How To Be More Confident

Confidence as defined by the dictionary is:

“A feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities”

Another definition, a better definition, and the one I use…

Is to confide in yourself.

To rely on yourself.

The truth is, you have to rely on yourself in this life.

You think someone else is going to care as much about you as you do?

Au contraire mon frere.

If you’re not in the driver’s seat of your life who is?

How can you can you let someone else behind the wheel of your life and expect them to drive the way you want them to?

How can you let someone else drive and expect them to go where you want to go?

The answer is you can’t .

The answer is you can’t let someone else drive, unless you want to be a passenger for the rest of your life, subject to someone else’s will.

No…

That’s not going to work. Not for me. And if you’re reading this, not for you.

When you rely on yourself, and you stand up on your own two feet, and you put all your problems on your back and stand up straight…

You become a different breed of beast.

You become your own best counsel.

You become the man you need to be.

You become a motherf#@$ing force to be reckoned with.

A man who confides in himself is a dangerous man indeed.

And I mean real confidence, not that snake oil “superhuman confidence” that some scammers are going to try to sell you.

Real confidence is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Because that fear isn’t going anywhere. Fear is a daily fight. But with real confidence, you can control that fear, and make that fear your friend. Because fear is your friend when you can control it.

And confidence is about control.

To be the man you need to be means taking total control of your life.

Taking responsibility for your wins and your losses.

And acting with certainty because doubt is the destroyer of dreams.

You can be wrong but you can’t be in doubt.

Commitment, control, character – these are the traits of the man you need to be.

For me it was out of necessity.

I grew up without a father. Without much money. Without a gameplan.

My mom did the best she could, and I love her for it, but a woman can’t raise a man.

I realized young that I had to solve my own problems.

I had to learn about women, about work, about money, about pride, about masculinity and about life.

I learned I had to carve my own path…

And I made a lot of mistakes along the way.

But I got there eventually.

It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to the other side but eventually I made it.

And that’s what I want to give you today.

I want to give you the confidence I didn’t have.

The confidence I got through trial, error and sheer force of will.

And I want you to have it without the struggle I had to go through to get to where I am now.

How To Be More Confident

1) Progressive resistance

Here’s the deal with confidence…

At first, you just have to feel the f#@$ing fear and just do it anyway.

That girl, that client call, that presentation – you just have to do it.

Confidence comes after the fact, after having done it hundreds if not thousands of times before.

Life doesn’t get easy until you get tough.

And to get tough you have to go through hell and keep going.

And after you’ve gone through it all, you get the gift of confidence.

But…

You don’t have to jump in the deep end right away.

You’re not going to be able to bench press 250 lbs. your first time in the gym.

You have to work your way up to that.

It’s the same across all aspects of your life.

If you’re too scared to make the first move, take some of that pressure off.

Baby step your way into it.

Just ask 1 girl that day for the time.

Just make 1 cold call and get someone on the phone.

Start from there and move up as you get more functional.

Don’t worry that confidence will come in time.

After doing the damn thing enough times, and pushing past enough progressive resistance, you’ll get beyond functional, you’ll get superfunctional. It’s not superhuman confidence, but it’s the closest thing.

And if you’re still struggling with motivation, it’s because you haven’t painted the right picture yet.

Create the result you want, calculate the amount of action you need to take, and link pleasure to taking that action.

If you want a girlfriend, figure out how many girls you need to talk to and link pleasure to that action. And when you crash and burn, recognize that you’re one girl closer to getting the one you want.

If you want money, do the money math, calculate how many potential client calls you need to make, and link pleasure to that action. And when you crash and burn, recognize that you’re one client closer to getting paid.

2) Be In The Best Available State At All Times

By state I mean thoughts, emotions, and sensations.

Specifically feeling as good and high energy as possible, with the blood flowing and all the positive neurotransmitters firing away.

The better your physical state the better your mental state and the more confident you’ll be.

Think of the last time you we’re in flow state, and everything was running smoothly.

I’ll bet you weren’t feeling fear when you we’re in that flow state, because it’s impossible to be in state and be afraid at the same time. In fact you could define state by the absence of fear.

Now that state isn’t going to be available at all times, but you want to at least aim for the best available state you can be in.

And the reality is, a lot of state is structural, we’re more human than we want to be:

  • Good sleep
  • Good food
  • Good friends
  • Good girls
  • Exercising
  • Extroversion
  • Positive thinking
  • Not ejaculating

All the above are crucial keys to keeping your state up.

The better your state is the better you feel and the more confident you’ll be.

3) Fake It Till You Make It

At one point in time, Mick Jagger was just a skinny, effeminate, upper middle class, English boy playing Black American blues music in drag and Rockstars didn’t exist. Until he convinced the world that Rockstars did exist and he was the biggest and baddest of them all.

At one point in time, every guy you’ve ever admired was an awkward 13 boy whose voice cracked and who was scared to talk to girls. And every single one of those guys became the guy they wanted to be by faking it at first.

A method actor doesn’t show up to set without preparing. He learns to become the character first and you need to do the same. Fake it till you make it, it will be awkward at first, but eventually it becomes second nature. And by that time, no one will remember who you used to be.

The secret to life is that it’s malleable, you can create so much for yourself when you put the work in.

4) Create And Identify With Confident Self Talk

You are what you tell yourself. Your image is your narrative, and its yours to create as you please.

I got this, I can do this, I’m on it and I won’t be stopped…

Start telling yourself those things every day and watch what happens.

Choose to identify with winner thoughts and let the loser thoughts fall to the ground in front of you.

Create a positive identity for yourself through identifying with positive thoughts.

Your insecurities are there you just don’t listen to them. Doubt, depression, despair – they’re all liars. Don’t hand the wheel over to those demons, it will only lead to the destruction of you and your vehicle.

There is no trick to it, you just do it, and you do it consistently, until you die. You have to wake up to win every day, to do battle against your demons, that’s the game of life.

The guy who appears confident has the same insecure thoughts you do, he just doesn’t listen to them. He creates positive thoughts, and positive self talk and identifies with those thoughts.

When you create positive self talk you become a good father to the boy inside you. And you need to be, because the boy is still there. He’s the one who gets scared and you need to say the right things to him.

When you do, you get the confidence you deserve. You get that strength that other people can feel. Not only can you confide in yourself, but your strength allows others to lean on you.

You become a light unto the world. When you stand up on your own two feet, and speak with certainty, people will gravitate towards you like moths to a flame.

Because the vast majority of people are looking for help, they’re looking for certainty. When you can sell certainty effectively, you will become a success.

5) Win

Half of your self esteem comes from competing, it’s an ugly truth but a truth nonetheless. There are real life, external metrics, metrics that all the “inner game” in the world won’t solve. To get that external success you need to get real wins.

If you’re struggling, just focus on getting those easy wins under your belt, like Cus D’Amato feeding tomato cans to a young Tyson. Because the more you’re winning, the more confident you feel. This applies to all areas of your life.

The fact is, not everyone can win, by the very definition of the word. But you want to be one of the guys that does. It’s not equal, it’s not fair, I don’t like it, and neither do you, but that’s life, and life sucks at the bottom, you need to be at the top.

The more wins you have in the past and present, the more confident you’ll be for the future.

6) Keep The Promises You Make To Yourself

To be confident, you have to trust yourself. When you break promises to yourself, you lose trust for yourself, just like you would lose trust in a father who was always promising to watch you play baseball but never made it to your games.

When you set a goal for that year, commit to it, treat it like there’s a gun to your head to get it done. If you’re wishy-washy or uncertain, then don’t say you’re going to do it. Take it off your task list.

Make and keep promises to yourself. The more you do that the more you’ll trust yourself and the more confident you’ll feel in your ability to get things done.

Conclusion

When you apply the above six steps, and you do it consistently, day in and day out, you’ll shock yourself with what you can achieve.

I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, and that you’re not going to struggle, but nothing worthwhile is easy.

Stay up, stay on your game, keep fighting, keep pushing, keep shoving and get after whats yours!