You’d think the more perfect you are – in how you present yourself, what you say, how you react to others – the more confident you’d be. After all, it’s easy to be bold on social media, where you can filter your photos, edit your posts, and reveal only the best parts of your body, your life, yourself. For example, the photos where you’re stunning in that swimsuit, the homemade pasta you nailed, or the selfie where you look like a contouring goddess.
However, perfection isn’t reality. “Online life gives us all a chance to compose ourselves,” says Sherry Turkle, PhD, professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. “Behind the screen, we can have more control over our communications, but then we end up not having confidence when we don’t have that time delay.”
There’s a difference between the self-assuredness we have when creating our lives and putting together our text and email convos and what Turkle calls “true confidence” – the kind of internal confidence you need when you’re face-to-face and don’t have total control. “That inner confidence is what prepares you for your job, for love, for times when you have to empathically reach out to someone else,” she says. “It prepares you for everything important in life.”
Turkle says the secret to cultivating true confidence is simple. “Get out of this feeling that you have to be perfect.” If you wait until you’re perfect to make a big move – talk to that guy you’ve been eyeing, apply for the job you want, wear a bikini without perfect abs – you’ll never do it.
Turkle’s remedy for overcoming the need for perfection: spend some time alone, unplugged, each day. “Expand your capacity for self-reflection and solitude,” she says. “Contemplate your strengths, weaknesses, and goals. If you can be alone with your own thoughts, you’ll be able to hear who others are as well. You won’t feel the need to transform real-time situations to meet your needs.”
Just be you, in the moment. Turkle says, “Real self-confidence comes from knowing yourself.”
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