7 Hacks to Find Your Confidence
"I want to know how to be confident with women."
I hear this phrase a lot. If you’re not meeting the women you want right now if you hesitate before saying hello to her, if you want to let her know you’re attracted to her but leave every date having not made that impression... I bet at some point you’ve thought all this would be better if I could learn how to be confident with women.
How to be confident with women isn’t all that straightforward though? from my years of being a dating coach, I know confidence isn’t always simple.
And yes just telling someone `you just need to be confident!’ without being clear about how to do that is annoying advice. To help, I wanted to share with you 7 insights into confidence and tips to find more of it in yourself.
1. Confidence is environment-dependent.
It is good to recognise you can feel totally confident in one area of your life (work, fitness, public speaking etc.). And totally unconfident in another i.e. right now you don’t feel confident with women. If you’re a woman reading this it’s good to remember that if you want a guy who is `confident’ then this doesn’t necessarily show up as feet sweeping on date 1.
For myself, as a hardcore introvert, I somehow find it easier to do a TEDx talk in front of thousands of people than speaking to people one on one. So where YOUR confidence shows up for you may not always be where you expect.
Confidence hack: Don’t fall into the trap of believing that you’re `doomed’ because you don’t feel confidence YET: confidence isn’t born into you it can be built.
2. Confidence isn’t the same as being extroverted.
Often these ideas get conflated and naturally outgoing qualities are seen as `confident’ and introverted ones `unconfident’. One of my favourite sayings is that `empty vessels make loud echoes’. This means that sometimes insecurity masks itself as a need to say what you’ve done (or even worse what you have). Quiet confidence and self-assurance exists and is so attractive.
Confidence hack: Body language can signal confidence much more clearly than words can. I notice whenever I feel nervous that I go a bit pigeon-toed. Noticing this, turning my feet out, and walking head held high into a room (even when I’m not feeling it) has helped me find confidence in situations where I have felt out of my depth.
3. Confidence is found in your self-identity not what everyone else thinks.
In my Academy training group for men when I asked the question `when do you feel confident and unconfident’ you may be tempted to say `when I succeed and when I fail’. We wouldn’t be human to feel anything when we get push back from the external world: but it’s wise to step away from the thought, `when XYZ happens then I’ll be confident with women’. Whether you get that job or that second date has to do with factors beyond yourself, so don’t hang your self worth on it.
Confidence hack: Remember you turn up to a date to express yourself, listen and see if there’s a connection. You absolutely do not need to impress anyone. Simply maintaining your beliefs instead of changing them to please someone is a simple way to come across as more confident. This means not agreeing with everything she says, especially if those words happen to be:
`Sorry I totally forgot about meeting again :-(I’m busy for the next few weeks with work but maybe we can catch up after that.’
Value yourself, your time and people where there’s some give and take.
4. Confidence isn’t the same as arrogance.
Arrogance is the oppositional state to relying on `when XYZ happens...’ to build your self-esteem. To me, it means not taking any feedback at all from your external environment. This could be pushing on blindly on a first date even if she’s giving you cues that she’s not comfortable. I made a parody of this in my video about being an `alpha male.’ It was about a guy doing a performance of being confident with women instead of the real deal.
I am seeing an increasing trend on the internet of talking about alpha males, beta males (and a whole bunch more horrid terms that I’m not about to put on my blog). Point is we’re clearly not silverback gorillas: our society isn’t hierarchical in the same way, and even if it was we don’t need to start dividing ourselves up into `alpha’ and `beta’ any more than we do need to eat fricking loads of bananas.
Confidence hack: Don’t be like this guy.
5. Confidence is built through continually stepping outside your comfort zones.
Something magical happens when you take a mini step outside of your comfort zones, and then (HIGH FIVE!) return to them. Gradually doing new things, and rising to new challenges, builds links in the chain of your confidence. This could be approaching a woman you like, it could be saying yes to that party where you don’t know anyone, it could be taking that martial art club. It is about saying yes. Then yes again. Until you create new habits and you discover you are more capable than you think. Even if you approach a woman (and yes I know this feels more complicated in 2018) and the conversation tumbleweeds then you will feel better to have done it than be stuck in inaction. Promise. I’ve seen this a lot.
Confidence hack: Say yes and commit to things. If the thing you said yes to comes around and you’re a bit sleepy, it’s raining, or some other excuse, kick your own butt and go anyway. Going for 20 minutes and leaving because you’re not feeling it is much more valid than just staying in.
6. Confidence is there you just don’t know it yet.
The weird thing about doing something for the first time is that you don’t have anything in your reference book of life that says `you can do this!’ However that does not mean that you can’t do it. It means you haven’t done it yet. Baring in mind there was a time you couldn’t walk, or type, or know yourself like you do today, this isn’t such a big deal. Being confident with women is often recognizing that you are already capable of connecting to women. If you look for evidence that you’re good at something you may come up short - confidence is about belief as much as it is about the experience.
Confidence hack: Set a mantra that empowers you and repeat it. I used to think this was lame but now I am a believer that if you can change how you see things you can change your ability to do something. If you find negative or panicking thoughts rising up. I personally find a change of scene and some physical movement a pretty great way to break out of them. If possible: get up, take a 10-minute walk around the block, and you may well return feeling better.
7. Confidence can be built.
Confidence compounds - it isn’t on / off. It's a faith-building exercise in yourself: to learn how to become confident with women you can start by gradually, regularly, with accountability, taking on a project or a cause that helps you build your sense of `this is me and I am capable.’ That could be starting that business venture, doing a sporting event for charity or running a men’s group in your local area. Sometimes if you do something for a cause that’s bigger than yourself it will embolden you and hold you accountable to seeing it through.
Confidence hack: Start something: and stick with it. Even if that’s going to a weekly stand up course, dance class, or social event, it is the habit of saying yes week in, week out that will build you up.
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I hope you’ve noticed that this blog isn’t very much about women: and that’s because in all honesty women are just people too and I don’t want you to relate your sense of self to how they react to you. It is usually smarter to work on yourself, your attitude, your lifestyle, and then you will find being confident with women comes more naturally.
If you want to take the building blocks to do this - I have a great community of men who are on this journey. To find out more about simple ways to build yourself and find out who you were always supposed to be I’d love to invite you to try out my club. Either way, hope this blog has connected to you,
Hayley x
