Confidence: What We're Reading

If you've been following along with our confidence series (starts with episode 273 of the Joy Lab podcast), you might be wondering where all this stuff actually comes from. Turns out, we're not making it up as we go (mostly). Here are some of the key sources for the series so you can dive deeper:

Russ Harris, The Confidence Gap. We leaned on this book the whole series. Harris's big insight is to separate confidence from feeling confident. He argues real confidence is a byproduct of the willingness to act (even amidst doubt). 

Steven Hayes on ACT. Hayes is the originator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT is the backbone for Harris's book and grounds the themes we focused on to build confidence: acceptance, defusion, values, committed action. If you want to learn more about ACT in a practical way, you could try Hayes' book A Liberated Mind.

Albert Bandura on self-efficacy. Bandura's research is where a lot of our thinking on "believing you can do a specific thing" comes from. Importantly, this is not the same as self-esteem or self-worth and the distinction is surprisingly important. Here's Bandura's classic article on self-efficacy. 

Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. We borrowed Frankl's three categories of values (creative, experiential, attitudinal) as a lens for clarifying our own values. Frankl explains these a bit in his book Man's Search for Meaning. 

Kristin Neff on self-compassion. Her work shows up whenever we talk about how you treat yourself when confidence wobbles. Try her book Fierce Self-Compassion for more.

Gill & Orgad, The Confidence Culture. This book is a great critique of how "just be more confident" advice puts the burden on individuals for problems that are actually structural. We think it's an important counterweight to keep in mind as you go through the series.