Believe it or not, I used to be a reserved guy that didn’t like confrontation, was scared to do almost anything, and literally wouldn’t ever step up and take things by the reigns. Oh, how things have changed? Today, I’m not afraid to confront someone to get an answer, I do whatever I want, nothing really scares me, and I’m always the first guy to step and take the lead on something that I believe in. All of these things I could not even imagine doing four years ago. Now, it’s second nature. How did I make this happen? By faking confidence until it became what I actually knew and did all the time. Here is how I did it.
1. Identify what scares you.
First things first, you need to find what scares you and what you run from. It also helps if you want to become confident in these activities. If you don’t, you’ll get nowhere. You’ve got to want to change to change. With that being said, these things aren’t hard to identify. What is something that you’ve wanted to do, but fear and not having enough confidence has held you back from doing? Those are thing things that you’re going to work on. Those are the things that confidence will help you with.
2. Find situations where you can be confident.
After you know what scares you, you need to start recognizing the situations where confidence can help you. Every time you recognize yourself not being confident and not wanting to do something because your scared, take note of it. These are situations we want to make a list of and correct them in the future. Literally write them down and make a list. Once you’ve got 5-6 things, it is time to move on to number 3.
3. Start faking it.
Now, things start to get hard. This is where you have to start leaving your comfort zone and actually faking confidence. This will be hard at first, and you’re most likely going to be sweaty and super nervous looking – that is both fine and normal. No one is going to care because soon enough, you’ll be the one who is cool and confident in those kind of situations. You’ll get familiar with them, and without even realizing it, your fake confidence will begin turning into real confidence. You’ll also start noticing that you’re confident in other non-focus areas as well. If you want to practice before you do it front of people, practice whatever activity you’re going to do in front of a mirror the night before. Do note, however, that actually doing it will go a lot farther than any amount of practice.
4. Watch it become the everyday norm.
And, there you have. After about two to three months of faking confidence in your focus areas from “number 2”, you’ll notice that your confident all the time when it comes to those activities without even meaning to be, and you may begin actually wanting to be confident in other areas as well if it doesn’t happen naturally. This happened for me, and now, I can’t not be confident. I almost never find myself going into something scared even if I am extremely unprepared. I just go in, and I do it just acting confident. For some reason, it always works out even if I don’t know what I’m talking about. Saying something wrong with confidence will convince people you are right – politicians do this all the time. Now, go out there and get confident!
Did this article help you out? If so, share it on social media, and post a comment below letting me know what area you want to be more confident in? I’m curious to see where everyone is struggling to be confident.
