I am not much of a rehearsal person. My senior year of high school, my younger sister convinced me to try out for a play. I got cast as the father figure because I looked a little older. But memorizing lines and showing up for practice was never in my DNA.
I had learned to think on my feet, so I adlibbed constantly. The director hated it. I got laughs, but I realize now that I was making jokes in moments that should have been serious. The meaning of the play might have been lost if my colleagues had not picked up the slack I left on the stage. In college I won a national impromptu speaking event. I ended up speaking frequently in front of groups. Later I became a college professor, lecturing every few days. The bottom line is that I learned to speak off the cuff and never put much value into rehearsing for anything.
But there is one thing I have learned since then. Confidence comes from familiarity, not talent.
When I spoke on topics I knew well, preparation was not as needed. I was highly familiar with the material and could respond to audience feedback in real time. On topics I knew less well, the cognitive load was different. I had to focus on what to say while also trying to read the room. Speaking while juggling all of this produced less than stellar results.
Most people believe confidence is something you are born with. A personality trait. Charisma or natural presence. So they say things like, “I’m just not a confident speaker.” But what they are really describing is lack of familiarity, not lack of ability.
It is pattern recognition. When something feels familiar, your brain predicts what comes next. Your stress response decreases. Your reactions become smoother. That feeling gets labeled as confidence. You come across as less than confident for reasons you may not understand.
So what people call lack of confidence is often just high uncertainty plus low repetition. This is what rehearsal or repetitive practice resolves for you.
Repetition changes everything. When you rehearse, you have already said the words before. You have already stumbled and fixed it. You have already felt the awkward parts. Now your brain shifts from “this is risky” to “this is known territory.” That shift is what feels like confidence.
“Confidence is your brain saying, ‘I’ve been here before. I know what to do.'”
I spent years avoiding rehearsal because I thought I did not need it. What I was really doing was limiting myself to topics I already knew well. Familiarity rewires the experience. If you want to feel confident in something new, the path is simple. Repeat it until it becomes familiar. That is the work.
