The Secret of Self-Confidence (Part 1): You Already Have What It Takes

 

Self-confidence is often presented as the most crucial characteristic of an attractive man.

I believe so too.

To put it simply, self-confidence is the freedom from doubt and the belief in one’s abilities.

 

Although it produces astounding and concrete results, it is an ideal state-of-mind that is rarely achieved.

Let’s ask ourselves why.

 

Why do we struggle to achieve self-confidence?

From your first day at school as a child, you have been placed under tremendous pressure to perform. Our educational system leaves very little room for error. You were rarely urged to experiment and learn through failure. If you want to get through to the next year, and later in life to get a promotion at work, you simply have to reach for perfection. 

Very little is done to teach us the virtues of risk taking. It is no wonder that some of the world greatest men and women were once underachievers. Albert Einstein is a prime example of this: at age 16 he failed the entrance examination of the Technische Hochschule in Zurich and pursued his studies at the secondary school in Aarau. 

Similarly, Thomas Edison once declared: “I haven't failed; I've found 10000 ways that don't work”

While most of us are aware of this, we tend to overlook the learnings from failure and get caught up in our quest for perfection. As a result, we get easily discouraged by setbacks.

 

Let’s turn things around

Be grateful for every time you fail for failure means you took action. 

As student of mine who could not muster up the courage to approach girls once phrased it perfectly: "I failed at trying to even try. Boy, that's failure with a capital F."

If you manage to understand why you failed and dare to try an alternative, you will do better next time around.  

Again, it sounds rather obvious but how many of you apply this consistently?

 

Shut down the inner monologue and act

Either conscious or unconscious, we have a semi-constant internal monologue. The average word count per minute is somewhere between 300 and 1000, depending on the person and circumstances. To give you an idea, the range that people comfortably hear and vocalize words is around 150. The world record is 595 words per minute. 

Oftentimes, the inner voice issues teacherlike injunctions such as:  “Find something funny to say when she’s done telling her story”. After you said your funny bit, the same voice delivers its evaluation of the performance and the performer: “Oh my God, that was such a lame joke! You just embarrassed yourself there.”

Tim Gallwey a tennis coach, whose findings about performance issues found their way to other sports and even to the corporate world, wondered if that inner talk was really necessary or simply a nuisance.

If you have ever played any sport or instrument, you know that your best performance happens when the inner voice is quiet. You are entirely focused on what you are doing with no interference from your sabotaging, judgmental self. Even if you don’t win the point or play the best guitar solo since Jimi Hendrix, the experience is more pleasant. You are also more likely to learn from it afterwards as you will have a more accurate recollection of what you actually did. 

This non-Judgmental awareness was further explained by Gallwey in a simple equation:

 

P = p – i

Performance = potential – interference

 

This comes down to trusting your potential i.e. your innate abilities.

Do you see how this brings us back to self confidence?

Now, you may be wondering how this applies to dating. 

After all, if you have never approached girls on the street, how can you trust your innate ability to woo a pretty passer-by?

Let me give you a real-life example.

 

Trusting your innate abilities: real-life example

I was coaching a student on the streets of Paris. Much to my surprise, I saw him walk to a guy and greet him. This is rather unusual as my heterosexual male clients tend to talk to women rather than men. I observed the interaction and was pleased to see that it looked effortless. After two minutes of conversation, my student excused himself and asked for the phone number. He came back to me with a smile and said:

“This was a friend I had not seen since High School. We chatted for a minute and I told him I couldn’t stay much longer but I tool his phone number. We’ll go for a drink sometime to reminisce of the old days.”

This struck me as a perfect illustration of the link between self-confidence and familiarity.

Let me explain. In certain circumstances such as social gatherings with our best friends we think very little about what we are going to say next. If we say something stupid, we can all just laugh it off and move on.

In other words, there’s very little interference from the judgmental self.

Before my student got out of that state-of-mind, I asked him to approach the next girl in the same way as he did with his High-School friend.

And it went swimmingly.

 

You already have what it takes

I am convinced that anyone daring to trust his intrinsic potential has all it takes to become successful with women. 

In fact, this unabashed attitude of self-confidence bears the fruits of creativity, spontaneity, optimal listening skills and a natural inclination for risk-taking which takes communication to new exciting heights for both parties.

Things can always be tweaked and improved of course. Self-confidence and self-improvement are not mutually exclusive. But built on such solid foundations your newfound ability to seduce women will NOT be a castle made of sand.

You will be enjoying long-lasting benefits that reach far beyond your love life.

This is the conviction I carry through my seminars and workshops and the reason why I am deeply passionate about my job.

For more on the subject of self-confidence, stay tuned and read Part 2: Self-confidence and perspective.

 

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