How To Be More Confident About Yourself

What you can do to be more confident about yourself? To start, let’s define what confidence actually is. There are quite a few definitions but I’ll take one directly from the dictionary which I think sums it up pretty well:

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

So what exactly does this even mean?

Well, can you think back to a time when you were just feeling super confident in something and nothing could stop you?  Do you think you just woke up on the right side of the bed that day? Or maybe it was something you ate or drank? Highly doubtful. Most likely, it involved some area in which you were an “expert”.  Something, that you’ve been doing for quite a while and something that you were good at.

This could literally be any aspect of life. Video games, business, sports, public speaking, jobs, singing, dancing, talking to women, dating, etc. If you do something enough times and become good at it, you will develop confidence in that area, it’s as simple as that. So how do you get started?

Make a List of Areas You Want to Be Confident In

Don’t be shy here. Open up your word document or grab a sheet of paper and just start listing areas or things you feel like you need to improve your confidence in. Not confident about your looks? Write that down. Don’t feel confident about approaching and talking to women? Write it down. Want to get better at public speaking? Write it down!

Once you have a sizeable list (10-20 things), narrow them down to the top 3 that you want to achieve the most. Here comes the fun part!

Pick Your Top Priority and Start Taking Action

Practice is the mother of all skill – and skill is the key to confidence.

A little over 10 years ago, I started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Now, when I first started, I was scared as hell. I had no history whatsoever in any type of martial arts and my confidence in this area was nearly ZERO. However, I got up and forced myself to take a class. It was FUN, and just the act of doing it already boosted my confidence by 10 fold.

After one class, I did another, and then another, and another, and 10 years later – I am now a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and I’m as confident as can be in my skills and abilities. I took the exact same approach for learning how to Salsa Dance and Bachata – and now I’m regularly going to clubs, and dance socials and confidently dancing with beautiful women all of the time.

Now, what if what you’re trying to get good at is just something you’re having a hard time starting? Sometimes the fear and anxiety are just too much and you can’t push yourself to go through with it. This is where taking small steps can be extremely advantageous for you.

Begin By Taking Small Steps

There’s this concept in psychology called “exposure therapy” which is basically introducing yourself in small steps to things that frighten you or that you’re anxious about until you’ve developed the bravery to do those things on a consistent basis.

For example, let’s say you want to get good at approaching and talking to beautiful women. Now, to just “take action” and go do this is an overwhelming task for a lot of guys – and most likely you’ll just go out, see a beautiful woman and just get too afraid to do anything and go home and curse yourself out for not going through with it. What’s the better alternative? Work backward and find what you can do at its minimum.

Can you go out and talk to an average woman? No? What about just go out and talk to an old lady? No? How about just go out and look a woman in the eyes and smile at her? OK GREAT, you can do that. Now go and do that until that becomes easy for you and then move on to the next challenging thing you can do at its minimum and do that until it’s easy.

Sooner or later, you’ll work your way up to what you want to achieve and then become comfortable and ultimately CONFIDENT in that area.

Don’t get me wrong, this is going to take work, but anything worth it in life takes work.

Record Your Progress – Give Yourself Praise

If you are going out there and taking action, you WILL be making progress, and I believe progress is the key to happiness. Having goals and reaching them is great but once you reach that goal, the happiness and euphoria of reaching that goal goes away pretty quickly. What keeps you motivated, excited, and happy is the progress toward that goal. I believe this is a deeply rooted human biological factor.

This is why you should record your progress. Start a journal and praise yourself (maybe even treat yourself to something nice every week for making progress). As you become more and more competent in the area of your choice, you will notice that your confidence will grow.

Find Someone Inspiring in That Particular Area (But Never Compare Yourself)

Whatever area you’re trying to grow your confidence in, there’s someone that’s absolutely mastered that area. Find that person. With a quick google search, you should be able to find someone that has the characteristics of what you want to achieve. Study them, find their youtube videos, let their work inspire you so that it helps keep you motivated.

Golf? Tiger woods. Basketball? Michael Jordan. Bodybuilding? Arnold Schwartzanegger. Swimming? Michael Phelps. Being charming, outgoing and masculine? James Bond

Be careful though, never compare yourself to them. You are on your own timeline and as long as you are making progress, you are in a GREAT position.

Confidence Is Synergistic and Will Permeate Into Other Areas of Your Life

The beauty about confidence is that it’s synergistic. That means, once you get confident in one area, you’ll notice that you’ll get confident in other areas faster as you start to learn more and more things. As you start to conquer your fears and build skills in certain areas, the confidence will just keep growing and growing.

When I got good at dancing and jiu jitsu, it actually boosted my confidence in dealing with women. Dancing is a great skill to learn because it forces you to become physical with a woman at the get-go so. Doing martial arts also subconsciously gives you the satisfaction that you are a dangerous man and that in itself gives you confidence that you can take care of yourself, your family, and your girlfriend if you have one.

I made a blog post about the top 5 hobbies I believe all men should get into. These hobbies are practical and will also improve your confidence.

Enjoy The Process

Last but not least, make sure you enjoy the process. You are on a journey to becoming more confident about yourself. Life is all about the journey, not the destination. Like I said before, progress is the key to happiness and as long as you are having FUN and making progress, you are on the right path.

I hope you found this article useful, come back to it as often as you need. Feel free to leave a comment or ask a question below!