Trust whatever knowledge or decisions your former self has made. At least until significant new information arrives. They are a smart person.

Personally, I’ve found that my method for dealing with analysis paralysis - both in myself and with others - to be … basically confidence.

There is a cutoff time for self-doubt and second-guessing. After that, we know what we know and we do what we do, unless some significant change occurs.

(Afterwards, we may revisit and start doubting and second-guessing the topic, but not now.)

If speaking, whatever you knew before you opened your mouth is the factual truth as you know it, and it stays that way until you are done speaking. The worst that will happen if you proceed to say something wrong, is that you will be corrected. This is useful.

If navigating, you choose a route to the best of your ability and that is the best route available. Take it. The worst that will happen is you discover it is wrong and have to adjust.

Some of the dumbest idiots are also the most confident.

They’re not pretending. They actually believe in themselves. If you tell them they’re wrong, prove it with data, show them clear evidence that they’ve made a mistake… they’ll continue believing they didn’t make a mistake.

Some of these idiots end up running large companies or even countries. Which is a problem, because very big mistakes get very expensive, especially when the people in charge refuse to accept a mistake was made.

Never be ashamed of being self-critical. It’s a sign of intelligence, and the world would be a better place if more people were like this.

This being said, sometimes it’s important to make a decision and roll with it, because if you had to double check everything it’d take too long and you’d miss opportunities or fail to avoid pitfalls. Like taking too long to dodge an obstacle while driving.

I don’t have autism, and it took me a long time to realize that too. Just because a person acts confident about something doesn’t mean they’re more likely to be correct than a person who acknowledges some amount of uncertainty. But unfortunately a huge amount of people believe a confident-acting person over people who speak with less certain wording.

Not so much pretend to be certain but rely on the probability and percentages of the given situation.

Dont give in to irrational fears.

Being confident doesn’t necessarily mean being correct. It means you think you are correct.

If you are double checking your answers, that ensures you are correct and you can then be confident because you’ve double checked. But if you had to double check your answers, that means you weren’t initially confident.

Acting confident in front of people reassures them of your expertise because it signals that you’ve done something enough that it’s become ingrained in your memory or habits.

An example is a bus driver. I would want them to be confident about the route they are driving. If they are constantly checking a map at every intersection, I would be afraid they were not familiar with the area and might miss a turn if they misread the map even once.

Another example would be walking. Do you check your balance with every step you take? I’m sure you don’t. And people around you don’t actively watch you to make sure you don’t fall. My infant, on the other hand, rebalances himself with every step and constantly holds onto steady things around him. Most people that watch him will be concerned about him falling because he’s communicating a lack of confidence, a lack of experience.

You should definitely question your assumptions and approach things from a different angle. You will definitely end up with greater confidence. But if you do this in front of people you’re displaying insecurity in your own assumptions and reasoning.

I’ve heard “trust your instinct/gut” almost as much as I’ve heard “trust, but verify.” And I’m pretty sure that latter one is an oxymoron.

Right. I’ve made the same observation. Very annoying.

I’m right with you… It’s confusing :P

I have this weird confidence that’s hard to explain. There’s a good chance I’m wrong about any given thing, but I’m pretty confident I’m the best informed in most situations.

I have great success being confident that I do not know something

About confidence The national guard taught me a thing about confidence in cleaning weapon

When you clean your rifle, you need to clean it, and get the armorer (are at least a superior) to check if it is well cleaned. In basic you’re taught that you only ask for your weapon to be reviewed if you are confident it’s clean. Of course its basic and the main lesson you take out of it is that life is shit and your job is to deal with it. But it doesn’t last. Now after basic I begin actual service and for the past 4 years I’d had to clean fuck tons of guns. Mine, others, entire armories. And each time I’d have to ask for the review I needed to be certain. And many time, especially at the beginning I’d have to continue cleaning because it wasn’t fully cleaned despite being confident it was cleaned.

And the thing is… it wasn’t a problem if I was wrong, had forgotten a small parts, etc. What they wanted me to do was the work correctly and genuinely believe in my work. They wanted me to have genuine and honest reason to believe my work was done, and therefore, if there was work remaining to do, that mean I genuinely didn’t see it. And after years of service, thanks to the experience acquired, now I almost pass review first try.

Though there are fucking idiots who want to be lied to. Especially superior who actually don’t know, understand nor are intelligent enough to understand what your job actually is who just want you to say “yeah everything fine” so they can repeat it to their own boss.

I disagree with this. There is such a thing as true confidence, and imo it mostly comes from the knowledge that whatever happens you’ll be able to handle the right way. “Fake it til you make it” confidence is called arrogance (and will never turn into actual confidence).