Confidence looks like something you either have or you don’t. Some people walk into a room radiating certainty about who they are and what they’re capable of. Others second-guess themselves constantly, despite impressive track records and undeniable competence.
The difference has nothing to do with talent, experience, or personality type.
Genuine confidence comes from a simple mathematical relationship: your core values multiplied by the actions you take in service of those values. The more consistently you act on what truly matters to you, the more unshakable your confidence becomes.
Coming up, I’ll show you how to identify your core values, translate them into daily action, and use a two-minute weekly practice that builds lasting confidence from the inside out.
Why Traditional Confidence Advice Falls Short
Most confidence-building advice focuses on external validation or mental tricks. Fake it till you make it. Visualize success. Dress for the role you want. Practice power poses. Celebrate your wins.
These tactics might produce temporary boosts, but they collapse under pressure because they depend on circumstances outside your control. Your confidence rises when things go well and crashes when they don’t.
Circumstance-based confidence creates a exhausting cycle. You feel great after landing a big client, then anxious when the next prospect says no. You feel capable leading a successful project, then inadequate when something fails. Your sense of self-worth swings based on external outcomes rather than resting on a stable foundation.
This pattern mirrors what Paul Epstein calls the “external happiness trap”—the belief that confidence or fulfillment will come when you achieve the next milestone. Here’s how he learned this lesson:
The problem runs deeper than tactics. Most people have never done the foundational work of identifying what they genuinely value and then structuring their life around those values.
Paul Epstein, who spent nearly 15 years as a sports executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams before becoming a leadership consultant, discovered this while attending a life-changing retreat during his time with the San Francisco 49ers:
For the first time in my career, I had the opportunity to call a timeout and figure out who I was on the inside. I walked away from that two day experience knowing my why, my values, and then I got obsessed with how do I apply them on Monday morning? How do I connect my decisions and actions with my purpose, my why, my values?
We explored this transformation in depth on a recent episode of the Deliberate Leaders podcast.
That question about connecting values to action led Epstein to develop what he calls the confidence equation, which provides a completely different framework for building lasting confidence.
The Confidence Equation: Values × Action
The formula is deceptively simple: Confidence = Values × Action
Let me break down what each component means and why the multiplication matters.
- Values represent what’s genuinely important to you at your core. These are principles that define who you are, not who you think you should be or who others expect you to be. Your values might include things like integrity, growth, family, impact, courage, creativity, or service.
- Action means the specific behaviors you take in alignment with those values. You cannot think your way into confidence. You must do things that honor what matters to you.
The multiplication symbol is where the formula becomes powerful. Multiplication means consistency matters more than perfection. Taking value-aligned action once creates a small boost. Taking value-aligned action repeatedly, week after week, month after month, compounds into unshakable confidence.
Show me someone who consistently acts on their values, and I’ll show you a confident person. They know who they are because they demonstrate it through their choices every single day.
The Hollow Words Problem
Walk into almost any company and you’ll see core values displayed in the lobby. Innovation. Integrity. Collaboration. Customer focus. Excellence.
Fancy words on a wall.
Within minutes of walking around, you can usually tell whether those values are real or hollow. Do people make decisions through the lens of those stated values? Do leaders model them in how they treat employees? Do hiring, promotion, and firing decisions reflect them?
Most organizational values are aspirational at best and meaningless at worst. They represent what the company wishes it valued, not what it actually prioritizes when hard choices arise.
The same pattern shows up at the individual level. People can tell you what they value, but their calendar, their bank account, and their daily choices often tell a completely different story.
You say you value health, but you haven’t exercised in three months. You say you value family, but you routinely miss dinner and skip important events. You say you value growth, but you avoid challenging situations that would push your capabilities.
The gap between stated values and demonstrated values creates internal dissonance. You feel like a fraud because on some level, you are being fraudulent. You’re not living according to your own stated principles.
That dissonance is the opposite of confidence. It’s the nagging voice that says you’re not who you claim to be, that you’re making it up as you go, that eventually people will see through the facade.
Closing that gap through consistent action is how you build genuine confidence that no external circumstance can shake.
Identifying Your Core Values
Before you can act on your values, you need to identify what they actually are. This is harder than it sounds because most people have never done this work deliberately.
Start by setting aside 30-60 minutes of uninterrupted time. You need space to think without distractions pulling you away from honest reflection.
1. Review Your Peak Experiences
Think back to three to five moments in your life when you felt most alive, most fulfilled, most like yourself. These might be professional achievements, personal milestones, quiet moments, or intense challenges.
For each experience, ask yourself what made it meaningful. What were you doing? Who were you with? What values were you honoring in that moment?
If you felt most fulfilled while mentoring a junior team member who went on to succeed, maybe growth or service matter deeply to you. If you felt most alive while solving a complex problem that others said was impossible, maybe innovation or tenacity are core values.
2. Examine Your Strongest Reactions
Your values also reveal themselves through what bothers you. Strong emotional reactions signal that a core principle is being violated. Think about situations that made you angry, disappointed, or frustrated, then identify the underlying value.
- Inefficiency: If you’re frustrated by wasted time or resources, excellence or stewardship might be important.
- Unfair treatment: If you get upset when people are treated unfairly, justice or equity might be core values.
- Broken commitments: If you feel disappointed when commitments aren’t honored, integrity or reliability matter to you.
3. Consider Who You Admire and Why
Look at the people you most respect. What qualities do they embody? What do you admire about how they show up in the world? The characteristics that draw you to others often reveal what you value most.
- Identify the qualities: List the specific characteristics that draw you to these people (courage, compassion, discipline, creativity).
- Look inward: We often admire in others the qualities we want to develop in ourselves.
- Connect to values: Those qualities point toward your core values and what matters most to you.
4. Narrow to Your Top Three to Five
Once you’ve brainstormed possibilities, narrow your list to three to five core values. Having too many dilutes your focus. Having too few might miss important dimensions of who you are.
These should feel true at a gut level. When you read them, you should think “yes, that’s me” or “yes, that’s who I want to be.” If a value feels like something you think you should care about but doesn’t genuinely resonate, cross it off.
Epstein’s strongest core value is impact, which he defines as making a difference and leaving people and places better than he found them. That value came directly from his late father, who was a continuation school teacher:
His former students would come up to me and say, your dad gave me a reason to believe in tomorrow, your dad was the first person that ever believed in me. That’s where I learned what impact really is about. For me, that’s my measurement of success.
Your values might be completely different, and that’s the point. This work is about discovering your truth, not adopting someone else’s.
The Two-Minute Weekly Practice
Once you’ve identified your core values, you need a system for consistently acting on them. This is where most people fail. They complete the values exercise, feel momentarily inspired, and then drift back to habitual patterns that don’t reflect what they discovered.
The solution is a simple weekly journaling practice that takes two minutes.
Every week, complete this sentence: “I will live my value of [VALUE] by [ACTION].”
That’s it. One value. One specific action. Two minutes of planning, then execution throughout the week.
The first blank is whichever core value you choose to focus on this week. The second blank is a concrete, specific behavior you’ll take to honor that value.
Let’s say one of your core values is courage. Your journal entry might read: “I will live my value of courage by having the challenging conversation I’ve been avoiding with my business partner about our misaligned expectations.”
Or maybe your core value is joy. Your entry could be: “I will live my value of joy by cooking my favorite meal this weekend and eating it without rushing.”
Notice the specificity. You’re naming an action, not a vague intention. You’re giving yourself a clear target that you can either hit or miss.
The accountability comes from tracking your follow-through. At the end of the week, you mark whether you completed the action. Then you choose a new value and action for the following week.
Epstein uses this practice with everyone he coaches, from Olympic athletes to CEOs:
I say we need a weekly commitment where you will take an action based on a single core value. When you can go through that journaling exercise and you execute it 100% of the time, that’s how you build unshakable confidence.
The 100% execution rate matters because confidence comes from self-trust. When you consistently do what you say you’ll do, you learn to trust yourself. When you regularly make commitments and break them, you erode that trust.
Why This Practice Works
The weekly values-action practice succeeds where other confidence-building approaches fail because it addresses the root cause of low confidence.
Confidence is not about believing you’re better than you are. It’s about knowing who you are and acting consistently with that knowledge.
When you live out of alignment with your values, you feel uncertain about yourself. You question your decisions. You wonder if you’re doing the right thing. You worry about what others think because you have no internal compass guiding you.
When you consistently act on your values, those questions quiet down. You know why you made that choice. You understand what guides your decisions. You care less about external validation because you’re measuring yourself against your own standards.
The practice works because it creates a feedback loop. Each time you complete a values-based action, you reinforce your identity as someone who lives according to their principles. Each time you follow through on a commitment to yourself, you strengthen self-trust.
The multiplication effect means small actions compound over time. One week of living your value of courage by having a difficult conversation builds a small amount of confidence. Four weeks builds more. Twelve weeks transforms how you see yourself.
The consistency matters more than the size of the actions. You don’t need to take massive, life-changing steps every week. You need to take deliberate, value-aligned steps regularly.
Choosing Which Value to Focus On Each Week
With three to five core values identified, you’ll rotate through them over several weeks. But how do you decide which value needs attention in any given week?
Look at where you’re experiencing the most tension or where an opportunity is presenting itself.
If you’re facing a situation that requires courage, focus on courage that week. If you’re feeling disconnected from the people who matter most, focus on connection or family. If you’ve been coasting and feel stagnant, focus on growth or excellence.
The practice stays relevant because it responds to what’s happening in your life. You’re applying your values to current challenges and opportunities, which makes the actions immediately meaningful.
Some people prefer to rotate systematically through their values, giving each one equal attention over a month or quarter. Others let their intuition guide them week by week. Both approaches work as long as you’re consistent about the practice itself.
Common Obstacles and How to Navigate Them
Even with a simple two-minute practice, people encounter predictable obstacles that derail their consistency. Anticipating these challenges helps you push through them.
1. The Busy Week Trap
Life gets chaotic and you tell yourself you’ll skip this week and restart next week. This is how the practice dies. The busiest weeks are often when you need this most because chaos makes it easy to drift away from what matters.
- Protect the two minutes: Schedule it on your calendar like any other important commitment.
- Challenge your priorities: If you can find time to scroll social media or answer non-urgent emails, you can find two minutes for this.
- Remember the pattern: Skipping one week makes it easier to skip the next week, and the practice dies.
2. The Perfectionism Problem
You want to choose the perfect value and the perfect action. You spend 20 minutes debating which one to focus on. You worry that you’re not doing it right.
- Accept imperfection: There is no perfect choice, so pick a value and pick an action.
- Move forward: The practice improves through repetition, not through perfect planning.
- Trust the process: You’ll learn more from twelve weeks of imperfect execution than from three weeks of perfect execution followed by nine weeks of nothing.
Often, what holds us back from taking values-aligned action is fear. Paul Epstein offers a framework for building the courage to act, even when the stakes feel high:
3. The Forgetting Pattern
You journal your intention on Sunday evening and by Wednesday you’ve completely forgotten what you committed to do. By the time you remember on Saturday, it’s too late to follow through.
- Make it visible: Write your weekly commitment on a sticky note on your bathroom mirror.
- Set reminders: Use a mid-week phone reminder to check in on your progress.
- Create accountability: Tell someone else what you’re committing to so they can check in with you.
4. The Scope Creep Temptation
After a few successful weeks, you decide to scale up. You’ll commit to three actions per week instead of one. You’ll tackle bigger challenges. You’ll accelerate the process.
- Resist the urge to expand: This usually backfires and leads to abandoning the practice entirely.
- Keep it sustainable: The power comes from sustainable consistency, not from intensity.
- Stick to the system: Keep it simple, keep it doable, keep it going.
How This Transforms Decision Making
An unexpected benefit of the values-action practice is how it clarifies decision making across your business and life.
When you know your values and actively live them, choices become simpler. Instead of agonizing over every option, you filter decisions through your values and see which path aligns.
Should you pursue this business opportunity? Does it align with your core values or does it require you to compromise them?
Should you hire this candidate? Do they share your values or will they create cultural friction?
Should you invest time in this relationship? Does this person’s approach to life resonate with what matters to you?
The values you’ve identified and actively practiced become a decision-making framework that saves enormous mental energy. You’re no longer reinventing your criteria for every choice. You have consistent principles guiding you.
This also explains why some successful people feel deeply confident while others, despite equal or greater achievements, feel uncertain. The confident ones know what they stand for and consistently act on it. The uncertain ones drift from decision to decision without a clear internal compass.
The Relationship Between Values and Purpose
Many people confuse values with purpose, but they serve different functions in creating a meaningful life.
- Purpose is your why. It’s the reason you do what you do, the impact you want to have, the contribution you want to make. Purpose is often forward-looking and aspirational.
- Values are your how. They’re the principles that guide your behavior regardless of what you’re trying to accomplish. Values are present-tense and behavioral.
You can have a clear purpose but still lack confidence if you’re not consistently living according to your values. The purpose gives direction. The values, when acted upon, give you the confidence to pursue that purpose.
Epstein described how both emerged for him during that retreat experience:
I walked away knowing my why, my values, and then I got obsessed with how do I apply them on Monday morning. How do I connect my decisions and actions with my purpose, my why, my values? That’s where this formula came from: confidence equals values times action.
When purpose and values align with consistent action, you create what he calls unshakable confidence. You know why you’re here and you’re living according to your principles as you pursue that purpose.
Building Organizational Confidence
While this article focuses on individual confidence, the same principles apply at the organizational level. Companies with genuine confidence in their identity and direction share common characteristics.
They’ve done the hard work of identifying their core values and those values are more than lobby decoration. Leaders make decisions through the lens of those values. The company hires and fires based on value alignment. Resources get allocated to initiatives that honor the stated values.
When an organization consistently acts on its values, it develops institutional confidence. The company knows what it stands for. Employees feel pride in being part of something with clear principles. Clients and partners understand what to expect.
As a leader, you set the tone for whether values are real or hollow. If you want your organization to have confidence in its identity and direction, start by building your own confidence through consistent values-aligned action.
Your team will notice. They’ll see that you make decisions based on principles rather than expedience. They’ll observe that you follow through on commitments. They’ll recognize that you walk the talk.
That modeling gives them implicit permission to do the same. Over time, you build a culture where people know what matters and act accordingly. That’s organizational confidence.
The Compounding Effect Over Time
The most powerful aspect of the values-action practice reveals itself over months and years rather than weeks.
In the beginning, you’re consciously choosing a value and deliberately taking action. It requires effort and intention. You might forget sometimes or struggle to follow through.
After three months of consistent practice, the pattern starts feeling more natural. You begin making value-aligned choices without the formal weekly exercise. You catch yourself about to act against your values and course-correct in the moment.
After six months to a year, your values become integrated into your identity. You are someone who lives according to these principles. The confidence you feel is unshakable because it’s based on demonstrated evidence of who you are, not on hopeful thinking about who you want to be.
This compounding effect means starting today matters more than starting perfectly. Every week you practice builds on the previous week. Every value-aligned action reinforces the pattern.
Five years from now, you’ll look back and barely recognize the uncertain version of yourself that existed before you started this work. The person you’ve become through consistent values-aligned action will have a depth of confidence that external circumstances cannot diminish.
Getting Started This Week
You have everything you need to begin building unshakable confidence right now.
Block 30-60 minutes this week to identify your three to five core values. Use the prompts I shared earlier about peak experiences, strong reactions, and people you admire. Write them down somewhere you’ll see them regularly.
Then complete your first weekly entry: “I will live my value of [VALUE] by [ACTION].”
Choose one value. Choose one specific action you’ll take this week. Write it down. Put it somewhere visible.
At the end of the week, mark whether you followed through. Then repeat the process for next week.
That’s it. Two minutes of planning, one action per week, consistent execution.
The simplicity might make you doubt whether something this straightforward could create meaningful change. Trust the process. The formula works because it addresses the fundamental building block of confidence: knowing who you are and proving it to yourself through consistent action.
Every leader I work with who commits to this practice reports the same result. They feel more grounded. They second-guess themselves less. They make decisions faster because they have a clear framework. They care less about external validation because their self-worth comes from internal alignment.
That’s the promise of the confidence equation. Values multiplied by action, compounded over time, creates confidence that no external circumstance can shake.
If you want personalized guidance on identifying your core values and building a sustainable practice around them, consider booking a complimentary strategy session with one of our business coaches. Sometimes having a thought partner to help you articulate what truly matters makes all the difference in translating insight into lasting change.
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