Why You Can Stop Trying to Be Confident

You don’t need to become more confident.

Yes, you read that right.

You’ve likely spent years trying to build it — polishing your self-image, rehearsing until numb, pushing through discomfort, perfecting your craft so nothing could shake you. But the truth is, confidence was never the point.

Confidence is the thing you were taught to chase — so that you could look like you had it all together. Be desirable. Be untouchable. Be right.

But that chase has a cost: you lose yourself in it.

When you were little, you knew how to feel. But then you were told not to. You learned to suppress emotion, to override instinct, to tidy up your expression so you could fit the mould.

You learned how to look good instead of feel deeply.

You learned how to rehearse instead of respond.

You learned how to survive instead of live.

So now, when you’re about to walk into an audition, step on stage, film a self-tape, or speak from your gut… what you really feel is terror. Shame. Doubt. Vulnerability. And you're told — again — to “just be confident.”

But when you watch my training below you will discover that here’s the deeper truth:

Trying to “be confident” disconnects you from presence.

And presence is where your art — and your power — lives.

Confidence is an imaginary state. It’s a performative version of control. It leaves no room for uncertainty, emotion, failure, mess, humanity. It demands perfection and punishes anything less.

Presence, on the other hand, is not something you can fake. It is where you meet the moment, exactly as it is. It’s where you’re not trying to win or please or impress. You are not performing. You are not fixing. You are not pretending to feel different from what you feel.

You are right here.

Feeling the shame, the fear, the hot flush, the desire to run — and staying.

Breathing through it.

Not fixing it.

Not escaping it.

Just being with it.

And when you do that — when you allow — something magical happens.

You become watchable.

You become undeniable.

You become honest.

You return.

Because it was never about becoming someone else.

It was about undoing who you were taught to be, so that you can remember who you already are.

Watch the training below to hear all my thoughts on this topic.

After you watch the training, I'd love for you to join in the conversation happening in our private Facebook Group THE INSTINCTIVE ACTORS' SOCIETY. You can get answers for your specific situation directly from me and connect with THOUSANDS of like-minded actors across the globe, so we can move things forward faster together.

If you're not already a member, be sure to request to join ASAP here.

See you there!

Jo Kelly

Creator, The Reset Journey From Resistance to Freedom

✨ Want to taste this work?

If something stirred in you — if a part of you knows that you’re ready to stop performing confidence and start embodying truth — I invite you to come taste the work.

The Reset Taster is a 5-day introduction to our full 33-Day Reset Journey — our immersive deconditioning process for actors and artists ready to reclaim their truth, not just their technique.

You’ll begin to:

• Undo the internalised pressure to perform.

• Meet your feelings without fixing them.

• Reconnect with presence, sensation, and honesty.

• Stop trying to “get it right” — and start getting real.

It’s pay what you can — truly. This isn’t a marketing trick. We operate in the gift economy, which means you can participate at the level you’re able to commit, with integrity.

👇

Click here to join the Reset Taster

You don’t need to add anything else to yourself.

You just need to undo what was never yours to begin with.

Come back to you.