If confidence is “entitlement” in Kaling’s sense, then confidence becomes less a performance and more an internal permission slip. Rather than waiting to feel perfectly prepared, the confident person assumes they have a legitimate right to participate, apply, speak, or lead. That assumption is not necessarily based on certainty of success; it’s based on belonging.
Seen this way, confidence isn’t the absence of doubt—it’s the presence of a baseline claim: I’m allowed to try. This transition matters because it shifts the focus from proving exceptional worth to simply granting oneself entry into the arena where worth can be demonstrated. [...]
