A lot of men have told me that one of the pieces of advice they’ve gotten in the past is some version of “You just have to be more confident, man. Women like confidence.” Sound familiar? While it is true that “confidence” is effective in regard to being attractive to more women, telling someone to “just be more confident” is not really helpful, nor is it easy to implement in your day-to-day life. It’s not effective advice mainly because it’s not specific enough. The people giving that advice, as well intentioned as they might be, couldn’t be more vague if they tried. It sounds like good advice because it seems so simple, but without actionable elements they might as well be telling you to be taller or more handsome. They haven’t taken the time to really understand what confidence is. They don’t know how difficult it can be to build confidence, or how easily it can be shattered. No, unfortunately, confidence is not so simple that it can be boiled down to a soundbite as easily as some other concepts.
This article will start with what confidence is not. Then move on to what it is, digging into the two interdependent halves of confidence in regard to social skills, being confident, and projecting confidence. Leaving you with a functional understanding of confidence and its effects.
First, confidence is not a tangible thing. It’s not a switch you can turn on or off. It’s not a specific look or brand. You can’t buy confidence in a store, as much as marketers would like to convince you otherwise. It is true that people will judge you by your appearance, and your clothing is part of that, but being uncomfortable in something “nice” or “expensive” will not make you feel or project confidence. It’s not a certain body type either, as much as personal trainers would like to convince you otherwise. It is true that everyone has their physical preference and people will judge you by your body, but living an unhealthy lifestyle in order to conform to a specific look you think will be attractive will not make you feel or project confidence. Confidence is not a credential you can earn: There are not grades given in confidence class. Nobody appoints you to a state of confidence. You’re not going to get a confidence card in the mail if your bank account hits a certain number. It’s not the false bravado that comes with getting so drunk that you also lose awareness along with the insecurities/inhibitions you were trying to suppress. It’s not the arrogance that’s conveyed by behaving like you’ve already succeeded.
As for what confidence is, lets start with the Merriam-Webster definition:
A feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something.
A feeling or belief that someone or something is good or has the ability to succeed at something.
The feeling of being certain that something will happen or that something is true.
There are some key words/phrases in those definitions: “feeling or belief” and “succeed.” This means that confidence is a state of mind that ebbs and flows depending on many different factors. We all have skills and abilities we are confident in — and others we are not. If you ask me to sleep in on a day off from work, I have a strong feeling I will be successful at that. But, if you ask me to perform surgery on somebody, the feeling that I’m likely to be successful fades quickly. If you have a driver’s license, try to imagine back to when you took your driving test. You probably felt good but nervous about it. You felt good because you believed you could pass but nervous because it wasn’t guaranteed. I’m sure if you think a little you’ll identify something you feel strongly you will be successful at. You know the feeling of being confident — you might just not know it in regard to attracting women.
How you define success will have a dramatic effect on your feeling of confidence as well because success breeds confidence and confidence breeds success. They each help to build the other. I was having a conversation with a client, and he said — “I’m not really sure why I’m even doing this, I honestly feel like there isn’t much point. Every relationship I’ve been in has failed, I can’t see any being successful.” I asked him “What’s a successful relationship to you? Because if it is what I suspect it is, you’ll only ever have one and you won’t know it was successful until one of you dies.” We sat in silence for a couple of minutes as I could see the wheels turning in his head. If you think a successful approach as one that opens a conversation that lasts for about five minutes and has three instances of held eye contact, you’re going to feel encouraged and you’ll feel a higher likelihood of success when you’re opening. Whereas if you define a successful approach as one that leads to a sexual interaction, you’re going to be disappointed more often than not, and it will be difficult to feel that you’re likely to succeed when you open a conversation. You don’t have to be the best guy she’s ever met for her to be interested in you: You just have to be good compared to most of the guys who try to flirt with her. Take a close look at your own definition of success and how it’s affecting your confidence.
Being confident in yourself and your abilities means that nobody can convince you you’re something you’re not, positive or negative. A guy who feels confident will not be talked into thinking less of himself, just like he will not allow himself to be talked past his limitations. A confident guy won’t get peer-pressured into taking another shot when he knows he’s at his limit. Confident people don’t get rattled easily: They have poise, a relaxed demeanor, and are comfortable with themselves. Being comfortable with who you are doesn’t mean you’re done growing as a person: We all go through different phases as we go through life. It doesn’t mean you’re happy with every aspect of who you are. But it does mean you can distinguish between where you were, where you are, and where you are trying to go. Accepting who you are does not mean you’re happy with every decision you’ve made. It does, however, mean you understand that while you can’t change those previous choices, that you can learn a great deal from them without dwelling on them. It means that you might not completely understand why you like the things you do, but that’s OK. You like what you like, and you don’t owe anyone an explanation as to why, not even yourself. Your personality is under no obligation to make sense to you. As much as we would like it to be, not everything in our brain is cut-and-dried. Don’t feel like there has to be an explanation for everything you enjoy.
Now that we’ve established that confidence is a feeling, this is where I split it into two equally important halves that build off of each other — having confidence and projecting confidence.
Think of confidence like your favorite pie — there’s the filling and the crust. The filling is the pie having confidence, it’s about what’s inside. There are a lot of different fillings, and while we all have our favorite, keep in mind that every filling is someone’s favorite. The crust is the pie’s projection of confidence. Depending on the style you can see only so much of what’s inside regardless of how good you know it to be. You’ve seen a variety of crusts on pies. There’s the complete covering with maybe just a few small holes poked through; there’s lattice that allows you to see some of what’s inside; some pies don’t have any crust over the top at all — and anything in between. If you have a solid feeling of confidence but you’re not able to convey that to the world around you effectively, that’s like your favorite pie being mixed in randomly with different pies with exactly the same crust. You know it’s there, and you know it’s good, but you have no good way of identifying it. A lot of men have confidence, but by not knowing how to demonstrate it they’ve effectively covered themselves with crust and are not projecting any of it out into the world to invite women to try them. Don’t think I’m saying that no crust is the best way to convey confidence, it’s not. Having boundaries is necessary, without the crust a pie is just a pan full of filling with no structure. The focus here is to develop an appropriate balance of having confidence and projecting confidence.
First, we’ll work on how to recognize and build the feeling of confidence so we have it, and then we’ll look at some methods to projecting it so those around us can sense it. I want you to close your eyes and think about something you’re good at or your favorite activity. Another good way to generate confidence is to think of a time when you stood up for yourself. Whatever it is for you, I want you to think about what is happening, why you enjoy it, how you’re good at it, and how you got to enjoy and be good at it. If you allow yourself to get lost in your thoughts about this, you’ll notice that you might start to relax physically, you may crack a smile or laugh a little, or you may stand or sit up straighter. You’re starting to feel confidence: Remember those feelings, whatever they are.
One of the primary methods I’ve used over time to help clients build their confidence is to identify and remove as many of the self-imposed barriers to success as possible. We address a lot of the “excuses” I hear in regard to why that guy is too nervous to do something. As I was developing my own skills with women this is one area where I saw an incredible amount of growth. It took me a while to figure out that I had built a lot of the obstacles that were causing problems. We men are very good at talking ourselves out of so many great interactions with women by allowing something that we have control of to dictate a different path than we want.
One of the most common self-imposed barriers being that they are uncomfortable inviting a woman to their house or apartment because they believe it would be a turn-off. They describe any number scenarios where they are talking to a woman and want to invite her over, but feel like as soon as that woman set foot in their place she would lose interest. So to make sure that concern won’t effect your confidence, or stop your from extending the invite, get your place set up to the point where you would feel good about having a woman you were interested in over.
If you want to have women at your house or apartment, take a good look around and ask yourself “Would a woman I like want to be here?” If the answer is “no” (besides your bathroom needing a cleaning, which it does) figure out why. If you don’t feel like a woman you like would want to be in your place, that’s an easily addressed barrier to success in your dating life. It’s something you have complete control over. While I understand that every one of us would like a bigger/better/nicer place to live, we can all do the best we can with what we have. If you remove the barrier of an unattractive place by knowing your place is clean, comfortable, and representative of you, you will feel much more confident having a woman you’re interested in over for some private time.
Do the same with your wardrobe and your look. Not feeling good in your clothes and not loving the look you have are both barriers to success and, ultimately, confidence. You can change them, in case nobody has told you before. If you don’t have any clothes that you feel really good in, ask a female friend to go shop for clothes with you. Don’t focus on labels, focus on fit and style. If you haven’t had a new hairstyle in a while, get a good stylist to give you a haircut for a look you want. Take a look at your life to try and see where there are some other easily removed barriers to your success.
Having a better understanding of what you will bring to a relationship as well as what you’re looking for in a relationship, whatever that relationship dynamic might be, can also build confidence. Take about half an hour each and think about these four things:
What am I looking for?
What am I trying to avoid?
What are my strengths?
What are my weaknesses?
When you know what you’re looking for and what your strengths are, you will start to see that in every bar or party, in any coffee shop or supermarket, on Tinder or eHarmony, there will be girls that would love to date you and/or have sex with you. When you start understanding that, your approach will change from trying to convince girls to date or have sex with you to figuring out which ones already want to.
I’ve had clients who had a lot of difficulty opening, and we’ve done a couple of things to feel better. The first was to find or come up with a couple of openers that they felt comfortable with for the environment they were going to be talking to the most women in. Then we practice them in the mirror and together. We focused on body language (standing up straight, shoulders back), holding eye contact, relaxing our tone of voice, and getting the words right. Practicing a couple of good openers in the mirror or with a friend might seem like a silly thing to do, but it doesn’t take much to feel a lot better about what you’re going to say to start a conversation. Removing the barrier of not knowing what to say, or how to say it, to start a conversation can make big impact on your confidence level.
Second was to adjust our perspective on opening by reestablishing what a successful conversation opening means (mentioned earlier). One way is to commit to at least ten attempts to open conversations on a night out. By committing to at least ten attempts to open a conversation, we’re changing what constitutes a success (succeeding just by attempting) and ultimately the likelihood we’ll succeed. We could have ten awkward attempts that go nowhere and still be successful in our goal of the attempts. The trick is not minding that it might be embarrassing, you will have to get used to the idea of people watching you have success. Over time, the openers you practice in the mirror will fall away because you’ll be more naturally confident and will be comfortable opening with whatever comes to mind for the environment you’re in.
After you’ve developed some confidence with opening, think about some of the stories of your life and how to tell them in a way that will allow a woman to understand and connect with you. Having already thought about what your strengths are and what you’re looking for, try to relate those to prominent events in your life that you could easily tell a story about. For example, if you are looking for a girl who likes to travel and you feel like your love of music is an attractive quality of yours, develop a TRUE story about some of your travels that include highlights of the music scene there. Make sure you focus on how you had a good time, and be careful not to sound like you’re bragging. If you’re telling the story to try to impress her, you’re bragging and it will actually convey neediness. But, if you’re telling the story to give her insights into what you enjoy about your life, and allowing opportunities to connect, it will demonstrate that you are a high-quality man looking for a high-quality woman and it’s more likely to lead to a meaningful conversation. Yes, it can be a tough distinction to understand sometimes.
With that in mind, I’d like you to think about your daily commute. Specifically the piece of that commute that involves some walking. Some people enjoy walking while some people see it only as a way to get from one place to another, but it is something nearly all of us do. Imagine telling a woman the story about your walk from work at the end of the day to the place where you parked your car, get a taxi/Uber, get on the bus/train, or your home. I enjoy my job(s), which I know many people can’t say, and I still enjoy the feeling of being done with a shift. Think about all the different things going on during your walk that you like. What are you thinking about? What do you see, smell, and hear that you enjoy? How long does it take, and what are the other people around you like? There are a lot of different elements you could talk about to show her what you like and give her opportunities to connect. Now … think if you were to talk about how good you are at making the walk, that would be a bit strange and feel awkward to listen to. It would come across as bragging and approval-seeking. Telling her what you enjoy about that walk, about how all the various elements of your walk make you feel, and the emotions that come up through it, is a recipe for a great story that will help a woman develop a deeper connection with you.
Having some openers ready in your mind will make it easier to start a conversation just about anywhere. Having a few stories that highlight your best qualities, while including opportunities for her respond and connect with you, will go a long way in making sure you’ll be able to keep the conversation going if it starts to fade.
Another process that clients have used with good success to build confidence is my 15/10/5 eye contact exercise. When you’re out and about during the day (maybe on your walk into and out of work like I referenced earlier), if someone is walking toward you, try to make eye contact when they are fifteen feet away. When they are ten feet away, smile. When they are five feet away, say “Hi.” Not everyone will make eye contact with you, not everyone will smile back, and not everyone will say “Hi.” That’s all OK. You don’t have to try to force eye contact within fifteen feet or feel like you have to say “Hi” to everyone within five feet, but it’s a good way to practice eye contact so that when you see a woman you want to talk to you’ll already be confident with it. If trying all three in succession feels too intimidating, start with just eye contact. When making eye contact feels more comfortable, then start smiling at the people who hold the eye contact with you. There are few things as powerful as eye contact when building attraction.
The more comfortable you are in a place the more confident you can be. If you’re in the bar/club scene, you would be wise to become a regular at one or two places instead of spending a little bit of time at a lot of different places. Already being friendly with the bouncer, bartender, DJ, and manager will make you feel more confident when going out because you’ll be more familiar with the venue. You might even get to skip the line at the door, get a drink faster, get a shout out or song request, or get a better table — all of which will contribute to your confidence, and your attractiveness.
Developing confidence comes from practice, proficiency, research, success, knowing what you’re good at, believing in a high probability of success. etc. … It’s the “Yeah, I got this” part. Projecting confidence is how you convey to those around you that you feel like you have a probable chance of success, it’s the more “artistic” part. Be careful not to cross into arrogance by displaying that you think you’ve already succeeded. This is the area the well intentioned advice-giver I mentioned at the beginning of this article is focused on when they say “Be more confident.” I think they are trying to tell you to be more bold, but it’s a fine line between bold and creepy. If you’ve ever been trying to do something with a group and thought, “Why doesn’t anybody recognize I’m good at this?” getting better at projecting your confidence will help address that.
Some of the things to focus on as far as projecting confidence — being able to hold eye contact, as well as maintain good body language, a smile, and a solid tone of voice — we’ve already touched on, but there are a few more that will help you be able to get those around you feel your confidence. Having solid frame management will demonstrate that you are self-aware and selective about who you interact with, both effective methods of projecting confidence. Making purposeful and deliberate movements will demonstrate that you are decisive and in tune with the energy of your environment. Being emotionally stoic and demonstrating leadership with poise are both characteristics of confident people and should be modeled whenever possible. There are many different ways to convey confidence, but having natural confidence because you’ve taken the time to understand how it feels and where it is coming from is the most effective.
Yes, pretending to be confident will attract more women, but being confident will attract the right women. You are responsible for developing your own state of confidence and you are the only one that is responsible for how other people perceive you. Women will react to you based on how you make them feel, and you are the only one responsible for how they feel about you. If a woman feels uncomfortable around you it is because you’ve done something that has made her uncomfortable, she didn’t decide to be uncomfortable. On the other hand, if a woman feels attracted to and comfortable with you because you’ve taken the time to develop and convey confidence in yourself, you’ll enjoy a more natural and smooth connection with that woman.
Now, with a more in-depth understanding of the concepts surrounding confidence and some proven methods to build and then convey your newly developed self-confidence … go “be more confident, man!”
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