If you’ve ever found yourself wondering why you lose confidence at work, sometimes even when the pressure doesn’t feel that high, you’re not alone.
Losing confidence under pressure at work is one of the most common things capable women in leadership describe to me. Not in difficult rooms — though that happens too — but also in the ones that should feel easy.
These are women who are technically brilliant, well-regarded and experienced enough to know their own minds. They’ve earned their seat at the table. And yet, in certain moments – a senior stakeholder meeting, a room full of people they respect, a conversation where the outcome matters – something shifts. Their thinking slows and the words that would normally come easily get scrambled up. They hear themselves sounding more formal, less like themselves. And afterwards, they replay the whole thing wondering why.
It happens to more people than you’d think. Including me, even rarely and usually in the moments I least expect it.
A while ago I was in a meeting with someone I genuinely admire. She’s warm, brilliant and very supportive – the kind of person who makes you feel like your thinking matters. And yet, before I spoke, there was a tightening. A quiet internal check: nail this, don’t fumble it.
She is everything that should have made it easy and yet I still felt it.
Afterwards she mentioned I’d seemed slightly more formal than usual at the start. She asked if I was anxious about the stakeholder conversation coming up. I wasn’t, not consciously. On reflection, my reaction wasn’t about the task at all. It was more about being visible in front of someone I respected, and what that does to a nervous system, even a trained one.
The reason confidence disappears under pressure at work is almost never what you think it is.
And so confidence isn’t just about the difficult rooms.
The Rooms That Catch You Out Are Often the Ones That Feel Safe
Most people expect to feel pressure in a performance review, a senior leadership meeting, or a high-stakes presentation. Those moments carry weight and it makes sense that the nervous system responds.
Your confidence can disappear just as quickly in front of the people you respect most – precisely because those moments matter to you.
The more the moment matters to you, the more visible you feel, regardless of how safe the room is.
The women I work with describe it often. One put it particularly well: “My thoughts become tangled up. I become insecure and struggle to stick to my point.” She wasn’t describing a hostile room. She was describing a leadership moment that mattered to her.
You wait for the right moment to speak, miss it, then spend the next ten minutes half-listening while mentally replaying the fact that you said nothing. Or someone else makes a version of the point you were about to make, and the whole room nods along while you sit there thinking: well, apparently we’d all have benefited from me speaking thirty seconds earlier.
There’s the nerves in the moment, and then there’s the internal replay afterwards. That second part is the bit people rarely talk about.
What’s Actually Happening in Your Brain Under Pressure
When pressure rises, your brain is working hard. It scans for threat, quietly, quickly, and often well below your own awareness, alongside everything else it’s processing.
Why high-stakes moments trigger a stress response
Dr David Rock’s SCARF model, published in the NeuroLeadership Journal in 2008, explains why this happens so reliably. SCARF identifies five social domains the brain constantly monitors: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. When any of these feel threatened, the brain triggers a stress response as real as a physical danger signal. You can read more about the model at the NeuroLeadership Institute.
In a high-stakes meeting, your status is visible and at risk. The outcome is uncertain. You may feel you have little control over how it lands. Several SCARF domains activate at once and so your thinking brain (the part responsible for clear recall, precise language, and measured judgement) goes partly offline.
You can almost feel yourself reaching for words that would normally come easily. You hear yourself sounding more formal, less like yourself, editing in real time instead of contributing naturally.
You’re not a different person. You haven’t suddenly become less capable. Your system is doing exactly what it’s designed to do.
The problem is the state your nervous system is in at the moment your capability is needed most. It’s not really about confidence. It’s whether you trust your own skills and competence in these moments.
Why mindset advice often misses the mark
Most conventional advice about confidence focuses on mindset: reframe your thoughts, remember your achievements, fake it until you make it. That advice can be useful – when it’s working at the right level.
If your stress response is activated and your access to clear thinking is genuinely narrowed, a mindset shift isn’t going to reach it because you don’t have access in that moment to the logical part of the brain. You are unable to think your way out of a nervous system response. The intervention that works is the one that meets the problem where it actually lives.
What Confidence Under Pressure Actually Looks Like
Real confidence is about your ability to access what you already know — your skills, your judgement, your voice — steady even when you feel the nerves tingling. You may still feel the tightening before you speak, and you may still act before you feel entirely ready.
That’s fine, your capability is still there, there’s no gap. It became a little foggy on the path to it, that’s all. That’s where the work is.
The capability is almost always there. What shifts is your access to it.
And access is something that can be built. And reliably, in the actual rooms where you need it.
What Actually Helps
Understand your specific triggers
Confidence shows up differently in different situations. Certain people, certain kinds of questions, certain visibility levels all play a part. When you know which SCARF domains are most sensitive for you, you can prepare for the moments that matter full of self-trust.
Work with your nervous system, not against it
EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), also known as tapping, works directly with the stress response, helping the body process and move through it. Clinical psychologist Dr Peta Stapleton at Bond University has published peer-reviewed research showing measurable reductions in cortisol following EFT. For analytically-minded professionals, that matters: it is a physiological shift, not just a reframe. If you are new to it, here is what EFT actually is and how I use it in practice.
Build the behaviour before the pressure arrives
Confidence in high-stakes moments is built in low-stakes ones. The woman who contributes clearly in a difficult leadership meeting has usually been practising in smaller ones first. If speaking up in meetings is where it shows up most for you, that’s exactly where to start. The behaviour comes first and the feeling follows.
Act before you feel ready
Confidence is a consequence of action, not a prerequisite for it. Every time you act before you feel fully ready, you build evidence that you can trust yourself under pressure. Over time, that evidence becomes the foundation of something much more reliable than a feeling.
The Shift Worth Making
You already have what it takes. The women I work with are smart, skilled and highly capable. What we work on together is making sure that shows up consistently, especially when the pressure is high. The same leader, just more reliably and consistently herself in the rooms that matter.
If this is resonating, the Steady Under Pressure session is exactly where this work happens. One focused session, one real situation. Find out more below.
Steady Under Pressure – A Single Session to Help You Access Yourself When It Counts
If you recognise yourself in this — the tightening before you speak, the overthinking after meetings, the point you didn’t make — this is exactly the work I do with clients.
Steady Under Pressure is a focused 1:1 session for capable women in science and tech who want to show up more reliably in high-stakes moments. Clearer thinking, steadier communication, stronger leadership presence — consistently when it counts.
We work through:
- The specific situation where pressure is changing your behaviour
- What your nervous system is actually responding to
- Practical ways to reduce activation before it builds
- Communication and leadership strategies that hold under pressure
- How to stay steady in real-world conversations that matter
This is practical, evidence-informed work combining leadership coaching, nervous system awareness, behavioural strategy and EFT / tapping for stress regulation. Kept simple, repeatable and grounded in your actual day-to-day.
The session includes:
- A pre-session reflection questionnaire
- A focused 75-minute 1:1 intensive
- Practical next-step actions
- Post-session reflection support
- Personalised EFT audio support
Investment: £295
You can find out more about the session here. Ready to book? Click here and I’ll send you the reflection questionnaire.
Still thinking about it? You can find me and explore more at vivbowra.com.