The Belle Effect: How to Build Exponential Confidence with the Confidence-Competence Loop

What stepping on stage taught me about personal growth...

Hey there ❤️

Two quick things before diving in today! 😊

1. We’re opening up the VoicePal Partner Program! VoicePal is an AI ghostwriting app I’ve been building with my husband and team (you can find details about the app here). I use it to brainstorm content by simply speaking my thoughts, then developing them with AI prompts. In the VoicePal Partner Program you can earn recurring passive income by sharing your VoicePal link with others. More details here if you’re interested. ✨

Click here to join the VoicePal Partner Program 🚀

2. If you’re a creator or entrepreneur living in Hong Kong, my husband and I are starting a free local club to bring like-minded people together for events, dinners, workshops, etc. More details here.

So in today’s Letter, I’d like to share with you a powerful concept that’s genuinely transformed my approach to personal growth: the confidence-competence loop. Let’s start with the personal story that changed my perspective on this forever...

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I want to do acting parts. I’m just here for the singing troupe audition really.”

Those were the words I found myself saying for two years in a row, each time the directors of our medical school pantomime asked me to read for an acting role. I had this narrative firmly lodged in my head: “I’m just a singer, not an actress. I’d be awful at acting and I can’t act anyway so I’d just make a fool of myself. If I say no, I’m safe.”

For a bit of context, the Cambridge Clinical School Pantomime is an annual tradition where Cambridge medical students put on an (intentionally genuinely ridiculous) show to raise money for charity – almost invariably a medical parody of a Disney film. Past pantomimes I performed in include: “Shrektococcus: An Ogredose“, “The Little Murmurmaid“, and “Beauty and the Yeast (Infection)“... you get the idea 😂 And naturally, these all involved a healthy dose of singing parodies of Disney songs, over-the-top pantomime acting, and plenty of medical in-jokes. Taking part for 3 years was one of my absolute highlights of Cambridge medical school.

So, back to the story – I was comfortable in the singing troupe (a chorus group who come on stage for each song to just sing, no acting to be seen). After all, I’d been in the Emmanuel College Chapel Choir, had done my Grade 6 singing exam, and felt at least somewhat validated in my ability to sing. It was safe, familiar territory.

But deep down, at each audition I would wonder: What if I just said yes? What if I trusted the directors to decide if I was good enough? After all, they seemed really keen to see my acting audition. Why was I limiting myself before even trying? 🤔

Then the COVID lockdowns hit, med school paused, and I found myself with too much time to work on getting comfortable being uncomfortable. I started my YouTube channel, worked with a dermatology health-tech startup, did a yoga teacher training, and even attempted (badly) to learn guitar. When the pantomime auditions came around again after we returned to medical school, something had shifted in me.

I decided to feel the fear and do it anyway. (a topic I covered in depth in my last Letter to you 💌😉)

I prepared not just my singing piece but also (gasp) the acting audition for the female lead, and despite all the fears and lack of confidence, I put myself out there – completely and fully trusting the directors to make the right decision for the show.

…And guess what? They cast me as Belle, the female lead in “Beauty and the Yeast (Infection)”. 😮

Overnight, I went from comfortable singing chorus member to leading lady with several solo songs and countless lines. What!?! I was thrilled... but also intimidated – that feeling when you’re on the edge of a big leap that you know will transform you.

I spent months and months practicing my lines over and over in the mirror, singing the songs in the shower, pushing through the discomfort, battling with my self-doubt, challenging the internal voice saying “who do you think you are“. Each rehearsal, each performance, I stepped out of my comfort zone, developing the competence that in turn built confidence, making each next round feel easier... creating a powerful virtuous cycle.

And for five nights, I performed on stage as Belle in front of hundreds and hundreds of people. I can still vividly recall the jittery feeling in the wings by the stage curtain, seconds before stepping out in front of a full audience for the very first time. This opportunity became one of the most challenging, transformative, and rewarding experiences of my life… and it would’ve never happened if I hadn’t just said “yes” to the acting audition. ✨

🔄 The Confidence-Competence Loop Explained

This experience taught me something powerful about confidence that I’ve been reflecting on lately: true, lasting confidence isn’t something we’re magically born with in unlimited supply. It comes from competence – actually becoming good at something through practice, failure, and growth.

This creates what psychologists call the confidence-competence loop:

1. When we try something new (like me attempting acting, or even filming YouTube videos), we develop competence

2. As our competence grows, our confidence naturally follows

3. This increased confidence makes us more likely to try new things

4. Which leads to more competence in even more areas

5. Which further increases our overall confidence

It’s a beautiful virtuous cycle that can transform not just specific skills, but our entire approach to life.

But here’s the catch that trips so many of us up: to even enter this loop, we have to be willing to be really quite bad at something first. We have to embrace the uncomfortable reality that the path to mastery involves looking foolish, making mistakes, and sometimes failing spectacularly. 🌱

💪 The Success Secret: Failing More Than Average

This realisation helped me understand something crucial about success: the most successful people in the world have failed more than the average person – simply because they’ve tried more than the average person.

They’ve attempted and stumbled, again and again, trying and failing until eventually, they succeed. And here’s the magic – every single failure is, in many ways, actually a win in disguise. Each one teaches you something valuable, builds experience, and strengthens that muscle of stepping outside your comfort zone.

Over time, as you repeatedly develop competence in different areas, you gain something even more valuable – confidence in your ability to become competent. This meta-skill – knowing you can learn anything if you’re willing to be bad at it first – might be one of the most undervalued superpowers in today’s world.

⚡️ Expanding vs. Shrinking

When I’m facing something that triggers fear or imposter syndrome – whether it’s auditioning for a lead role, starting a newsletter, or building a new business – I ask myself this question:

Will saying yes to this encourage me to expand or shrink? What response aligns with my higher self, with the person I want to become? Will grasping this opportunity result in expansion or contraction?

Because the truth is, even when we’ve developed competence, we don’t always feel 100% confident. I’m somewhat competent at creating YouTube videos by now, but I still experience nagging fears that they’re not good enough or that I need to improve them. If I waited for complete confidence before hitting record or publish, I’d probably never be able to post a video, and would be holding myself back from fulfilling my potential here.

Indexing our life choices purely on what we feel confident doing is a fundamentally limiting way to live. We’ll always have moments of doubt, even in areas where we’re really pretty skilled, and it’s about embracing this, over and over again.

---

✍️ This week’s journalling prompts:

🌟 What’s something you’ve been hesitant to try because you don’t feel confident in your abilities? How might you take one small step toward building competence in this area?

🌟 Think about a time when you pushed through initial incompetence to develop a skill you’re now proud of. How did your confidence shift throughout that journey?

I’d love to hear about your own experiences with the confidence-competence loop! If you’d like to share some of your thoughts or journal responses, please feel free to leave a comment down below!

---

So, this Letter is actually an invitation – from me to you – to step out of your comfort zone, to find an area where you could develop either your competence or confidence, and to seek out an opportunity that will challenge you to kickstart that virtuous confidence-competence loop.

Because every step we take toward being comfortable with being uncomfortable is a step toward greater freedom, confidence, and ultimately, a more expansive life. ✨

Wishing you a magical week ahead!

With Love,

Izzy 🤗 xx