities because we possess the best possible version of them, we should focus on the many ways of thinking about how we gain that confidence.

We should also recognize that confidence can be found by acknowledging that, indeed, our abilities started because someone gave us direction about how to do something and we are able to build on that precious instruction.

According to Merriam Webster, confidence can be described in these three definitions: “a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something; a feeling or belief that someone or something is good or has the ability to succeed at something; the feeling of being certain that something will happen or that something is true.”

These definitions conjure a feeling of accomplishment and success of certainty; however, we are left to wonder what happened in the learning and growing process to reach these confidant states.

We should remember, confidence is not always found in the person who speaks up the most, but could be in the person in the corner speaking the least. In fact, confidence may take many forms, having been derived from many people and experiences.