Vanessa Van EdwardsScience of People, Science Of People · Behavioral Researcher, Founder, Author, Harvard Instructor

How To Stop Negative Confidence Loops

14 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:02

In this YouTube presentation, Vanessa Van Edwards explains how powerful individuals sustain confidence by recognizing and leveraging their strengths to create positive confidence loops. She challenges viewers to identify both their strengths—ranging from small actions like taking a beautiful picture to larger tasks like delivering a presentation—and their greatest weaknesses that can undermine those loops. Vanessa describes how a single negative event can trigger a downward spiral through a process she calls “globalizing anxiety,” where doubt spreads across all areas of life. She emphasizes the importance of self‑assessment to consciously avoid these spirals, deliberately focus on strengths, and mitigate the impact of weaknesses, thereby maintaining a healthier, self‑reinforcing confidence cycle.

Chapters

Really powerful people, they truly know what creates their power confidence loops. They know their strengths, they know their capabilities, and they're able to activate these circles in their life. The question is, do you know your strengths? Do you know something that you can do as small as taking a beautiful picture and as big as giving a presentation that create the loops in your life? And second, do you know your greatest weaknesses? Do you know things that take away from these kind of loops? That when you have something that you don't feel as good at, you're able to say, you know what, this isn't my strength. I'm going to make sure that I avoid a downward spiral. This is when something bad happens and that creates a small negative effect, and then this makes you feel even less confident. So you begin to doubt yourself. That lack of confidence makes you feel even more doubtful, and you begin to doubt your abilities and your effectiveness and your success. That in turn creates even more negative moments. That's called globalizing anxiety. That's when you take one bad thing and you begin to apply it to every area of your life. So what's really important here is for you to self-assess.