The 4 Types of Confidence (And How to Pinpoint Where You’re Stuck)

Most entrepreneurs trying to build confidence are solving the wrong thing. According to Terri, CEO of Shift/Co, that’s because confidence is made up of several components. There are four distinct types of confidence, and most people are pouring energy into one while leaving the others completely unaddressed.

They read another book. Take another course. Attend a mindset workshop. And then wonder why nothing actually changes, why they still freeze before a sales call, still hold back on putting their message out, still feel like an imposter in a room full of people they respect.

After more than two decades of research and work with thousands of conscious entrepreneurs, Terri found that the moment you understand which type of confidence is actually blocking you, the path forward becomes surprisingly clear.

Here’s how all four work, and how to identify where to start.

What Are the 4 Types of Confidence?

These four types aren’t a spectrum. They’re distinct areas, and it’s entirely possible to be strong in one while being almost completely underdeveloped in another. That’s exactly why people get stuck. They work on what they are good at while ignoring what they are not good at, then can’t figure out why they still feel like they’re white-knuckling it through every challenge.

Type 1: Developmental Confidence

Developmental confidence is about learning new things. Specifically, it’s a person’s willingness and ability to engage with something they don’t yet know how to do.

Terri is candid about this being her own weakest type. If she can’t become good at something quickly, every excuse in the world shows up. The first time she tries something new like, golf, surfing, or learning AI, the developmental block kicks in. Unless she can be great at it right out of the gate, the temptation is to avoid it entirely.

For many conscious entrepreneurs, this shows up most visibly around marketing and sales. The inner voice says: I just don’t know how to do this. Underneath that thought is an assumption that often goes unexamined: I can’t learn it. That’s what a developmental confidence block sounds like. Not “I can’t do it.” But, “I don’t want to try.”

If “I don’t want to try” is showing up regularly, developmental confidence is likely the weak link.

Type 2: Performance Confidence

Once past the learning curve, performance confidence takes over. This is the belief in one’s ability to get better at something already in motion.

Using marketing as an example: a founder has started posting, they’re showing up, doing the work. But results aren’t matching expectations, and doubt creeps in. Performance confidence determines whether they keep refining and improving, or start pulling back.

These two types are closely linked, and most people are significantly stronger in one than the other. If learning new things feels energizing but consistent execution is a struggle, that’s likely strong developmental confidence paired with weaker performance confidence. The reverse pattern is equally common. Knowing which way it runs isn’t a judgment. It’s a map.

Type 3: Emotional Confidence

This is the one most people overlook, and it’s the most important of all four.

Emotional confidence is the ability to recognize what you’re feeling, name it, and know what to do with it. It’s managing your own internal state rather than being managed by it.

Terri’s research points to the same finding over and over: the block is almost never about skills. It’s about the emotional state that gets activated when someone tries to use the business skills they already have. You can know exactly what to do and still freeze. Every system is in place, and still avoiding the thing that matters. That’s not a knowledge problem. That’s emotional confidence.

“It doesn’t mean you’re lacking confidence. It just means you’re feeling fear.”

That reframe has helped entrepreneurs move forward more than any productivity system. Fear is not evidence that something is impossible. It’s evidence of being at the edge of the comfort zone, which is exactly where growth happens.

One of the tools Terri teaches at Shift/Co for building emotional confidence is the Success Switch: a three-step process rooted in neuroscience. Acknowledge what you’re feeling to interrupt the amygdala – the part of the brain that triggers stress and fear responses. Activate the parasympathetic nervous system through intentional breathing. Then, anchor a new belief while the nervous system is regulated. In under five minutes, you will feel grounded and begin to retrain the brain to work for you and not against you.

The same mechanism is visible at the elite level. At the Olympics, you can actually witness athletes who have regulated nervous systems and consistently outperform those who were flooded with stress, regardless of how much they had trained. Nervous system regulation isn’t a soft skill. It’s the mechanism behind consistent high performance.

Type 4: Soulful Confidence

The fourth type is harder to quantify but equally real: trusting that a higher force toward good is at work, even in the difficult parts.

For conscious entrepreneurs especially, this type matters. Building a purpose-driven business means navigating genuine uncertainty, while building and executing plans. There will be seasons where the strategy is sound, and the results just haven’t shown up yet. Soulful confidence is what keeps a founder grounded while in those gaps.

It doesn’t require a specific religious or spiritual framework. It’s simply trusting that the difficult, uncomfortable, uncertain parts of building something meaningful can lead somewhere worth going. And they truly can.

The Real Reason Confidence Work Doesn’t Stick

Most confidence content focuses on behavior: show up anyway, do it scared, fake it until you make it. That’s the surface level.

A layer down, you’ll find thoughts and emotions. The perfectionism story. The fear of being judged. The voice that says everyone else seems to have this figured out.

But the deepest layer, the one driving everything above it, is almost always one of what Terri calls the Core Four barriers:

• Not Good Enough: present in 98% of the thousands of people Terri has studied across two decades of research
• Low Self-Worth: comparing yourself to others, making yourself small, consistently putting everyone else’s needs first
• Need to Know: needing certainty about how something will turn out before being willing to try it
• Fear of Success: a subconscious belief that success itself brings risk, judgment, or loss

These aren’t conscious thoughts. They were formed before age twelve, through experiences that left a mark: a family culture, a critical teacher, an older sibling who was constantly held up as the standard, or in some cases, real trauma. They live in the unconscious mind and quietly drive every avoidance behavior, every bout of perfectionism, every moment of paralysis.

“Perfectionism is a behavior. It’s not a barrier. It’s how you’re behaving.”

The behavior is what shows up at the surface. But addressing only the behavior is pulling weeds without touching the roots. The faster path is going deeper: identify which core barrier is actually driving things, own it without turning it into a story, and then do the work to release it.

The Four Zones: Comfort, Fear, Learning, Growth

When trying something new or facing a real challenge in business, people move through a predictable sequence. Understanding it makes the whole process less frightening.

It starts in the comfort zone. Things are familiar. Patterns are known. Then something asks for growth, and suddenly, the fear zone shows up. The inner critic gets louder. Excuses multiply. Judgment feels imminent.

Most people interpret this as a signal to stop. It’s actually just a signal that developmental confidence is being stretched.

Staying with it moves you into the learning zone, where performance confidence builds, new skills develop, and the fear begins to recede. With enough time and consistent emotional regulation, you land in the growth zone. That’s where the impact you’re here to make actually becomes possible.

The fear zone is not a dead end. It’s a threshold.

How to Identify Your Weakest Link

The question isn’t which type of confidence to build in general. It’s which one is the weakest link right now?

Start by asking honestly:

• Do you avoid trying new things because of the discomfort of not knowing? (Developmental)
• Do you start things but lose faith in your ability to improve over time? (Performance)
• Do you know what needs to happen, but feel emotionally overwhelmed when you try to do it? (Emotional)
• Do you struggle to trust the process when outcomes are uncertain? (Soulful)

Then go one level deeper. What’s the story running underneath? Which of the Core Four barriers does it trace back to? What did that belief cost, and where did it get planted?

This is the work. Not a quick fix. Not a hack. Real, honest, often uncomfortable self-examination, paired with practical tools that actually change how the nervous system responds.

“I am not fixed. I don’t have all four of those barriers resolved. And I choose one a year to work on.”

That’s the standard Terri holds herself to. Not perfection. Evolution.

How Shift/Co Supports This Work

The Pure Confidence program is included in every Shift/Co membership, built on the four-step framework Terri uses with every founder: commit to evolving, map and own your barriers, release what’s driving them, and learn to elevate your energy so you can move forward anyway.

Shift/Co also has Breakthrough Coaches who work one-on-one with members specifically around this. Because reading about a barrier and actually moving through it are two different things, and most people need real support for the second part.

The Conscious Business Growth Platform that underpins everything at Shift/Co is built on one core truth: mindset and business are inseparable. You cannot sustainably grow one without attending to the other.

You’re not alone if you’re a conscious entrepreneur who knows what needs to happen, but something keeps getting in the way. Shift/Co’s programming helps break the cycle.

Ready to figure out what’s actually blocking you?

Explore Shift/Co membership or book a free coaching session to experience the work directly. The version of you on the other side of this barrier is already there.