I’m sure there are lots of people who are shy or a little bit anxious in some situations, it’s natural and part of human behavior but sometimes we just wish that we had more confidence! That ability to approach someone and start a conversation, stand up to your boss, or approach that attractive girl/guy you’ve been staring at.
It’s normal to want to be a bit more confident, and therefore I’ve created this little guide for you to learn how to build up your confidence fairly quickly. How quickly depends on how much effort you put in and your belief systems etc, but it should help a great number of people.
What is confidence?
Confidence can be explained as the ability to do things or say things which might make you uncomfortable but you can do it anyway. The truth is it’s not easy to define confidence, but it’s normally just the ability we have to perform; either socially, sexually or physically.
It can be described as the feeling of certainty in what we’re doing. If you’re going to approach a girl and ‘chat her up’ for example, confidence is the faith you have in yourself to jump in and do it. People without confidence would experience an uncomfortable sensation when approaching the same girl.
It is hard to put a label on ‘what’ confidence is because it’s different for everyone. There are some people who feel uncomfortable when in certain situations, but put themselves in those situations anyway and they can appear ‘confident’ but on the inside they’re not. The truth is that no matter what’s going on inside your head, confidence is usually a state of mind that you can induce.
By making sure your body ‘looks’ confident, your mind usually follows suit. It’s one of those things that takes a bit of practice, but don’t worry , we’re going to get right into how to build your confidence shortly!
Different types of confidence
There are various types of confidence, and each one requires slightly different exercises to build it up within you. The different types of confidence you can find in a person are as follows:
- Social confidence. The ability to connect with people you’ve never met or don’t know very well and express yourself freely in front of lots of people.
- Sexual/flirting confidence. The confidence used to flirt with a girl or guy, and the belief in yourself sexually and in terms of your appearance. This relates to the way you feel about the way you look. Confident people in this way would view themselves as very ‘sexy’.
- ‘Scary situations’ confidence. This is the ‘ballsyness’ used to do things like bungee jump or skydive. It’s a special type of confidence because there’s an inherent sense of realness and danger to scary situations. Generally speaking, if you can find the confidence to willingly do things that scare you, you’ll find the smaller things like standing up to your boss or meeting someone new are easy.
When you have one type of confidence, you have at least a bit of the other types as well. There are obvious exceptions, I mean if you’re terrified of heights, you could still be a great social player and be able to communicate with large groups of people easily.
How to build confidence by doing small scary things
From this point on, we’ll talk about building your confidence in all areas, and so the advice and tips will be more general. Don’t worry however, as they all sort of inter relate and link up together. By doing the exercises and tips suggested here, you’ll find all areas of your confidence built up and strengthened.
The first way to build up your confidence is to do ‘small scary things’. What I mean by this is to find something that you are scared of, but not terrified of. Things that might make you a little uncomfortable, but not too much. I hope this makes sense, so for example if you’re scared of speaking in front of large groups, then start by speaking to groups of 2-4 people, maybe your friends or family.
From there, keep doing these small tasks until you can build it up to maybe 6-8 people. When you’ve got the confidence there to speak to 10 people, try 20 etc, easy enough right?
Building confidence by leaping into doing ‘big things’
The type of person you are will dictate the method that works best for you, but some people find that by jumping right into big scary situations they come out on top. They find that by leaping into situations which might make them very uncomfortable can actually force them to develop confidence in that particular area.
And example of this is to plan something really big for yourself, maybe a skydive or a solo trip to a place you’ve never been to before and just do it despite being possibly terrified. The strength you use to do it regardless is what will build your confidence in this area. Just go and do it!
When I started this website I didn’t know anything about writing, SEO, blogging or coding/technology and yet here I am almost a year later with a full blog (And other websites as well). It does require that you exercise a little courage at first, and just leap right in!
A good way of leaping in and just getting yourself out there is just talking to more people. Talk to people you wouldn’t usually speak to, start conversations, you can even talk to new friends on Kik (Start by looking at this list of kik usernames)
Keep moving forward
The key with building confidence is to keep exercising it and to keep moving forwards with yourself and your personal development. With a lot of things in life you either ‘use it or lose it’ and I believe confidence is one of those things. If you don’t regularly practice being confident and stepping up your game then you’ll just stagnate or even start to move backwards.
This isn’t a good thing so just try and do one small thing that scares you every day. There is a person who recently become very famous on a video website (vine) called Jerome Jarrre, and he said in an interview that the best way to improve yourself and your confidence is to do something scary or uncomfortable every day like having a cold shower.
He went on to say that by having a cold shower every morning you’re ‘starting the day with a challenge’ and you’re crushing it. The key however is to always look for the next thing you can do to push yourself to new levels. Constantly try and transcend your limits and you’ll see a stronger version of yourself every day.
Final thoughts
You just read a post about building your confidence written by a guy who used to be the shyest person in the room. That should demonstrate to you how true it is that anyone can increase their confidence and courage. If I can do it, I’m sure you can. Confidence isn’t something that you’re ‘born with’ or that you only get if you’re lucky, it’s a state of mind.
I worked in a kitchen a year or so ago, and I turned up to work one day absolutely shattered, I turned to my chef and said ‘I’m really tired’, to which he replied ‘No you’re not, it’s a state of mind’. Now I don’t know if he was just saying that to get me to start working or if he meant it, but I’ve found it to be true.
If you’re really tired and you ‘think’ you’re tired, then you’ll continue to be tired, however if you push yourself outside of your limitations for a second and just keep marching on, you discover that you can control how ‘tired’ you feel to a certain degree. The same is true for confidence, it’s all in your head. If you ‘believe’ or think that you’re confident, then you’ll act as would a confident person.