How do you genuinely build confidence?

23 comments

1. Build something you are proud and confident about.

   Build a great physique, style, craft, etc.

   Once you reach goals you can be proud of, you will become confident.

2. Be nicer to yourself. Let yourself make mistakes, so you’re not afraid to try different things. Confidence then comes with experience from trying those new things.

3. Accomplish things?

4. Find safe environments/situations in which to fail. Part of confidence is realizing that “the worst that could happen” most of the time isn’t that bad. Once you have that demon slayed you go into situations without worrying about failure, and *that* is confidence.

5. [Meditation and mindfulness](https://palousemindfulness.com/) are helping me out so much. I’ve struggled with confidence issues in the past but this helps to put things in perspective. I still have low confidence from time to time, but I’m more able to comfort myself independently.

   Hope this helps!

6. Get pissed off and you will accomplish more.

7. Just like most things in life, you gain confidence through experience. The first jump off of a diving board is scary, the second isn’t, and you get better at the third, and so on.

8. I went jogging, listened to a lot of mac miller, worked on my wardrobe and got weekly or bi weekly haircuts and focused on my mental health. Worked a lot till I started falling down on bad habits after my car accident. Now I’m starting over lol.

9. Exposure therapy. You’ve got to get outside your comfort zone.

10. The quote that always stuck with me the best was: confidence is not ‘they will like me,’ it’s ‘idgaf if they don’t like me’

    True Confidence comes with the knowledge that being yourself is enough. No more doing or not doing things because if you do(n’t) do them you feel shame. Only doing things because you like them.

    Meditating, reading Mark Manson – The subtle art of not giving a f*ck and reading Brené Brown – Daring Greatly are all activities that will help you.

    Keep in mind that this is an ongoing process. You will not instantly become confident, it takes time.

    You have already taken the hardest step by acknowledging that you want ‘genuine’ confidence, good job.

11. Stop worrying about what other people think of you. Most people are only worried about what everyone else thinks of them to even notice what might be “wrong” with you. – only compare yourself to who you were yesterday and not who others are today.

12. Get jacked.

13. Confidence in general seems to me like a side effect of having skills that have proven themselves to be reliable in real life situations. It’s the result of knowing that you have your best long term interests at heart, even subconsciously, so that surprising short term temptation won’t compromise your way through life. It’s knowing that you have your own back and can advance yourself towards what you deem important with the tools (skills) you have.

    With that being said and understanding that my view is not the end all be all in this, if you lack confidence it might be helpful to genuinely go through the process of growing so you don’t have to fake anything, but be anything you want to be.

    Don’t want to fake thinking you are hot enough to be with this girl? Become hot enough to be with her.

14. Have sex with women you or your peers find attractive. Hell, even okay women. As long as they aren’t ugly. Then it 9 times out of 10 will boost your confidence.

    If you can’t do that, try going to the GYM and eating right. Or at the very least doing some type of consistent exercise.

    Lastly, get out the house and talk to people. Random people. At first it might be hard, but after about the 100th person, you’ll have more confidence than you did when you started.

15. Squats

16. One of the easiest ways to build short term confidence is simply by “shoulders back and chest out”. Doesn’t matter which physique you have, it just helps out immediately

    Long term: go to the gym

17. Meditate, visualize and watch all the Steve McQueen movies starting with the blob.

18. I don’t need to

19. First thing you have to stand is this:

    Confidance is competance.

    Once you’re competant at one thing you’ll start being confidant at it. Once you’re competant at it that confidance starts becoming a habit.

    If you read nothign else in this wall of text, that would be the takeaway I’m offering.

    People used to tell me “Just be confident with girls and it’ll work” , but what right to confidence do I have when every single interaction has been a failiure? And also when, generally speaking, “I weren’t shit”.

    Then I started doing things.

    I went keto/carnivore and lost a fuck tonne of weight, then went to the gym and became a competant weight lifter. Confidance in myself physically came.

    I went to college and became competant at engineering and confidence in my intellect came.

    I started reading philosophy and learning to play tin whistle and became competant in those.

    Charisma On Command and eventually became somewhat competant socially (able to initiate and maintain conversation with strangers and friends/family instead of being an autistic wreck who couldn’t make eye contact with anyone) to the point that nobody who doesn’t know me can tell I’m an aspie if I don’t want them to know. I eventually became confident in social situations.

    After that I just became a generally confident individual and success with women started to come. There’s still areas where I know I’m shit, and as such, I’m not confident in those areas.

    Confidence without competance is just ego. I tend to be a bit overconfident going into something new, my attitude is “I’ve learned and improved so much in the past that I can and WILL learn this”, so it’s more a confidence of “I’m going to become good at this” than “I already am” but it’s important to remember to be humble and to ask help from those better than you in those situations.

    Surround yourself with good people and sage advice, even if it’s youtube channels. No man is an island, and good people will help you build those skills. I was lucky to discover very good youtube channels on diet and working out, I had good teachers in college, I recieved good recomendations on books that would benefit me. I had good friends around me who would tell me when I was overcorrecting and when I was starting to show a lot of progress. I might have put the work in, but I’m pretty sure absolutely nothing I have become competant at is TRULY a solo effort on my part.

20. > that still struggles with believing in myself

    Self Esteem, Self Worth, and trust in yourself are what you’re looking to build not confidence. These are the things that make it easier to “fail.” If your worth and value come from internal sources, you’re not defined by getting stuff, or getting your crush or whatever.

    Confidence comes about through doing something a lot of times, and is unique to each skill. It’s not about believing you can accomplish something, you don’t even really think about it. You’re confident in your ability to cross the road safely. You’re probably not confident in your ability to paint the mona lisa.

    > I don’t want to pretend like I’m confident while freaking out inside.

    You freak out inside because a specific outcome of the situation matters to you, you’re trying to force something. Work to remove expectations from these experiences that invoke this feeling in you. The outlook of “whatever happens, happens I’m open to it” will result in being calmer in these situations. Think about how you react when you’re trying to impress someone, versus a casual encounter with someone you already have a strong relationship with, which one feels more safe?

    Having an internal source to your mental wellbeing lends to this attitude too.

    Let’s say you have a wellbeing meter. 0-100, at 50 you’re fine and functional. If you’re at 25, and you think you need to date your crush to get over 50, you’re going to sacrifice any of your remaining 25 points for it (disrespect yourself), you’re going to stress over the weight of interactions with them because you _need_ this to go a particular way, you’re also going to place others over yourself in value. And shit, even if you got them, now you’re going to still be stressed because you _need_ to not lose them because you’ll go back to not being okay.

21. You’ve heard it and seen it a million times before, I’m sure. Regardless, the answer for me was exercise.

    Like /u/SnooLemon5609 said, think about it as building up something. Whatever your starting point, fat, skinny as a rail, doesn’t matter. You either trim that fat or bulk up to create the physique you want. And it may seem like insanity, but the fact that it’ll take a looong-as-fuck time to do so will actually help. It’ll give you something to always focus on, to always work on improving.

    Couple that with a physical activity that you can enjoy, again doesn’t matter what, as long as you’re loving doing it. Mine turned out to be rock climbing/bouldering. Point is, pair it with the exercising and suddenly you’ll have two activities you’re loving that you’re also wanting to improve in. And buddy, once you start noticing yourself actually improving…**B A M** confidence.

22. Make your body a high priority. That will take a few years. Once you’ve gained 25 lbs of muscle and are lean at 8 – 10% bodyfat, fix your fashion. During this period you should be attempting to socialize as much as possible. And build your career.

23. I think a lot of it is a perspective change. Try to better yourself in some way, and be proud that you’re doing so.

    I also think it’s a good idea to accept that it’s okay to not have full on confidence about every situation. Some shit is just scary, but if you’re willing to do it anyway, that’s something to be proud of regardless of the outcome, and that pride builds confidence.

    After that, just little things like keeping yourself tidy and well groomed. It helps mentally.