Back yourself.
Fake it til you make it.
Know your worth.
Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man.
Yes, ladies, CONFIDENCE is the inspirational female call-to-action of our time. Stop apologising. Start self-promoting. Shoulders back, spin out front. Let’s get shit done. Let’s DO THIS.
Are you feeling fired up? Like you could take on the world? Like there’s nothing you can’t do?
Great. Now read this, it’s a quote from the accomplished actress, producer and mogul-in-the-making Reese Witherspoon, in a paragraph from last weekend’s The Weekend Australian Magazine:
Because here's another take on confidence, from another accomplished woman excellent write/comic/actor Tina Fey, who says, “Confidence is 10 per cent hard work and 90 per cent delusion — just thinking foolishly that you will be able to do what you want to do.”
Let me start. I'm in my mid-40s and have just started yoga classes for the first time.
Next year, I'm going to be a prima ballerina.
Too much?
Does lack of confidence hold you back? Do you wish you had a touch of Reese?
Top Comments
As a doctor, I see her comments as borderline delusional if she's actually got any insight into what it takes to be "the premier surgeon and paediatric cardiologist at Vanderbilt University", or just simply the words of a naive woman if she doesn't know. Medicine is full of ambitious, bright individuals, so if someone thinks they will rise to be the cream of that crop (in multiple disciplines, no less! a physician AND a surgeon - plus an academic career to boot!), it's a little like hearing someone say very self-assuredly that they will win the lottery next week. Takes more than a few bend-and-snaps to succeed in medicine, Reece.
No one is excellent at everything. It's particularly ridiculous to claim you are excellent at something you've never even tried. That's not confidence - that's arrogance. I don't value that quality in men or women.
Reese could have said "I think I could have been a surgeon if I'd had the opportunity" and I wouldn't have argued. But that's not what she said. Saying "I think I could have done that" is very different to saying "I would have done that and I would have been the best at it, to boot" Great that she's ambitious but ambition doesn't give you precognition, nor does it give you any talent or natural ability. She has no idea what kind of a surgeon she would have been, or even if she would have even made it through medical school.