Why the phrase "be more confident" by itself is bad advice

Lounge
21

When I was in high school - I used to spend ALL DAY in my head. Just thinking and overanalysing every little detail. I didn’t have a girlfriend - let alone had I gotten anywhere with a girl. My “confidence” - as it were, was incredibly low. I would pine over one girl months on end, then get just obliterated when she found out and freak out and just curl up and want to die.

It actually got to a point when I had chronic anxiety pains in my stomach for about 3 or 4 months (think CONSTANT butterflies in your stomach for months). Anyway, it wasn’t until one girl who I thought I was DEFINITELY in with a chance - we both liked each other, we had a great time being around each other. Then a week after she tells me she isn’t interested in getting a boyfriend - she starts dating some other guy. I was completely crushed…

Anyway, my self-esteem went rock-bottom. I just stopped caring about everything - because I didn’t think there was anything left to care about (getting to my epiphany soon - bear with me! :stuck_out_tongue: ). I went to another city over a weekend to represent my school in a Shakespeare competition where we have to perform a 15 minute scene. Anyway, it was a drama event and there were girls everywhere. However, I was so hung up over this one girl - that I didn’t care.

I didn’t care.

If some girl started to speak to me - I’d say whatever popped into my head. Walk away sometimes. I started talking to girls not looking for an outcome and just leaving when things weren’t interesting enough for me to stay around for.

One exchange I remember was when I was walking around the food table looking at what’s there - but I didn’t have a plate:
Girl: Do you want a fork?
Me: I usually get to know someone first before being that promiscuous.
I walk away.
Girl turns to her friend and does the “I can’t believe he said that!” and they start giggling. Started getting eyes from both of them for the rest of that night. Too hung up over the first girl though to pursue anything or even care.

Point being - I said that because I felt like saying it and didn’t care about what they thought or how they took it. Maybe that’s just a warped reality - but that tends to be what works when it comes to me. As soon as I stop caring about where something might lead - and just do things for myself.

I was asked for my number 4 times that weekend - and got invites to go out to places. This NEVER happens.

It wasn’t until a girl in my group was like “Wow - you really had some game. SO many of those girls really wanted you…” that I realised I was finally doing something right… She then went on to tell my group of some of the things I’d said - etc.

ANYWAY, I’m not sure what anyone can bring of this - but if it helps as fodder for this debate - then so be it. It’s interesting seeing both points of perspective.

Please be nice to each other and don’t let this get hostile - I, as well as others, I’m sure, are finding both viewpoints rather intriguing. :smiley:

22

Attractor :slight_smile:

After all that’s been said I hope you don’t mind if I throw in my nickle.

In order to effect change you must change. Your goal to gain confidence can only be truly accomplished if you change your own behavior. It’s your responsibility and no one else’s. Own it and move forward. You’re the only person who’s hanging you up and you’re the only person who can do something about it. You can blame anything or anyone else on God’s green earth and it still comes down to you. You do it by taking baby steps…out of your comfort zone. You must strive to create “good experiences” in your own life.

The forum is a lot like Instant Honesty…when you make the post, you need to be prepared to hear the responses. It pays to keep in mind that not everyone is going to empathize or agree with you. You can take that one to the bank. :wink:

If you haven’t read the “Congruence, What’s that?” sticky at the top of the Pheromone Theory Forum… you need to. It’s helpful on many levels, not just regarding the use of pheromones. I highly recommend it.

I wish you the best on the road to self-confidence. Take the high one. :wink:

Bella

23

I like to think that things started to fall into place because you stopped caring about the negatives, and just continued to live your life without seeking any “rewards” to come to you. In the end that’s just what happened (you got rewards,) because you weren’t too busy over analyzing things and accidentally setting up yourself with a bad aura of negativity (if that makes any sense.) In other words, just go on with life without caring about what may or may not happen. Only time you should analyse something this much is when you’re in a life or death situation and the outcome might be jail or death.

24

Yup, like I said a great thread :slight_smile:

25

I actually disagree and agree. If you lack confidence in a certain area and want to become more confident, then obviously success in that area will help achieve confidence, then you’ll form a positive feedback loop (much like with pheromones) but it’s a bit of a chicken and the egg situation getting you’re first bit of confidence/success and then maintain it long enough to make a difference. Also, if you’re relying on something external for confidence you will eventually loose that confidence, or have dips in that confidence. Highs too, but also lows.

I know from experience that confidence isn’t a personality trait; it’s just how much you believe in yourself in a certain area. Whilst it’s true that success in one area of your like can filter through into others, I don’t believe that is always the case, in fact more often than not I think it isn’t. For example, being confident in a maths exam isn’t going to make you confident with woman. Self esteem is different to confidence in that it is more you’re perception of self rather than perception of self in a particular situation. Self esteem is much less fluctuating than confidence. Self esteem is you’re identity; confidence is you’re belief in succeeding – in a particular area.

I do believe, and again I know this from personal experience, that you can build self esteem and confidence. When I joined this forum a year ago my self esteem and confidence where at a much different place than they are now. I’m a great deal more confident now, and whilst my life is greatly enriched and I’m a lot more successful in the areas I generally wasn’t (I have pheromones to thank for a large part of this) I learnt that it is foolish to rely on external ‘gratification’ for confidence. Enjoy the world but don’t extract your sense of self from it. In fact, the reason I believe saying “just be confident” won’t work is because people naturally look to the outside world for validation and calibrate their confidence level according to what they see reflected back. The trouble is they see what they want to see. If they’re stuck in a negative, low confidence state then they will see things that reinforce that. Even knowing that the reality you perceive is only the reality you project isn’t enough to change the many years of hardwiring. Humans naturally remember the bad experiences and forget the good; it’s for out evolutionary benefit to remember bad experience - predators and fires etc. The world is imperfect and as a child, when we’re way too young to realise this, the imperfect world can damage our sense of self.

In my personal experience, true confidence and self esteem have been gained from reading, and more importantly applying, The power of now. It doesn’t have to be the power of now, anything that can ‘teach’ you to unlearn all the conditioned experiences of you’re past and help you realise you’re natural born confidence is great. Look inside for confidence, not externally. It’s won’t be a quick fix but NLP, Adyashanti and Eckhart Tolle are all good sources for helping you achieve true confidence. I’m sure there are many more too. I know it’s isn’t just me who’s battled with confidence issues, so good luck everyone. Whatever path you choose I hope you find the confidence you’re looking for.

P.S. there isn’t a line in the sand moment, everyday I grow in confidence. Confidence isn’t binary, so believing you either have or don’t have confidence is a false belief. Everyone has confidence, just different amounts of it. Telling yourself to just “be more confident” is a sure way not too as you’ll brose you’re own ego by reinforcing the belief that you don’t have confidence. Accept who you are in this moment and grow from that point. Self esteem will come from acceptance of self, just don’t be so hard on yourself.

26

But more powerful than the experience itself is how we chose to analyze and interpret that experience afterward.

Regarding the neg rep, that’s not what they’re supposed to be used for, but it only damages my psyche as much as I allow it. :smiley:

We’re spinning our wheels here. There are many successful people who are totally self-made. If they waited for a bunch of “good experiences” to happen before they acted, they wouldn’t be where they are. We all have fears, just don’t let the fear paralyze you from taking action, as Mik says.

Somebody PMed me about this thread, they could tell I wrote what I wrote out of experience. We’ve all been there, sometimes a few times.

Comments are tougher to judge on a forum because one can’t hear voice inflection in a post, but if you reread my comments calmly (:slight_smile:), you might see I was being jokey along with my more serious comments in my first post.

27

You’re right Bella, but there’s a limit as to how far you can take that honesty (especially if it involves using foul language.) I believe that a point can be taken across without having to be rude. However, that’s just my peace loving self speaking. :confused:

28

Aha! You said “change your behavior”. I was talking about how the advice “be more confident” is bad because it somehow assumes that a person can magically start think better about himself. But you’re right, I do agree with changing one’s actions. Because good actions (meaning those producing good results without harming anyone) lead to good experiences, which I consider to be an important contributing factor to self-confidence. I think the reason I lashed out at Robbie earlier is that I thought he was talking about magically changing one’s beliefs, rather doing so through specific actions. Like I said earlier: make a list of things you’re not confident about, what’s left is what is what you are confident about, do those things to make the “not confident” list get shorter and shorter.

To recap, I’m still sticking with my original belief: you can’t magically become more confident in your mind without having good experiences in life. However, those good experiences don’t magically happen either; they come from actions that you take. But learning to act confident is hell of a lot easier than mentally programming oneself.

I think this thread spun out of control. I thought that in my initial post, taking action to get good experiences was implied. Apparently, not everyone thought so, and a few people decided that I was talking about good experiences magically happening (much like magically becoming confident). Anyway, to those who I lashed out at, I apologize; to those who lashed out at me (instead of responding rationally), shame on you. Peace, out.

29

I think lack of confidence with woman comes from one of two things 1. Not understading them. We fear what we don’t know. The more you understand woman, the more confident you will become. At least that is my is my experience. 2. Getting over the fear of being rejected and not taking rejection personally. TheAttractor is absolutely right though. Confidence doesn’t come out of thin air and pheromones can definitely give you that extra edge in confidence you need to approach that girl you like. Great post!

30

Starting to try being confident is just the beginning. Obviously you’ll still have trouble in the beginning because it’s going to be a new way of life/thinking to you that you weren’t/aren’t used to, but the more you try and learn to be confident (by the trial and errors this new way of thinking/being will bring you) the easier it’ll get.

For example taking us all back to when we were kids, were we ever confident that we’d ever learn how to ride a bike? Well, maybe some were because they had that ambition since earlier on in life but for others it took sometime. However, in the end we did it because we went ahead and tried and remained confident that we would learn how to do so.

31

I didn’t read this thread, except for a couple posts. It’s all hash browns and eggs to me. But I’ll throw in my 2 cents and hope it makes some sense.

Confidence is the certainty one has in an outcome.

That’s it.

Now, the amount of confidence we have is directly predicated upon how much we expect that outcome.

On one side, we have some saying, “Expectations are built on experience.” On the other side, “Expectations are built on what you choose to expect.” Both sides are right, to some degree. But I have to say that Robbie’s first post took the words right out of my mind, for the most part.

You ultimately choose everything you experience. If you choose to be confident, no amount of experiences are going to stop you from that goal, as long as you choose to be confident in the right way.

What do I mean by that?

Anyone can say, “Okay, I choose to be confident today.” And it might happen… but it won’t last. That’s the same thing fat people deal with on these diets and stuff.

The change cannot come from “out there”. It can’t be “done to you”. It has to be from inside you, and moving outward. You have to become what you want to be from the inside out. You have to make yourself the you who you would be if you already had it.

And to do that you have to stop thinking like you do, and start thinking like you would, if you already had it. Thinking is where everything else comes from. You don’t see a building, and then build it, and then draw the plans, and then think about what you want it to be.

Confidence also comes from being one’s own support system. When you rely on others to tell you whether or not you look good, or are cool, or dress well, or are funny, or whatever, you are not making your reality - you are accepting theirs. You have made yourself powerless because you choose to give them your power to decide for yourself.

You can’t be confident if what everyone else thinks makes you cringe and shrink and hurt. You have to be strong enough to decide what you think, and then accept that while other people may have their own differing opinions… that it doesn’t matter what other people think! Really. It only matters what you think.

So, “be confident” by changing yourself from “I let life happen to me and let others tell me what and who and how I am and should be” to “I happen to LIFE! I decide what I think, and believe, and I decide what I wear because I like it, and I decide how I act because I choose to act that way, and I choose who gets to spend time with me because I am too valuable to waste my time on people who will drag me down. I make my own reality, and I choose to experience success.”

It’s not an instant change. It takes time. It’s scary. But it can be done, and you can do it in a lot of different ways.

One of the simplest ways to do it is to use a tape or CD to help you with confidence. Hypnosis, subliminal, NLP, even just you talking to yourself. Use it enough, and the change will come. It’s all about breaking the habit of negative or self limiting thinking by doing something new and better enough. Much easier with a tape or CD.

I got started by making a tape when I was in high school that was just me enthusiastically talking about how I was all the hings I wanted to be. Then I listened to it 24/7 until I saw the results. It was irritating to me to hear myself talking all the time, but I wanted the change, so I did what it took.

Since then, I have learned how to make the subs etc, and I sell them. But I always offer the self confidence sub for free. It makes self confidence much easier to achieve for most people, but you also have to decide that you don’t want to have the challenges with self confidence anymore. Otherwise, you’re not going to use anything that might help you, no matter where it comes from or what it is.

If you want to know how to get a copy of my sub, PM me. I’m not going to post a link on the boards because I don’t want to be spamming. But my sub is not the only way, or type of way, that you can get help with this change.

Self confidence, like everything else, is a choice you make. Regardless of “what happens to you”.

32

When my self confidence fails–and we all have those moments–I fake it. Sure you know you’re acting, but those around you don’t (unless you suck as an actor) and I’m certainly faked confidence and authority during job major interviews, performances and while picking up women–and got away with it with flying colors. I recall people coming up to me afterwards and saying, “damn you looked so confident and in control. Wish I could do that.” I never admit I was scared shitless and about to crash ‘n burn, I just say, "yeah, I just focus and shred. Never even noticed the frickin’ full house." So even if you lack self confidence, you can muster courage and basic acting skills and still end up on top.

I have two friends–one an actor & the other a concert pianist–and both have basically zero self confidence and become ill before every damn performance. They have more self doubt before a performance than a bus load of virgin teenage boys: stomaching twisting, hurling, shits, shakes, major depression, the works. The actor, a woman in her 40s, is an extremely successful actor/director but is unable to sleep for days before opening night. Both feel like total losers before stepping out on stage and just fall in the zone and kick major ass before hundreds, sometimes thousands of viewers. So self confidence is nice but courage, determination and preparation are actually more important.

On the other hand, I know many supremely confident–actually cocky–performers–often young males in my college performance classes–whom seem to fall on their faces each time up. No preparation. Just an odd infallible self confidence. It gets them noticed at first, but nobody wants to perform with them as they lack substance. The scared shitless well prepared performers are a better gamble. The adrenaline from extreme fear seems to fuel their creative juices and impart an intense energy to their performances.

33

This rings SO TRUE!

As a few people might know, I’m a performer too. One of the things I do is Stand-up comedy. This is just me, with a microphone, talking to a group of 100 or so people. All the material I use is my own and I’m being judged out there constantly.

Before EVERY performance, I’ve got butterflies, taking nervous poos and wees, and stressing about. Beating myself up completely. But then once I get out there, ALL that nervousness turns to pure adrenaline. And it’s amazing…

When I’m onstage - I own it. The silences, the laughs, the applause - that’s all because of me. Onstage, I am cool, calm and collected. My mind kind of goes on autopilot and it’s like I’m watching myself do all of this without needing to put in much effort. Retorting to hecklers, just constantly on top of the ball.

On the nights that I do crap - I’m usually relaxed before going out on stage before. That means there’s not as much “fight or flight”, which means not as much adrenaline. I tend to have a good laugh and a beer after a bad show and then I forget about it. Because a week from my performance - none of the people who saw me will really remember who I was, they’ll only remember the ones who made them laugh the most.

So getting nervous is a good thing! If you have the courage to overcome the flight response and just go for it - you have a greater edge over someone just going out there chilled out. The nervous feeling in your stomach is adrenaline building up - you have to choose what to do with it - run away, or fight for it :slight_smile:

With that being said - I find it easier to talk to a 1000 people at one time than I do to 3 or 4 for some reason…

34

I find that emotional detachment has a lot to do with it. When I don’t care what other people think I’m much more confident than when I do. lol

35

Another vote for confidence coming from within, not from “good experiences”. If you depend on external approvals for your confidence and happiness, you are really setting yourself up for a miserable and melodramatic life.

36

Now that you mentioned it, it sure looks like this thread split into two opposing camps. One is Experientialists, those who say that confidence comes from acquiring good experiences, and the other is Mentalists, those who say that confidence comes from adjusting your own beliefs. It’d be interesting to see if each camp has any characteristics in common, and if so, which ones.

37

A hot car is not going to get you any confidence at time of sale.

Saying you have a hot car, bolstered in KNOWING you have a hot car, that is the confidence knowing you have something they do not.

Confidence is a inner mental game, if it was not, you could go to the local market and purchase it.

Done deal.

38

To me confidence is like a paycheck. It is something you earn. The harder you work, study and focus, the more confidence you deposited into your account. But these are all cute sayings. We all know it is not a simple idealism. Our socialization, mood, physical health and emotional investment often impact confidence levels. Hell, some guys are more confident after eating a steak and downing a couple beers. Some are total hussies until after their morning coffee. For some it only emerges when threatened. It’s pretty fluid in most folks. And, a macho normally confident guy can act pretty unsure of himself the first day of ballet class (been there!).

39

my opinion here is this-

both camps are right (neither wrong) but the original reason for the thread
was simply to state
that the statement in of itself “be confident”
is not helpful to people working with a different tool set.

i repeat,
telling someone to do something different
when their insides are saying
" doing something different hasnt worked before"
will not work.
but
pointing to a specific direction and yelling “hey,look over here!”
is telling them to be more confident
in a way they can hear it.

the only error here
is falling into the trap
that everyone is starting from the same place
and we are NOT.

different life circumstances
including how we were raised (or neglected)
plays a part in how we approach any issue.

being strongly opinionated
in any direction
is not really seeing through the other person’s eyes.

40

Lor, if you weren’t on the other end of the internet, I’d shake your hand. You brought up (or reiterated) an important point: regardless of how a person acquired confidence, the statement “be more confident” by itself is not helpful, because it’s very vague and abstract, and for someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to “be confident”, it doesn’t give any information to work with. Like someone pointed out earlier, it’s like telling a someone wants to learn to play guitar to “just play it”.

You’re right that pointing a person in the right direction, in a “do this, not that” kind of way, is the best way to help. That’s what I was stating in my original post. Obviously, topics went off on a tangent, and we had a big Experientialists vs. Mentalists split (scroll up to see what these terms refer to). But oh well, live and learn.