I’ve done the classics. Gym for 5 years now, pretty much built, well groomed, hobbies I enjoy and a job that is rewarding.
But I was never a confident guy, and ffs everytime I manage to build some it’s just so fragile.
It takes nothing to break it down completely and I go back to the “don’t ever fucking inflict yourself to anyone” mentality.
Now that I present well it’s even more problematic as people assume I’m a confident guy and it gets kinda weird when they figure out that I’m just pretending. Not mentionning my relation with women as they usually have an initial kind of respect that falls off over time.
I’m that guy that they find attractive only until they get to know me.
Ffs I’m 26 now, shouldn’t have I grown over this ? I thought time would heal this flaw but it’s only getting worse.
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Failure. Confidence isn’t gained by being perfect. It’s by acknowledging you’re not, and going forward anyway because you can handle it, win or lose.
Bravery is facing fear, not having none.
Achievement. Simply tackling hard things that you can’t imagine yourself doing, going through them even if you’re unsure, until you succeed.
So, why do you think you suck? You’re the warden of the prison you’ve created for yourself. Only you have the key to let yourself out.
Social skills are called skills for a reason – you need to practice them, you need to fail (sometimes a lot), and over time you learn and get better. Do some people have a “natural” inclination? Sure – but LeBron James is a naturally gifted athlete and he practices basketball, even dribbling, every single day.
The gym thing is a great example – it took you 5 years of going to the gym to get well built. You might need 5 years of putting yourself in social situations too.
For some reason big portions of society treat charisma, charm, conversing, and the like as “you have it or you don’t” and I find that odd. We don’t treat anything else that way – everything else is broadly agreed upon that you can practice it to get better.
So yeah. “Time” isn’t going to heal this “flaw” any more than time would just make you have a great body – you need work for both of those.
It’s mental toughness more than anything else. You truly have to improve yourself to your own standards and then not give AF if you don’t measure up to someone else’s arbitrary judgment.
In short, you need to value your own approval more than that of some random strangers or people who don’t know your life.
Ok, first – learn to say no. I know it’s vague, but it’s very important. “I’ll pass”, “I prefer not to”, “Let’s do something else”, “can you do better?”, “I don’t want to do that”. Realize you are the master of yourself, if you refuse to do something – nobody can force you or do anything about it.
2nd – learn to not give a shit what other people think. For you YOUR opinion is the most important one in the entire world. If you wanna blast Backstreet boys, but you are worried people will think it’s geh- crank it up even louder!
3rd – hype yourself up! When stress, pressure and people weight on you and you are about to crash and burn – tell yourself “I’m fucking Raiden77, I got this shit” and push through. I built a multimillion $ trucking company by telling myself “I’m fucking Vlad, I’m the shit!” over and over again.
4th – women – the average woman in the US is 5’3, overweight, borderline obese, drowns in debt, takes antidepressants, hates her “friends” and has the personality and lifeskills of a turnip. I can already guarantee you you are better catch than 50% of the women in the US at the very least. Remember that. If you are still having trouble – lower your standards and date fat or old chicks. They are far more desperate for a man than you are for a woman. And believe it or not – those chicks are actually better in bed on average. Go give them a ride and have fun lol!
I don’t really understand what you mean by confidence. In all situations? It all boils down to the old “fake it till you make it” thing to me if you are looking to change. I think what helped me change my self image when I was younger was to just embrace what I wanted to be, and be it. Any time you feel yourself breaking, just look at that as the old you and tell them to fuck off. You are in control of you. Live in the now and all that shit. Wherever you go, there you are.
You’ve got issues you’re not dealing with… they undermine everything to the point you don’t feel like you’re worthy of your own existence and all the work you’ve done to make your life look good from the outside.
Ticking boxes doesn’t make your soul. It never will.
Time to build self-awareness, introspect, heal from your inner demons and find the rest of the universe that is you.
ETA: Feel free to disregard my female advice, I didn’t realize where I was!
(or take it and live a better life, b/c you’re about half way there).
Accepting that failure is an inevitability. I may get get 99 questions right, and one wrong. As such, when I put in effort with anything, I prepare and plan for failure, even if i don’t expect to. The only way to get good is to go out and do the thing. Sometimes, the best lessons are learned from the wost experiences. Confidence is a byproduct of that. At least in my case..
You gotta fail at more things.
Go do things you’re not good at and be bad at them.
If you’re open to it, you can try therapy. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, is what I always say.
If that’s not your thing, then constant practice is your next bet. Not everyone is naturally confident, so you’re gonna need to sharpen your self-esteem like a blade. It’s gonna suck for a while, but the only way out is through. (It also helps if you start learning how to pick people to approach. Sometimes, it’s your lack of confidence that’s your undoing. But sometimes, it’s also that you’re picking the wrong people. So if that’s the case, then you just gotta pick the right ones.)
Kinda js realise that whatever could happen, might happen. I like to imagine that Murphy’s law applies to every situation I approach, even if it’s talking to a girl, I like being able to challenge the law that it will go wrong, I want to prove that not everything’s going to fail or fuckup, be proud to achieve.
I used to be shy but then I worked on myself as you described and I just thought about it all logically. If I stick to my strengths around others then I have nothing to be afraid of. I may not be perfect but nobody is. I may suck at X but I’m incredible at Y. If I taught Z to some people why couldn’t I learn A? Confidence is coming to realization that failing is normal and nobody cares. Everybody out there is a failure in some way.
The difference is between those who learn and improve and those too afraid to live who get stuck in their ways.
Stop caring about what others think. Once again, see it logically through a different POV. How do you react when you see someone failing in public? Maybe falling over? Doing something embarrassing? Well, most people react the same way. I forget about strangers and they forget just the same about you.
“every time I manage to build some it’s just so fragile”
This sounds like the stories of my life.
Here are my thoughts:
There are areas in your life that you are comfortable in (lifting is one of them). Examine why you feel confident when you lift, you got lots of reps in and you KNOW you can do the weight. You have been in a state of confidence before so you have a baseline of how you want to feel for other areas of your life.
It is completely normally to not feel confident about things you are not accustomed to. You feel nervous because you care. Let yourself be “not confident” and accept the feeling. Don’t fight it. What I do next is I message my guy friends that I feel not confident about this because of X (whatever it is). I don’t really care if they reply or what they think, but I can get some of the burden off my chest. The next thing I do is I just send it. I trust myself to deal with the consequences. You might not feel confident in attracting women, but you should feel confident in your ability to maneuver through the many woes of life. Its ok to be defeated and take a break.
You will realized that everyone has areas of their life they do not feel confident about. The most important thing is that you show up and face that ambiguity because as long as you stick to it, you will get better.
You keep trying new things, learn new skills and get better at them. You mentioned that you workout – maybe set some mew fitness goals and make an honest attempt at meeting and surpassing them
Hot take confidence is just the capability to feel nervous or obnoxious and not change your behavior because you have a reason. Overconfidence is the ability to act while ignoring how annoying you are, and timidness is over mindfulness. So be annoying and find a balance, Learn to read the room.