Why Women Need Self Leadership as They Age: Overcoming Loss Of Confidence
Aging is hard. We know that on the one hand we’re supposed to embrace it—but it feels like we’re up against a lot of internalized societal beliefs framing it as a decline. Many women report a sense of fading into the background during midlife, a shift that can lead to loss of confidence. This often leaves people wondering, ‘Why am I losing confidence as I get older?’ and searching for ways to navigate these feelings.
Why Am I Losing Confidence as I Get Older?
At 52, I continue to carve relevant space for myself and while I acknowledge there are many struggles that come with aging, I don’t believe that we need to settle for feeling unseen. As a mindset coach I know that we can make a choice to feel confident, relevant and visible—but that must start with ourselves.
If we’re stuck relying on external validation as a strategy for confidence and relevance, then it’s no surprise we risk feeling disempowered as we age.
The emphasis on the external in a world that values youth and unrealistic standards of beauty will make it very difficult to get the feedback we need to help us feel good about ourselves. Media and cultural narratives tell us that we are less valued and attractive as we age.
We don’t have to look any further than the very public discourse around the firing of award-winning CTV National News host Lisa LaFlamme after going grey.
What Causes Lack of Confidence?
Most women struggle under the weight of a massive inner rule book I call the perfectionist mindset. This mindset typically goes unrecognized because women will always point to their shortcomings like a messy house or feeling out of shape as reasons for why they can’t possibly be a perfectionist.
Unfortunately, we can’t change what we don’t know is there. That’s why perfectionism is so disempowering—it’s difficult to acknowledge and change the underlying belief system if we’re in denial of it.
Perfectionism destroys marriages and contributes to a toxic workplace culture. It also doesn’t work in how we relate to ourselves. After years of having an inner voice telling us all the ways we don’t measure up, it’s no surprise that by midlife that we don’t feel good about ourselves.
What Happened to Me?
A perfectionist mindset drives us to overachieve at home and at work. You can likely relate if you’re a working mother to feeling frustrated because you don’t feel that you’re doing either very well—leading to feelings of constantly not measuring up.
A perfectionist has an exaggerated sense of responsibility so all tasks can feel equally important. We end up reactive to our roles and responsibilities, micromanaging and believing that if we want things done right we should just do it ourselves.
We may feel trapped in a resentful martyrdom because we are unable to prioritize what’s important and what’s not. By the time we reach midlife we may have spent years living lives that we don’t really want to be living.
It’s hard to feel confident when we’re exhausted and burned out after years of being disconnected from our authentic selves.
How To Gain Back Confidence
The way back to confidence and feeling visible to both ourselves and others starts with self-leadership. Self-leadership means we get strategic and take charge of our belief system. This is how we can transform our inner landscape from one dominated by perfectionist conditioning to one that embraces self-empathy, self-worth and authenticity.
We can take responsibility for our mindset and get to know the limiting beliefs that keep us stuck in patterns going after external validation and eroding our capacity to feel confident.
Mindset as a resource for improved self leadership allows us to transform the many red flag emotions that are going to surface as we age into more resourceful emotional states that lead to greater confidence and self-worth.
Are you feeling a loss of confidence as you get older? Book a free consultation today for personalized guidance to help you regain your confidence.
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Liane Wansbrough | High-Performance Coach
