| After reading many of the threads in this section I’ve decided to try to lend a helping hand in the confidence department. A common misconception is that some people are just born confident, they come out of the womb with swagger and never turn it off. Sometimes this may be true, all people are different and surly some are born with a natural confidence but this doesn’t mean that the rest of us don’t have to develop it the hard way. First let me give you a little background on myself…
I was a nerd. No let me rephrase that, I was THE nerd. Up until the age of nineteen the only kiss I’d ever received was in the first grade and after that it wasn’t a dry spell as much as a drought, ever seen pictures of the “dust bowl”? It was a lot like that. Aside from my obviously problems with the opposite sex I had a whole other set of problems being around other guys, I found them intimidating…hell even outright scary. I was the definition of a beta male, the target of constant rejection and humiliation for most of my very large school. Guys shoved me in lockers, girls would pass me notes and pretend to like me, gum was put in my hair, and I’ve seen the inside of a trashcan or two. As most nerds do I clinged to the few friends that I had and we hid ourselves in games like Dungeons and Dragons, creating characters who were everything we wanted to be. Strong, good looking, and above all they had the courage that I desired more than anything. Obviously playing these types of games wasn’t improving my social status, but they gave me a brief break from my unhappiness. I was sixteen years old, overweight, pasty pale, not an ounce of fashion sense, and had never even held a girls hand before. I was miserable but all that was about to change.
The summer after my sophomore year I got a chance to know one of the most popular girls in my school, we’ll call her Amy. Amy was the epitome of high school bomb shell. She was tall, drop dead gorgeous with her long red hair and blue eyes, captain of the cheer squad and the wet dream of every guy in my school. That summer we worked together at Chic-fil-A in our local mall and because it wasn’t a very busy store we had most of the day to just talk and bullshit. It took me a couple weeks to really get comfortable around her and come out of my shell and a little bit, to my surprise she enjoyed my company and though I was extremely funny. What the fuck is going on? Was my main thought as she laughed at my jokes and made plans for us to hang out the following night. As my comfort around her grew I started coming out of my shell a little more and a little more. By the end of the summer we were great friends and I felt confident and relaxed around her, it was such a strange feeling to me. The week before school started we even went shopping together and she helped me pick out a new wardrobe that I desperately needed. As I walked into school with her that first day back I couldn’t believe the looks I got and that’s when I had an epiphany. On the inside all of us are exactly the same, just as scared as anyone else in the room but how we respond to this fear is what establishes our social status. The first types of person is afraid but instead of letting the fear take them they suppress it and move forward usually making it known that they want to be and are the dominant personality in the room. The second type of person is afraid but submits, acknowledging that the others are stronger (better looking, cooler, whatever) than them. I was the second type, but after spending a whole summer out of my comfort zone with an attractive girl I felt braver. And that’s when I learned the key to confidence. The secret to being confident is being comfortable with the situation that you’re in because you’ve experienced it many times before. Think back to when you were a little kid learning how to swim, at first the huge pool was scary and intimidating and the fear of drowning is all that you can think of. But soon after you tested your skills for the first time and realized that you didn’t drown you became a little more confident, the second time you went swimming you became even more confident, and so on. Soon you were terrifying your mother trying to do back flips off the edge of the pool, your fear of the water had gone because you realized that all those fears were caused from “being in your own head” and thinking about worst case scenarios. True confidence is made from experience.
For the next couple years I spent time working on my inner game as I realized that this was vitally important if I ever wanted to have true exterior confidence. Think of your confidence as a building and your inner game as the foundation. Now if your building your confidence on false premises and bravado you might as well use sand for your foundation, your building might look as good as any others on the street but the first time a powerful storm blows through you’re going to be standing in a pile of rubble. But if you take the time to develop your inner game your building on a solid rock foundation, your building can withstand the most powerful storms because it was designed to do so. True confidence comes from inside and occurs when you truly believe in and like yourself for who you are, after that no matter what anyone says or does they can’t take it away from you like they could if you didn’t have a solid inner game.
Confidence isn’t something that’s learned over night, there’s not routines or anything you could read on the internet that is going to tell you how to achieve it. The only thing you can do is take a huge step out of your comfort zone and test your skills, and then another step and then another. It’s taken me six long years to be to the point where I am now and no matter how cliché it sounds if I can do it so can you.
-Pony Boy
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CHAT
