Confidence.. where does it come from?

[ibex333]

Lets talk about CONFIDENCE.

A confident man... Women love him, guys respect him. But not everyone is born confident. This quality of character, or trait must come from somewhere, and the lack of it, must be coming from somewhere as well.

What to do if you are NOT confident? How do you develop this "confidence"?

I understand, there's many different kinds of confidence. For instance, being confident with women is not the same as knowing your way around the city and being confident in your self-awareness and knowledge of the streets, maps, etc etc. A "confidence man" is certainly confident in his ability to con someone. Otherwise he wouldn't be doing it. A confident driver, is not afraid to drive because he is confident in his skill as a driver and control of a car.

Many times, confidence is directly linked to courage. Are you courageous enough to approach a girl who's way out of your league? Do you have the courage to jump with a parachute? Do you have a courage to step up to a thug who's threatening you with physical violence? Some people will "step over it". They will jump from a plane, approach that girl or punch the thug. Yet, others wont do any of it no matter how desperately they want to.

Do you think that someone who lacks confidence is a coward? And if so, how can a coward become less-cowardly? He is a coward after all, so he cant just stop being a filthy, yellow coward and turn into an avatar of courage. I mean, what the point of telling someone "I know you're afraid, but do it anyway" if they JUST WONT DO IT?

A simple example:

I remember back in 1st grade in school, in gym class, the teacher asked us to jump over a pole. 10 kids in front of me jumped, but I ran, and stopped, like a horse who refuses to listen to it's jockey. Everyone laughed at me. The teacher mocked me, yet, I simply could not do it. Humiliation was better, than the fear of breaking a bone or hurting myself.
Yet, when we had to climb a rope and touch the ceiling, I did it easily, while many other kids only got up a few feet or refused to do it entirely. What gives? Even if someone whipped me with a stick, I'd take it, instead of jumping that damned pole.

Lets say, someone is scared to fight when necessary. Going to the gym or learning karate isn't necessarily going to help.It's in your head, so you can be covered in muscle but still be a wimp inside.

Is lacking confidence or being a coward a mental disorder? What exactly is the "cure" for such people? What would YOU do, if your kid/relative/loved one was lacking confidence in life?

 

[NuclearNed]

confidence is the result of experience

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

confidence is the result of experience

and the willingness to take a risk.

 

[ElFenix]

old spice.

 

[nakedfrog]

The first few paragraphs make me feel like I'm looking at the back of a self-help book on confidence.

 

[Zeze]

confidence is the result of experience

and the willingness to take a risk.

These are all great traditional answers.

Faking it actually works well too. I always try to live my life aspirationally even during teen years. Lots of it is 'taking risk' + 'faking it'. That disposition & having the thirst to learn things in life is what's important.

If you approach with an angle "Yea I don't know crap about this xyz, but I can do it!" is a good driver that produces authentic results.

 

[Kaido]

I've actually thought a lot about this, as I grew up with anxiety. Here's my thoughts on it:

There are two primary sources of confidence:

1. Personality choice (attitude)
2. Being prepared

A confident attitude has nothing to do with being prepared. You can be totally naive at something, but also have a high degree of confidence in two ways, personality-wise:

1. Internal confidence that you can tackle anything in front of you
2. External confidence, which is what you see in the typical leading-man role in most movies, like the captain of the high school football team

Being prepared is different than the attitude you choose to have with your personality. Being prepared means that you are ready to execute, whether it's to turn in that essay that you wrote on-time, or ready to play guitar in a band in front of a live audience because you've practiced & have also played in front of crowds before to build up a tolerance to being in front of people.

I remember back in 1st grade in school, in gym class, the teacher asked us to jump over a pole. 10 kids in front of me jumped, but I ran, and stopped, like a horse who refuses to listen to it's jockey. Everyone laughed at me. The teacher mocked me, yet, I simply could not do it. Humiliation was better, than the fear of breaking a bone or hurting myself.

Confidence issues also stem when you're brighter than the average bear. You're smart enough to be on a computer forum, which means you probably have above-average intelligence. Given that, you tend to see more options & possibilities. Whereas the rest of the kids were fine jumping over the pole, you saw not only the task in front of you, but also the consequences of that action. Since you probably hadn't done a pole-jump before, you didn't have any confidence in doing it from being prepared. This is where confidence gets a little tricky & merges the attitude & preparedness aspects together: most kids are pretty naive & will go ahead & do whatever an authority figure tells them to do (PE coach says jump, you jump!). In your case, you didn't have experience with it & (1) weren't confidence in doing it, and (2) could see alternative outcomes to what could happen. So over-thinking is what gets smarter & brighter & more creative people in trouble, because you see barriers in addition to the paths forward.

Many times, confidence is directly linked to courage. Are you courageous enough to approach a girl who's way out of your league? Do you have the courage to jump with a parachute? Do you have a courage to step up to a thug who's threatening you with physical violence? Some people will "step over it". They will jump from a plane, approach that girl or punch the thug. Yet, others wont do any of it no matter how desperately they want to.

Well, this is where both maturity & having practiced procedures comes into play. If you've ever seen the Back to the Future trilogy, Marty McFly has peer-pressure issues & doesn't like being called "yellow" (i.e. a coward). He has to learn how to grow up & choose not to let his enemy bully him into a certain course of action. Do you have the courage to step up to a thug who's threatening you with physical violence? Well, getting in a fight is a pretty stupid course of action because you don't know if his buddies are going to jump you, if he has a gun or a knife, if he's trained in Martial arts, or if he's going to sue you for punching back & win after a jury sees the security camera footage.

Outside of the maturity issue, having a procedure & practicing that procedure helps. If you don't know what to say to ask a girl out, then it's going to be a lot harder. I've taught a few guys how to ask girls out; it's not too hard. The skeleton of the procedure goes:

1. Say hi, be nice, and ask her out on a specific date with two available time options. Open-ended questions with no specific timetable is a high bar to ask someone, because now you're making them have to think. "Hey do you wanna go out sometime?" is a lot different then "Would you like to go on a dinner date at Denny's either tonight or Thursday night?" This is not only a specific request (say, dinner & a movie), but also creates options to choose from, so if she's busy tonight, she's not just shooting you down, you know?

2. Be gracious about getting rejected. Dating is a red light/green light situation: you both need to be interested. A lot of guys don't have a plan (procedure) for getting rejected, and end up over-reacting. You need to learn how to not make it weird & to continue a conversation if she says no. The jerk approach is to be mean about getting rejected. A lot of guys just kind of melt away in embarrassment after getting rejected. A better approach is to say something like "no problem!" and either leave or keep talking. Just because a girl doesn't want to date you doesn't mean she doesn't want to talk to you or be friends with you, but you have to respect her choice about whether to date you or not. But most guys don't have a good approach & then act dumb when they're told no. Plus, if you're a bright, creative person, then sometimes you never even get to the point of asking a girl out because you see everything that could go wrong & that stops you. All you need is a basic procedure with some off-ramps; the rest comes with practice.

Is lacking confidence or being a coward a mental disorder? What exactly is the "cure" for such people? What would YOU do, if your kid/relative/loved one was lacking confidence in life?

So to summarize, the first thing is to define what confidence really is: it's both an attitude by choice, as well as a state of preparation for the task in question. The second thing to do is figure out what the mature route is. Punching a thug out or jumping out of a plane is a great idea in a movie, or when you're tough-talking with your friends in high school, but is pretty dumb as an adult. The third thing is to develop a usable checklist & prepare for specific situations.

If you never do your homework, then school is not going to be very fun because you're going to have anxiety all the time because you're not prepared. If you don't know how to talk to girls, then you need a simple procedure (be specific, give her options, be gracious & not a jerk if you get rejected) & you need to practice. They actually teach classes on how to do this stuff, and they'll have to do embarrassing stuff in public just to overcome that fear-reaction & realize that life goes on. Drama class is sort of the same way...you learn that it's really no big deal to look stupid in public; your reaction to a situation is what cues other people's responses.

On a tangent, if you want to get deeper into the idea of being "cool", there's actually a book on it:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591844568/

Here's a quick summary:

https://theweek.com/articles/448425/how-cool-according-science

So yes, you can (1) learn how to change your attitude to be more confident, and (2) you can come up with procedures & practice & work to be prepared for specific situations, whether it's being an A-student & being prepared for class always, or asking girls out. You have to define what confidence means to you & you have to define exactly what you want to change in your life to achieve that definition. Source: Had bad anxiety growing up, worked on it, and ended up getting married at 21 years old. AMA lol.

 

[Mai72]

Confidence comes from experience and the willingness to take risk, but it's also much more.

IMO, confidence comes from keeping promises to yourself. For example, if you state as a goal "I'm going to go to the gym 5X a week, and I'm going eat healthy meals from Now until Dec31, 2019." You state that goal, but let's say you reneg on your goal within the first week, you start to lose confidence because you don't do the things that you say. Confidence comes from doing the things we state, because within that you start to feel better about yourself. Unlike most people, you actually do the things that you say.

 

[Captante]

Tequila ... ??

 

[purbeast0]

I've definitely grown more confident as I've gotten older. I guess as someone else mentioned, I think mine came from experience.

Between my mid-later 20's is when I think I gained the confidence. It kind of went hand in hand with not worrying or caring about what other people think too.

Like I remember in my early 20's when I started working, I was scared to ask for a salary or discuss it with potential employers. I had the mindset that they were doing me a favor by hiring me. But now? I have the mindset that if I'm looking for a new job, that company that may hire me is the one that I'm doing the favor for not the other way around.

I also used to not discuss some of my hobbies like video games, fishing, etc, because they are nerdy or not "normal". But now? Hell in my early 30's I used to skip the bar after my rec football games because I wanted to go fishing by myself or go to a Street Fighter 4 tournament. And everyone would know about that too.

 

[ImpulsE69]

confidence, or trying to get it, is why things such as facebook, twitter, snapchat, etc are so horrible.

 

[Mayne]

Some people have it, some don't. It's like having the gift of gab.

 

[homebrew2ny]

My belief is as one embraces humility and humbleness, ones confidence grows. And I am not talking that fake confidence some plaster on to abide, but real self soothing confidence.

Just my 2...

 

[Mayne]

I got pulled over by the cops with a crack can freshly bent with holes in it an crack on top..firend managed to talk to the cops and everyone was laughing..mostly the cops..if you have ever witnessed confidence and gift of the gab...its pretty amazing thing to see.

 

[Mayne]

the early 90's was pretty awesome.

 

[Mayne]

the sheer amount of drugs done then....its kinda sickening.

 

[snoopy7548]

Not being afraid of failure helps a lot.

 

[Mayne]

I miss being young...i was good at it.

 

[Kaido]

confidence, or trying to get it, is why things such as facebook, twitter, snapchat, etc are so horrible.

To clarify & rephrase that:

1. The news & media over-spins the negative hype against social media, with a slant against how "millennials are ruining everything"

2. There has always been & always will be a segment of society who are narcissts & thrive on anonymous public feedback. Virtually everyone is sensitive to this, which is why the Facebook "Like" button works & why Reddit's upvote/downvote system works; social media is simply another outlet to allow people to get famous worldwide, much like the music & movie industries. Some people need it more than others, and are far more vocal about it.

3. For teenagers, it's a little bit more dangerous because you're already so zoned in to having social anxiety & wanting to fit in & being cool that it gives you a platform to speak on, whether it's text, pictures, videos, whatever. I know many teenagers who are legitimately addicted to their phones (smartphones = dopamine casinos). Most of us had those problems in high school, but we couldn't get instant feedback from the entire school on our Snapchat or Whatsapp feeds like you can do today.

Social media is a wonderful thing...when used responsibly! I have no problem saying I love Facebook. I'm on dozens of amazing groups for things like cooking (sous vide, Instant Pot, dehydrating, etc.), my particular car model (fan pages, modification groups, etc.), musical instruments, all kinds of stuff. Much like Anandtech used to be in its heydey (for geeks), Facebook Groups has made the Usenet & BBS & forum system approachable for regular people, which means I can check out a cool ukulele video or talk shop about my Mustang with people all over the country & the world. It's far more social than reddit because sharing is easier & the interface is nicer to use, which means more average joes can join, including people who aren't very "computer literate". Likewise, I thought Twitter was a super-dumb idea, but I have over 17,000 tweets on that social media platform now & love plugging into different projects worldwide on it & also seeing real-time news updates from affected areas on it.

Social media isn't horrible. A vocal minority removes it from "out of sight, out of mind" & into the forefront of people's daily vision, and those target people see that so often that they adopt the stance that social media is horrible. Social media is not horrible - they're just tools, like anything else. For the media, social media is a $50-billion-a-year advertising outlet. For people who need to be in the spotlight, social media gives them that limelight. I was laughing the other day at a scene from a cartoon called Gumball, where one of the characters has a strong need for being popular. His friend tells him "we already love you!" to which he responds with something like, "I don't care, I don't need your approval, you already love me - what I really need is the approval of random strangers who don't care about me!" Which pretty much sums up the human condition, lol. Sure, social media enables needy people to get validation (hey, myself included!) & gives you short dopamine-inducing confidence bursts, but I wouldn't say social media is a horrible platform, by any means. It's like a chainsaw...you can be the scary killer in a movie with one, or you can actually use it to, you know, chop down some trees...the way you use it is what matters!

 

[ImpulsE69]

To clarify & rephrase that:

1. The news & media over-spins the negative hype against social media, with a slant against how "millennials are ruining everything"

2. There has always been & always will be a segment of society who are narcissts & thrive on anonymous public feedback. Virtually everyone is sensitive to this, which is why the Facebook "Like" button works & why Reddit's upvote/downvote system works; social media is simply another outlet to allow people to get famous worldwide, much like the music & movie industries. Some people need it more than others, and are far more vocal about it.

3. For teenagers, it's a little bit more dangerous because you're already so zoned in to having social anxiety & wanting to fit in & being cool that it gives you a platform to speak on, whether it's text, pictures, videos, whatever. I know many teenagers who are legitimately addicted to their phones (smartphones = dopamine casinos). Most of us had those problems in high school, but we couldn't get instant feedback from the entire school on our Snapchat or Whatsapp feeds like you can do today.

Social media is a wonderful thing...when used responsibly! I have no problem saying I love Facebook. I'm on dozens of amazing groups for things like cooking (sous vide, Instant Pot, dehydrating, etc.), my particular car model (fan pages, modification groups, etc.), musical instruments, all kinds of stuff. Much like Anandtech used to be in its heydey (for geeks), Facebook Groups has made the Usenet & BBS & forum system approachable for regular people, which means I can check out a cool ukulele video or talk shop about my Mustang with people all over the country & the world. It's far more social than reddit because sharing is easier & the interface is nicer to use, which means more average joes can join, including people who aren't very "computer literate". Likewise, I thought Twitter was a super-dumb idea, but I have over 17,000 tweets on that social media platform now & love plugging into different projects worldwide on it & also seeing real-time news updates from affected areas on it.

Social media isn't horrible. A vocal minority removes it from "out of sight, out of mind" & into the forefront of people's daily vision, and those target people see that so often that they adopt the stance that social media is horrible. Social media is not horrible - they're just tools, like anything else. For the media, social media is a $50-billion-a-year advertising outlet. For people who need to be in the spotlight, social media gives them that limelight. I was laughing the other day at a scene from a cartoon called Gumball, where one of the characters has a strong need for being popular. His friend tells him "we already love you!" to which he responds with something like, "I don't care, I don't need your approval, you already love me - what I really need is the approval of random strangers who don't care about me!" Which pretty much sums up the human condition, lol. Sure, social media enables needy people to get validation (hey, myself included!) & gives you short dopamine-inducing confidence bursts, but I wouldn't say social media is a horrible platform, by any means. It's like a chainsaw...you can be the scary killer in a movie with one, or you can actually use it to, you know, chop down some trees...the way you use it is what matters!

...and the majority of people use it poorly.

That being said, don't get me wrong. I have no qualms with 'forums' of like minded individuals, I mean..THIS is social media, however that is entirely different than the 'look at me' and love me feeds that are what I'm talking about. At least it should be...even this place turns into that with a few people.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Confidence originated from a bottle of Everclear!!

 

[Midwayman]

Well a lot of confidence just comes from giving zeros fcks. Once you put yourself out there and realize that most of the world is too into their own issues to care about you, it's freeing. Force yourself to do/show something uncomfortable to you. After doing it a few times and not having the world end you'll start to realize most of your issues are in your head.

 

[snoopy7548]

...and the majority of people use it poorly.

That being said, don't get me wrong. I have no qualms with 'forums' of like minded individuals, I mean..THIS is social media, however that is entirely different than the 'look at me' and love me feeds that are what I'm talking about. At least it should be...even this place turns into that with a few people.

Well, we now have thumbs-up "Like" buttons, so you could say this place is like Facebook.

 

[Mayne]

this forum is not social media as much as anandtech liks to add new features such as likes and emoji's. sure my posts are kinda bloggish but I think thats just because thats how I always posted since the past 20 plus years.

 

[Thebobo]

Confidence is having an extra large penis.