I had a revelation about confidence recently, that I wanted to share. This was originally posted on my blog.


The Real Secret to Confidence (That Nobody has Told You Yet)

I remember being nineteen years old in my first week of University when I first heard the advice to “just be confident” when talking to women.

Before I found the seduction community, “just be confident” and “just be yourself” were the only two pieces of dating advice that I had ever really gotten, and it was frustrating because it didn’t give me any sort of real guidance on what I should actually do.

After all, how do you really be confident? As a 19-year-old, I hadn’t really achieved anything except getting into a good university, which only made me equal to every single person on campus. I was skinny, awkward, untested, unsure of who I was and what my talents were. I had no real foundations on which to base any sense of accomplishment.

I saw other, more confident guys on campus, and wondered: “what do they have to be so confident about?”

It took me many years to realize this secret, that I’m going to share with you now. Hopefully this will save you a lot of the trouble that I went through.

Before I tell you the secret though, you have to realize the error that most people make. Most people with low-confidence and low-self esteem, think that confidence is about thinking you’re good at something, and self-esteem is about thinking you’re a good or worthy person in general. They think it’s about having “high value” or whatever.

These people have it all wrong.

The girl who looks in the mirror and says “I’m pretty” and feels good about her self has the same problem as the girl who looks in the mirror and says “I’m ugly” and feels bad. Their real problem is the compulsive need to look in the mirror to reassure themselves. The only difference between the two is that one gets her fix, and the other doesn’t.

It is the habit of self-judgment, more than the judgment itself, that characterizes people with low self-confidence and low self-esteem. It’s that habit of going into your mind and demanding reassurance that you are good or worthy that is the root of low self-esteem, and its mirror image, arrogance.

So what is REAL confidence, and REAL self-esteem?



True confidence and self esteem are about not judging yourself at all.


Confidence is a state of non-worry, of being present and occupied with the world as it is, and not as it ought to be, or as we judge it to be. True self-esteem is the state of accepting oneself, for good and for bad. You can only do that if you change the habit of judging yourself.

I’m not saying that you should be oblivious to yourself, or whether you’re a good person or a bad person. There is a role for non-judgementally evaluating yourself. But a confident person doesn’t think about these things compulsively. The confident man does what he believes is right, and is not overly concerned with how others judge him. He seeks to control that which he can control: his own actions, emotions and motivations, and then accepts the things that he cannot control, such as the inevitable judgments of other people.

After all, if we allow our self-esteem to be reliant on the judgments of other people, we are really making ourselves the victims of the meanest, most judgmental people in society.

Let me provide an example. I am a confident singer and guitar player. This is despite the fact that my talent at those two things is rather middling. I’m not confident because I think I’m great; I’m confident because I know I’m not horrible and I’m not really worried much beyond that. So I can get up in front of people, and sing my little heart out without worry or anxiety.

But in order to be confident, in order for me to truly enjoy and put my heart into the act of singing, it’s not simply enough that I consider myself good – I must stop even asking the question.

Today, instead of worrying whether you’re good or bad, worthy or unworthy, direct your attention and focus outwards, towards the world in front of you, and watch your confidence increase.

The original post is here: http://www.tenmagnet.com/2012/09/the-re ... onfidence/

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Tenmagnet - Lovesystems Instructor
www.lovesystems.com
www.tenmagnet.com

Like you and probably so many other guys, I struggled trying to figure out what confidence was and exactly how to get it. Your post comes the closest to finally answering that question for me, thank you for that.

There is one nagging question for me. Are you that way in every situation? Confident that is? We could list to infinity different situations where confidence would be great to have, do you feel confident in them all? I'm going to assume you have never been a hostage negotiator and therefore you would have NO confidence from experience, so if we were to throw you into that situation would you feel confident doing it? Would you just go into it with a state of non-worry?

Anyone have any insight into this? Cheers,

Tripleblack66

I would say you are on the right track but not completely there yet.

Not judging yourself is a step on the way to confidence. Not judging yourself leads to giving yourself permission to not improve, which leads to a false assumption that you are the best, which leads to overconfidence which leads to that someday your bubble will burst and it will hurt, a lot. The dark side of the force it is.

No real confidence is closer to when you are critically viewing yourself and find that despite trying to find something wrong, you must admit that you are pretty good. When that comes naturally to you and it is not connected to any sort of pride or victory to admit to yourself that you are great, for real. That is true confidence.

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I'm not trying to be a dick Ezo, but you're being a Pick Up Snob in my opinion.

bbardot: you just reminded me about porn

TripleBlack: Am I confident even in situations where I know that I know nothing? Well, I guess the answer would be that worrying never does any good, so I would definitely try to be confident and present to the best of my abilities. I have in the past been in emergency situations (a car crash) where I reacted confidently, and moderately competently, despite having no training. And I was shocked to see people freeze up and do nothing around me, paralyzed by the fear they might do the "wrong" thing in such an important situation.


But just for the record, I don't have perfect self confidence where I never doubt myself, if that's the question.
I mention that you can make non-judgemental evaluations - that is, situations where you identify a way you can improve, and try to implement that improvement. But it's not necessary (and is, I think, harmful) to judge yourself while doing that process. When i mean judging, i mean ascribing "good" or "bad" to things, especially "bad". You don't need to beat yourself up to get better, you can motivate yourself using other means.

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Tenmagnet - Lovesystems Instructor
www.lovesystems.com
www.tenmagnet.com

Pretty good insight. Never thought of it that way.

However there will be good days and there will be bad days. I just accepted that and stopped bitching about every little bad thing that happens to me on a bad day.

Now I know I have to improve and there are things I worry about, like my self-confidence with women. That puts me on the nervous side.

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You miss every shot you don't take.