Gain a quiet confidence that’s derived from your inner wisdom

Everyone wants to be confident. And most people have a quick way to boost their confidence levels for a short while.

But that short-lived confidence usually disappears before you know it, often at the most critical moments, leaving behind anxiety, fear and overwhelm.

I’ve discovered that many confidence tactics are harmful in the long run

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Psyching yourself up causes more harm than good.

Psyching ourselves up can cause us to overreach, so we commit to something bigger than we can handle. To meet the expectations we have of us, we might become desperate and create more problems instead.

Nobody has to tell you what happens to a kid who jumps out of a ten-storey building because he believes he can fly… but we do this to ourselves all the time.

Faking till you make it isn’t a great solution either.

In the short term, it may work for some people. But more often, if you’re faking it, you still feel like a fraud even after you’ve made it.

Fraud leads to more fraud which leads to more fraud. It circles back onto itself. That’s a trap.

And, if you become comfortable with being a fraud, you might actually turn into a real fraud. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Reassurance is not a solution too.

What would you do when you need reassurance, and people (who can give it to you) aren’t there for you in the moment?

Getting reassured once or twice is okay. But you can’t depend on reassurance in the long run. People might get sick and tired and leave.

Even if your best friends don’t leave, you may end up rolling your eyes when they tell you ”You can do it” or ”There’s nothing to worry about”, (because you feel you can’t, and there are so many things to worry about).

Reassurance is not a permanent solution.

The Confidence Switch

Can you walk two blocks down the road to the nearby supermarket?

Of course, you can.

Confidence grounded in reality never disappears.

You don’t have to psych yourself up, fake it, or get reassurance from others to walk these two blocks. You know you can do it, confidently, without any intervention.

• But before you can walk, you can’t.
• Before you are confident, you aren’t.

So where’s the switch between non-confidence and confidence?

Only you have the answer — your switch lies in you.

Nobody else can tell you what your switch is, because:

• Nobody has the same experiences as you do.
• Nobody thinks or feels the same way as you do.
• Nobody cares about the same things as you.
• Nobody can know you better than you.

So external advice and intervention always work for a while — until they don’t — since the answer doesn’t come from you.

You are far too smart (and brilliant) to lie to yourself.

Find Your Confidence Switch

I’ve designed a Confidence Program that seeks to help you:

1. Find your confidence switch
2. Do the work until you become confident
3. Deal with setbacks along the way

This program is designed to draw out your answers from you — through your inner wisdom — that only you have access to.

We need this because everyone is built differently. My answers might fail with your system, but your answers are more likely to work. The key is to tune in to your wisdom for your answers.

As you incrementally get more skilful at finding your switches — and using them — you naturally become more adept with the domain of confidence.

Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, you’ll display a quiet confidence that can be felt without speaking any words.

Format and Structure

The Confidence Program contains two things:

• 14 short videos and prompts
• A cohort of people like you who are working out their confidence issues

Each video and prompt will help you do one of these things:

1. Uncover an aspect of confidence
2. Find your confidence switch
3. Do the work until you become confident
4. Deal with setbacks you face

These videos will be released to you over two weeks. We will also have two Q&A sessions for you to ask questions that surface for you.

The cohort is optional, but essential.

Each one of us faces a tremendous problem.

Our internal world is often far too complex for us to discover our switches by ourselves — it is riddled with fears, defence mechanisms, ego, traps, thoughts and beliefs inserted by other people… the list goes on and on.

So it is unlikely for anyone to succeed at doing this kind of work alone. That’s why we’re doing this together.

The Pilot Cohort

Here’s a couple of things to know.

• Registration is open until 7th February.
• We will kickstart the first video prompt together on 10th February.
• Prompts will be released daily, so the final prompt will be released on 23rd February.
• There will be two Q&A sessions at two different time zones to accommodate the global community. (Feel free to be present for both). We’ll confirm these sessions before 7th February.

Officially, the cohort ends on 7th March. But we will keep the community open as much as we can, so you can still contribute to each other’s lives.

About the creator

Hi, my name is Zell.

Self-doubt had been my biggest enemy for a long time, but I accomplished the following even though I had doubts:

• Within 1 year of learning to design and code, I found myself freelancing and earning a decent income.
• In 2 years, I wrote my first book.
• In the next 2 years, I found myself speaking at a couple of International Web Development conferences.
• Since then, I’ve made a couple of courses that have helped plenty of people learn programming

Along the way, I’ve had amazing affirmations from great people who do great work.

Zell is the rare sort of developer who both knows his stuff and can explain even the most technical jargon in approachable — and even fun! — ways.

I’ve taken his courses and always look forward to his writing because I know I’ll walk away with something that makes me a better front-ender.

Geoff Graham

CSS Tricks Editor

Zell is one of those rare people who commands tremendous knowledge and experience but remains humble and helpful.

They want you to know what they know, not just be impressed by it. In other words, Zell is a natural teacher. You’re lucky to have him because he feels lucky to be able to help you in your journey.

Heydon Pickering

Accessibility Consultant

Your articles are honestly the best resources out there! They have really helped 100Devs folx understand topics that are always stumbling blocks for new devs.

Really appreciate the work you put into your content!

Leon Noel

#100Devs Instructor

If you’re looking to learn JavaScript, Zell just made a new course that shows how to build 20 real components from scratch, step by step.

Zell is a really fun person too, so that helps when you’re trying to learn :)

Sarah Drasner

I happened to learn a thing or two about gaining confidence that’s quiet, sustainable, and not-delusional through:

• More than ten years of self-developmental work
• The work I’ve put out in the world over the years
• Ups and downs (including crushing defeats) in both life and business

I am no expert. I might be wrong. But I’ve discovered a couple of things that are likely to help. My way of helping is building the stuff I’ve discovered into the Confidence Program.

I hope you benefit from it.

I guess it’s best to end with this:

• Walking is a skill
• Cycling is a skill
• Confidence is a skill too — and it’s one you can become better at

With a quiet and grounded confidence, I hope you make your world a better place. Maybe not for the entire human race, but at least for you and the ones you love.

Questions you might ask

This program is new so there aren’t any “frequently asked questions” yet. But here are some you might ask, and the answers to them.

Whenever you’re ready, here we go — gain confidence that will never disappear

Here are a couple of things to know.

• Registration is open until 7th February.
• We will kickstart the first video prompt together on 10th February.
• Prompts will be released daily, so the final prompt will be released on 23rd February.
• There will be two Q&A sessions at two different time zones to accommodate the global community. (Feel free to be present for both). We’ll confirm these sessions before 7th February.

Officially, the cohort ends on 7th March. But we will keep the community open as much as we can, so you can still contribute to each other’s lives.

If you’re not ready and wanna find out more

That’s okay. I’ll release bits of information through my newsletter as we ramp up so you can make a more informed decision.

You can sign up to the newsletter here.

Ignore the frontend development ramble if you’re only curious about this program. I’ll make sure to send you the right information when it’s ready.