This is an article about how men can be more confident and improve the quality of their dating life and relationships.
A lot of men want confidence, but they don’t understand how to obtain it. Before you can increase your confidence, you need to understand what confidence is.
Confidence definition (Oxford Dictionary) – a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities.
To me, this means you believe in yourself and your ability to get what you want in life. That could mean getting a promotion, starting a business, or finding love. It could mean winning a competition or rocking a live performance. Confidence is the belief that you can do the things you want and that when you take action a positive result will follow.
Having low confidence can lead to a cascade of negative thoughts, social anxiety, and an overwhelming sense of doubt. It becomes like quicksand, your inner dialogue taking off in a whirlwind of self-loathing. It will cause you to freeze right as life’s greatest opportunities present themselves to you. This “freeze” or lack of action is likely to fill you with regret, and that regret will reinforce your negative feelings. It’s time to put an end to that.
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How can you become more confident?
To feel truly confident, you must feel capable, deserving, and worthy. This means that you believe in your ability to do the things you want, that you deserve a positive result, and that you feel worthy of the things you desire.
Confidence isn’t something you can talk yourself into. Sure, I’ve used positive affirmations throughout my life, but no amount of positive thinking will give you high self-confidence. That has to be earned. You need experience that validates your ability and says, “because I’ve done A, B, and C, I believe that I’m capable of accomplishing D”.
A lot of you look at a beautiful woman and don’t believe you have the ability to talk to her. You don’t feel you deserve her, and you don’t feel you’re worthy of her love. For most of you, that’s because you haven’t put in the work to give yourself that healthy self-esteem and belief in your ability. How are you supposed to find love if you still struggle to hold a conversation, enjoy the first date, or carry yourself in a long-term relationship?
You can address all of these issues by following the three steps below.
Step 1: You Must Feel Capable
To feel capable of doing something, you need to know that you possess the physical and mental ability to perform the task.
If you don’t feel capable, you need to put in the work and build yourself up.
Mental Ability
Let’s start with an example:
Imagine you’re looking for a new job. When you show up to your first job interview you might feel intimidated, but by the tenth interview, you feel sharp and ready. You go from nervous and choppy to smooth and relaxed. You’re quick with the answers and even find time to thread in some humor. That feeling that you are going to crush the 10th interview, that’s confidence, and that came from experience.
The same exact thing will happen with women. The more women you approach and conversate with, the less intimidating it is. You’ll become more relaxed. You’ll be prepared to ask and answer questions. You’ll learn how to make them laugh. You’ll get comfortable being in that situation and over time, it will become second nature.
Here’s the catch – when you start something new you have to be okay with sucking at first.
It’s irrational for anybody to expect to be really good at something right away. That comes with practice. So, to feel capable, you need to practice.
This is how you improve your game. You get out and PLAY. Nobody got better sitting on the sidelines. If you have no idea what you’re doing, I’ve written other articles about how to meet and approach women, but no matter what you read, you need real-life experience. If you want to learn how to fight, you need to get in the cage. Most importantly, you need to accept that you will suck in the beginning. You need to remove all your emotions and pride and begin as a student. And this doesn’t apply just to dating, this applies to anything new that you’re trying to learn.
Overcome the Fear of Rejection
Let me ask you this.
How much longer are you willing to struggle with low self-confidence, doubt, and regret?
One of the best ways to overcome a lack of confidence is to embrace personal growth and difficult situations. You need a growth mindset. Go into every situation hoping for a positive result but knowing that no matter what you’re going to learn and get better.
Take the first step and get out of your comfort zone. Yes, rejection and failure might sting, but no reasonable man can believe that every woman on Earth will find him attractive. It’s only natural that we connect better with some than others. Accept that and stop making rejection personal. And who cares if your buddies give you a hard time? At least you had the balls to make a move.
Physical Capability
Many of you use the excuse that you’re not good-looking as the reason why you don’t do well with women.
For 99% of you, you’re wrong. Most of you aren’t ugly – you’re just out of shape.
Being out of shape is not the same as being ugly. LET THAT SINK IN!
There is a huge difference between being ugly and out of shape, but most of you get the two confused. It sucks that we can’t choose our genes, but it’s a gift from God that we can forge our bodies as we see fit.
Here’s the problem. For most of you, the desire for a better quality of life isn’t enough to make you change. The majority of you eat like shit, drink, smoke, party late, do drugs, and have very little self-discipline when it comes to diet and physical fitness. It’s actually a paradox. Men go out to bars and clubs in hopes of meeting women and they have very little success. Instead, they should be using their time to build themselves up into the type of men that women actually want.
You need to get your ass in shape.
No single thing you can do will make you more confident than getting ripped.
You’ll be more attractive, you’ll feel better about yourself, you’ll be a better lover, and other men will respect you more. Being in shape tells a woman you have self-discipline and that you can protect her, which are important characteristics of a male partner. Plus you’ll get a huge confidence boost when you sacrifice and it pays off. You’ll respect yourself more, and self-respect is attractive.
And if we’re being honest…
If you’re short and skinny, or short and obese, that’s going to make it tough to pick up chicks. If you’re short, but you have a six-pack and broad shoulders, dating will be a lot easier. If you don’t love the face you see in the mirror, then at least bring a ripped physique to the table. You’re doing yourself no favors by playing the victim and feeling bad for yourself because you don’t look like Brad Pitt.
Step 2: You Must Feel Worthy
Feeling worthy means you feel like your overall value as a person is worth the exchange for what another person has to offer.
Why do you freeze when you see a really attractive woman, but you have no issue talking to the average Allison across the bar?
It’s because you don’t think you are worthy of attractive women. You believe that you are below their standards and therefore it would be a waste of time and energy to approach them.
Become A High Value Man
Somewhere along the way, you quantified your value as a man and decided it was worth less than what attractive women are looking for. You fill your head with negative self-talk and wallow in your low self-esteem, but you don’t have to stay this way.
To feel confident when approaching beautiful women, you need to be a high-value man. This doesn’t mean you have to be rich. It means you have to bring something to the table that will enrich a potential partner’s life!
That’s nice that you have good qualities and personality traits, but that isn’t enough, and you know it. You need to be striving to be your best self. You need to have your shit together. People get caught in this vicious cycle of self-destructive behavior and it stops them from feeling good about themselves.
Focus On Your Ambition
Are you comfortable at your dead-end job, or are using your free time to grow your skillset and pursue something bigger?
Are you saving for a home or are you in credit card debt?
Do you read to expand your understanding of the world, or do you spend all your free time binging Netflix shows and playing video games?
Do you enjoy learning about stocks, real estate, and investing, or do you like to get stoned and watch movies?
You need to have something to contribute. Mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, and physically.
Sure, there are some men who don’t need to focus so hard on themselves and they still do fine with women, but you’re not that guy, and it’s time to stop comparing yourself to other men. You need to form good habits that help you become a producer. You need to adjust your frame of mind and stop putting energy into things that give you nothing back.
It’s About the Choice
You don’t need to be rich to save money and manage your credit. You don’t need a college degree to pursue your dreams. You only need to make a choice. Do you want to continue living with pain and regret, or do you want to take control of your life?
If you start making decisions that are in your best interest, your confidence will grow naturally. You won’t even have to try.
The perception you carry of your own self-worth will skyrocket. Start by taking small steps. Make a list of the things you can work on and the new skills you need to build yourself up into the type of person you can be proud of.
Watch the positive thoughts flood in. When you wake up knowing that you’re making progress toward a better version of yourself, your confidence levels will rise exponentially. And here’s the good news, you don’t have to be some big corporate hot shot, all you have to do is try.
Simply putting the effort in is enough to make you feel better, and for women to find you attractive.
Step 3: You Must Feel Deserving
To be truly confident, you need to believe that you deserve good in this life.
That means you believe you’ve done the necessary things to warrant a positive life experience for yourself. You’ve been a good person. You’ve worked hard. You’ve managed your money. You’ve taken care of your physical and mental health. You’ve been a good friend and a reliable family member. You’ve given back and helped those less fortunate. You have something to contribute to friendships and relationships.
All the little things that make us feel like “yeah, I’ve done alright, and I deserve good things in life because I carry myself in a respectable way”.
If you’re doing all these things and you still don’t feel deserving, then it may be time to address some deeper issues.
Find Inner Resolution
When you don’t feel deserving, it’s like you always have this monkey on your back sewing doubt in your mind.
“You could never date a girl like that”
“You don’t deserve to be happy or to be in love”
“You should just go home. Nobody wants to be with you”
This feeling could be tied to previous experiences with trauma or a history with bullies. It could stem from having overly critical parents. It could be because of shame or guilt for things you’ve done in the past. So, you tell yourself you don’t deserve anything good in life, but we all deserve love and happiness, and none of us should have to settle for less than we really want.
Here are some tips on how to overcome these feelings of insecurity:
Practice positive self-talk
Talk to yourself the way you would talk to a friend or someone you love. Stop calling yourself names or insulting yourself. Don’t EVER speak poorly about yourself in front of others. Stop letting small mistakes cascade into a full referendum on who you are as a person. Treat yourself with the same empathy as you do others. Use mistakes as learning experiences, not as opportunities to chastise yourself.
Make a list of your strengths
Write down all the things you excel at, and start thinking of ways you can parlay those into positive action. I listened to a speaker once who pointed out how American culture makes us focus on the things we’re bad at, when really we should be focusing on our strengths and how to build on those. For example, if you suck at math but you excel in writing, why do schools ask us to focus more on Math? Shouldn’t we be taking our natural ability in writing and turning that into something special? Try to take this approach more with yourself. Nobody is good at everything, so focus on becoming great at what you’re already good at.
Practice forgiveness (of yourself and others)
There’s nothing to gain by holding a grudge against yourself. Forgive yourself and others as much as you can. Maybe you need to cut the toxic people out of your life, but forgive them all the same. We can’t truly feel positive about ourselves if our mind is preoccupied with negative thoughts about others.
Keep the promises you make to yourself
If you don’t feel a sense of deserving then maybe you lack self-respect.
You might be lacking self-respect because you break the promises you make to yourself. For example, you keep telling yourself you’re going to lose some weight and get back in the gym, but then after a week, you give up. Maybe you tell yourself this is the year you’ll go back to school, but then you don’t enroll.
These small broken promises compounded over time can really crush your self-esteem, and before you know it, you’ll no longer respect the person you see in the mirror.
One way you can get an instant boost is to create a list of what is causing this lack of self-respect and attack each item one at a time. Is it because you’re obese? Good. Write it down, make a plan to shed some pounds, and cross it off your list.
Is it because of the way your Father talks to you? Good. Write it down, make a plan to address the issue, and cross it off your list.
Whatever it is that’s bringing you down, stop letting it hide in the shadows. Identify it, accept that it’s affecting your quality of life, and make a plan to resolve it. One at a time. No more excuses.
With each item you cross off the list, you’ll feel a surge of positive emotion and momentum, bringing about more confidence. At a certain point, you’ll finally be free of those shackles, and because you brought these things into the light, it will be easier to set boundaries and avoid them in the future.
Before you know it, you’ll wake up knowing that you deserve the best life has to offer, especially in your love life.
Conclusion
To be more confident, you need to feel capable, worthy, and deserving.
To feel capable, you need practice and experience.
To feel worthy, you need to turn yourself into someone with something to offer.
To feel deserving, you need to keep the promises you make to yourself and to others and let go of the things taking away from your sense of self-respect.
If you can do these three things, your confidence will grow exponentially, not just with dating, but in life.
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