Change Confidence: Reclaiming Inner Ground in Uncertain Times

Author: Gisela Wendling, Ph.D.

We often think of confidence as something solid, something we either have or don’t. But during deep change, especially when it’s personal or high-stakes, confidence can suddenly fall away. What once felt stable can feel shaky. You might question your instincts, hesitate to speak, or wonder if you’re still the kind of leader others trust.

This isn’t unusual. In fact, it may be a sign that something important is happening beneath the surface.

Ego Loss or Emergent Self?

In transitional moments, what the Liminal Pathways Change Framework™ calls the liminal phase, leaders often experience what feels like a collapse of familiar confidence. The strategies, roles, or instincts that used to work no longer feel aligned. It can feel like a breakdown of identity, as if the person you’ve known yourself to be doesn’t quite fit the current reality.

But this is not necessarily a crisis. Often, it’s an invitation.

In psychology, this disorientation is sometimes referred to as ego restructuring—a temporary unraveling of how we make sense of who we are. It’s not pathological. It’s often the way transformation begins.

What begins to emerge is not a louder or more certain version of confidence. It’s something quieter: a capacity to stay present, grounded, and aligned even when outcomes are unknown. This is not confidence based on having all the answers, but on being in right relationship with uncertainty.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

—Joseph Campbell

What Is Change Confidence, Really?

Change confidence is not boldness for its own sake. It’s not about charging ahead or projecting certainty. Whether you’re leading a team, facilitating transformation, or navigating a personal transition, true change confidence is grounded in presence, not performance. Within the Change Maker’s Spindle, a change competency model grounded in the Wendling Liminal Pathways Change Framework, change confidence refers to the capacity to understand how transformative change works, remain emotionally present, internally resourced, and connected to purpose in the midst of uncertainty.

It’s not fixed or surface-level. It’s a living capacity—a form of confidence that’s flexible, relational, and able to respond in real time. As a leader, coach, or facilitator, it’s what allows you to hold space for others without having to rescue or control the process.

This form of confidence is more about attunement than assertion. It’s not the stance of someone who insists they’re ready, but of someone who is becoming ready, moment by moment, in response to what’s emerging.

It grows from connection to your own internal state, to others in the field of change, and to sources of meaning and support that go deeper than logic. It says: “I may not know exactly where we’re going, but I trust my capacity to meet what’s next.”

The Four Dimensions of Change Confidence

The Change Maker’s Spindle™ outlines four domains that work together to support this kind of confidence:

Change Literacy (Mind): Understanding how change works—developmentally, emotionally, and structurally—gives leaders orientation and helps them make meaning, even when plans fall apart.

Emotional Fluidity (Heart): The ability to work with emotion, rather than avoid or suppress it, allows leaders to stay connected, honest, and human, inviting trust and deeper participation from others.

Somatic Awareness (Body): Tuning into physical signals—like tension, fatigue, or activation—helps leaders recognize early signs of stress or misalignment and make grounded, wise choices.

Inner and Outer Guidance (Spirit): Drawing from intuition, values, and trusted sources of support strengthens a leader’s connection to what matters most—and offers orientation when logic alone is not enough.

When these dimensions are in alignment, leaders experience whole-system coherence—a state where their thinking, feeling, sensing, and deeper knowing are in conversation. In this state, confidence is not forced; it’s embodied.

How Change Confidence Supports Growth

The Change Confidence Assessment was designed to support leaders in strengthening their capacity to navigate transformation. It reflects where you are currently resourced, and where you may feel under-supported, across all four domains of the Change Maker’s Spindle.

Here’s how working with the assessment can help:

1. Awareness Builds Choice: You can’t shift what you can’t see. The assessment surfaces patterns, like where confidence drops in emotionally charged moments or where your conceptual framework needs strengthening.

2. Naming Reduces Shame: Losing confidence in the middle of change doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re human. The assessment helps normalize the disorientation and invites compassion rather than judgment.

3. Integration Supports Alignment: By reflecting on the interplay between body, mind, heart, and purpose, you begin to build internal alignment. Confidence becomes less dependent on control and more rooted in coherence.

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening… What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.”

—Thomas Merton

A Confidence of a Different Kind

Change confidence is not the absence of fear or doubt. It is the ability to stay in relationship with what’s unfolding, even when clarity is incomplete. It allows you to move, relate, and lead—not because you’re unshaken, but because you are willing to stay present.

It’s what allows a leader to say, “I don’t know yet, but I’m here for it.”

It’s not a mask. It’s not a role. It’s an inner alignment that holds steady, even when the world around you is shifting.

Learn more about Change Confidence, the Change Maker's Spindle and take the new Change Confidence Assessment in our upcoming workshop, Stepping Into Your Transformational Agency (SITA).

If you'd like to bring this workshop to your organization, or if you would like to engage our consulting services, contact us at [email protected].