Conviction Before Confidence: Why You're Building It Backwards #670

How to build confidence that actually lasts: stop waiting for it and start building conviction instead.

For years I thought confidence was the starting line. That some people just had it and I didn't. I was confident running 800m races, but everywhere else I carried myself like someone waiting for permission.

The breakthrough: I wasn't lacking confidence. I was lacking conviction.
In this video I break down why confidence is a feedback loop you can't shortcut, how conviction builds the foundation confidence needs, and the exact documentation method I used to go from mumbling on camera to keynote speaking.

This applies to every area of life performance: your body, mind, purpose, and relationships. Confidence follows conviction. Always.

Want to see where conviction might be slipping in your life? Take my free Life Performance Scorecard: https://lachlan-p0moailx.scoreapp.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Confidence Versus Conviction
• 2:30 The Camera Wake-Up Call
• 4:20 Foundation First: House Analogy
• 6:00 Reps, Evidence, And Small Steps
• 8:10 Document, Don’t Perform
• 10:30 Feedback Loops And 360 Reviews
• 12:20 Conviction Across Life Performance
• 14:00 Critics, Accountability, And Guardrails

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

For years I thought confidence was something I either had or I didn't. Some people just walked into rooms like they owned it and well I just never felt like that. Sure, I was confident at running 800 meter races, that's what I excelled at as a young kid, but everywhere else I carried myself like someone waiting for permission to fully show up. I thought I needed to feel confident before I could speak up, before I could share my ideas, and before I could step into bigger rooms. So I waited. I prepared, I consumed more content, and the confidence, well, it never really came. I became super knowledgeable where I thought I was, but I still didn't do the thing. Then I watched myself speak on camera for the first time and I realized something that changed everything. I wasn't lacking confidence, I was lacking conviction, and I'd been building the whole thing backwards. If you're stopping by the channel for the first time, I'm Lachlan Stewart, a keynote speaker, ultra endurance athlete, and a life performance coach. I've run 58 marathons in 58 consecutive days, and I actually work with high-performing men and organizations who look successful on the outside, but maybe you're feeling stuck on the inside. And every single time we start with the same thing: not confidence, conviction, because there's a massive difference. Most people treat confidence like it's a prerequisite, like it's something that you need before you step into the arena. So you wait, you prepare, and you take another course. God, I'm guilty of that. Over the last 12 years, the amount of different courses and events that I've done is mind-blowing. And there has been some benefit to it. But if I were to give myself feedback, it would be exactly what I'm going to be telling you in this video. So you rehearse a perfect moment when you'll finally feel ready. But here's the problem confidence is a feedback loop, it requires evidence that you don't have. It's asking you to feel certain about an outcome that, well, you've never experienced. Think about it. It's like trying to feel confident swimming when you've never even been in the water. Do you know what else blows my mind? How many countries outside of Australia don't make their kids go swimming from like the moment they can start walking? It's crazy. And as I'm about to become a dad, I'm only really starting to pick up on these things. I realize I thought they were so normal and natural thing, but a lot of countries don't do that. Anyway, Segwet. So the feeling comes from doing the thing, not before it. I learned this the hard way. You see, I was a confident 800 meter runner. I ran for my state and I placed in the national titles, but everywhere else I carried myself like someone waiting for permission to show up fully. And it blows my mind because from the outside looking in, people thought I was confident because of the results that I was having. But I still remember when I had placed second in Australia for the 800 meters and I went back to school, and everyone's like, Oh, do you have the medal with you? Well done. And I just remember feeling so uncomfortable, and I didn't feel confident talking about it because I lacked so much confidence in who I was, and that was where I started, I guess, diving into all this stuff. The first time I actually watched myself speak on camera, everything changed. I don't know if at your school you were like I was, where you had to do an English presentation in any year. But for me in grade 12, we actually had to give a five-minute presentation on ourselves. And it wasn't the fact that I had to talk about myself that I found challenging. It was just getting up and having everyone's eyes on me, worrying about how I spoke and used my voice, the words that I said, and I just really stressed out about it. Fast forward to now, I'm obviously doing videos all the time and use social media in a way to not only document my journey but inspire people around the world. And so the first time I was actually encouraged to record myself on camera, man, it was hard. It really did change everything. And not because I liked what I saw, I definitely didn't. It was one of those moments where you're like, oh God, is that me? But because I felt sad for the guy on screen, someone moving through the world without conviction, you know, mumbling, unsure, not sold on his ideas. That's when it hit me. I wasn't lacking confidence, I was lacking conviction. Here's the reframe: think of conviction and confidence like a house, right? Conviction is your foundation, you know, the base, and confidence is the roof. You can't build the roof without the foundation unless you want to just sit it on the floor. But you can absolutely build the foundation without the roof. Conviction is inward facing. It's the belief that what you're saying matters to you even though it's rough, even though it's imperfect. It doesn't ask you, do they like this? It asks, do I stand behind this? Confidence is outward facing, right? It's about how you think you'll be received, how you'll handle the moment, the judgment, the room. And here's what I learned from documenting my journey on video for years. Conviction builds through repetition, not revelation. Every time I record myself speaking, every time I wrote a caption, shared an unpolished thought, I wasn't becoming more confident. I was building conviction, I was collecting evidence that I could improve, that my ideas had substance, that I was showing up imperfectly. To me, showing up imperfectly was much better than not showing up at all. The confidence followed naturally because I had something solid to stand on. You know, when I was building the reps, every time I would do it, I was growing a little bit, I was getting a little bit stronger, I was getting a little bit more confident in my ability to do that thing. Even though I was confident in so many other things, I hadn't put in the reps in that field. So if you're listening to this, where in your life are you down on confidence? Then ask yourself, what are the reps that you're avoiding because of this? The the whether it's the fear of failure, the fear of judgment, whatever it may be that's holding you back. I want you to ask yourself, like, what is the smallest step you could take to start flexing that muscle to build progress to that version of yourself that you want to become? I also want to share with you how you actually build conviction. Documentation, right? Not performing, documenting. And this is the challenging part for a lot of people. Performing is presenting the polished version, right? This really fine-tuned version of yourself, the one that's already probably where you wanted to be when you started. Whereas documentation is showing the process, what you're testing, what you're working on, what's I guess the thinking behind the decisions. At the moment, I'm documenting my build towards a half-marathon time this year. And the time, and this is the first time I publicly said it, but it's an hour and 18 minutes. My current PB is an hour 27. Yesterday I was on the treadmill doing one of the sessions and it absolutely kicked my ass. And part of me didn't want to show that part of the training session where I had to keep hitting pause and catching my breath because my heart rate was just so high. But I remembered this isn't about showing the polished version. The polished version is where I hope to be in 17 weeks and when the training block finishes. The documentation is right now where I've got this program and it's really challenging me to breaking point because people move towards that and they go, Oh, Lockheed never showed that, so maybe he never struggled in his sessions. But the truth is the process isn't sexy. And it the thinking behind the decisions around why I decided to have a break and all of those things is what I think is important to put this out there because even if you don't show it to the public, you can watch it back for yourself, and that is one of the coolest things to see how far you've grown. But research backs this up. Studies show that video plus verbal feedback is the most effective in enhancing self-awareness. Like who would have thought? In a world where we now carry our phones around and are always filming, or maybe you're not one of those people, but people are filming themselves, we can actually use that to our advantage precisely because it forces you to confront the gap between who you think you are and how you're actually showing up. And man, it can be confronting, but that's a whole different video. You see, early on, every caption went to my wife first. This was when I was coming from being a builder. I didn't believe I was a good speaker. Well, actually, I was a terrible speaker, and I definitely wasn't a great writer, but I was documenting my journey as I was learning things as I was trying to improve my life. You know, I was a terrible writer. So I'd send it to her, I'd write it in a note, and she'd rewrite the sentences, soften the tone, add clarity, and each edit taught me something about communication, about making ideas land. I wasn't confident in my writing, but I was building conviction that well, I could write. Think of it like an athlete reviewing game tape. They don't just hope that they'll get better. They watch the evidence, they see what worked, what didn't, and where the gaps are. Most people never see themselves clearly enough to change. You can't feel your blind spots, you have to see them. And documentation gives you that mirror. Another thing that I do with my clients is get them to do a 360 review. And if you're in the business field, you might do that as part of getting a promotion or getting feedback at the end of the year. You can actually do that for your life as well. And if you want, I will create a document, but just put comments below. And if there's enough interest, I will create that document and I'll share that with you guys as a free resource. Here's why this works: the real gap between the person sitting in the crowd and the person on stage is not talent because I've been both. It's conviction, it's being able to stand behind your ideas, your values, your voice, even when they're unpolished. And here's the compound effect most people miss. When you document your thinking consistently, you don't just build conviction in that moment. You build the track record. You can look back at who you were six months ago, two years ago, five years ago, and you can see the evolution, right? The gaps that you've closed, the standards that you've raised, the evidence becomes unshakable. It's not hope, it's data. When I ran 58 marathons in 58 days, confidence wasn't what got me through the hardest moments. It was conviction built from the thousands of documented training sessions that proved I could adapt, push, and show up even when everything hurt, when my ankles were on fire, when it was freezing cold. But this conviction principle doesn't just apply to endurance challenges or content creation. It's foundational to every area of life performance. Strong body. And I want to share the life performance core for with you quickly. But first one is strong body, right? Conviction to train consistently, even when motivation is gone. Calm mind, conviction in your values when pressure tests you. Thirdly, is clear purpose, conviction in your goals when progress feels invisible, confident life, conviction in who you are when no one is watching, and this is a huge one. Confidence in these areas follows naturally, but only after you've built the foundation through action. Now you're probably thinking, but putting yourself out there feels vulnerable. What if people judge me? What if I look stupid? Fair. People can be fucking brutal online. And I've questioned myself plenty. You know, a decade ago when I started doing this, I had Facebook pages made about me. I was getting, you know, mates that I thought were people that I thought were mates bullying me online because of it. When I was just out here having a crack trying to document my journey, and because I had a big enough why, which is another video in itself, I was prepared to walk through that. But not everyone does. So you don't have to put this on social media. I'm not saying that, but here's what I learned. For every critic out there, there are people quietly taking something useful and applying it to their own life. You don't have to post it publicly, but posting accelerates feedback, it holds you accountable. You learn faster, both from yourself and from others, the people in the comments. And over time, you develop guardrails, right? These guardrails are important. You learn what matters and what's just noise. And the alternative is just staying stuck. So waiting for a version of confidence that never really arrives because you're not giving it the foundation it needs to exist. If you feel like you've got more in you and you're not sure how to access it, stop waiting for confidence. Start building conviction. Document your thinking, whether it's through a journal, through recording yourself, even taking voice notes. I do all of them, right? I've got a journal here, and I've got a literally a box full of them of just thoughts, ideas, and once again, I'll do a different video on journaling to come. But other times I'll just use the voice note app on my iPhone and I'll just jot down ideas, or other times I will film myself, and all of them are documenting my journey as I go through life. Sometimes they make sense, other times they don't, but that is okay because the goal is identifying that gap. If you have a thought or an experience that you can't make sense of, the next step is to work out how to make sense of that. I do encourage you to express your ideas before they're polished. Watch yourself back, adjust, repeat. Each rep gives you evidence, each rep makes it easier to stand behind what you're actually saying. Confidence doesn't lead the way, it follows. And if nothing else, one day you'll look back and say, This is where I started and this is how I grew and this is who I became. That's not narcissism, that is intentional living. And if you want to see where conviction and confidence might be slipping in your life right now, I've built a free tool called the Life Performance Scorecard. And you can access it at my website, lochlandstewart.com.au, or just in the links below. But what it does is in under four minutes, it assesses your strong body, calm mind, clear purpose, and confident life. If this landed, make sure you hit the subscribe button. I create one video a week on life performance for men who are capable of more.