How to be confident

‘Being savoir faire and not giving a shit are inextricably linked’ (Me in 2013)

 This quote has no relevance, I just really like it and I like being irreverent.

‘Confidence is a stain you can’t wipe off’ (Lil Wayne)

  

People (Lil Wayne at least) talk about confidence like its something you have or don't, I disagree i think you can learn' it to an extent.

A colleague of mine said he wanted to be confident, and asked me how to do it. I half joking replied: ‘Just be more like me, don’t care about stuff’

This quasi-arrogant, quasi-advisory comment made perfect sense to me, but he replied – 'Yeah, I don’t know what that means, can you explain what that means, I don’t quite get it' and this was yet another example of how my brain misses steps. 

My brain creates direct links from point A to B, except to others the argument I sometimes make are not point A to B but A to C and I miss out B. Case in point: Being like me and not caring (Point A) equates to having confidence (point C). Whilst this seem perfectly linear to me, I realised my brain is broken. In fact through the experience of this conversation I have realised this was not linear and there was a requirement to connect the dots. I know this because my friend said 'I have no idea what that means, that doesn’t make sense, explain how not caring makes you confident, and what do you do that makes you confident.'

  So here is part B:

1. Validation sources: Basically a posh way to ask, who is it that makes you feel good about something? If someone pays you an amazing compliment and that makes you feel good about yourself, this will probably build you confidence in this arena, which is awesome. Except what happens when that person/people don’t give you those compliments? Well, I assume then you don’t feel confident/good in that area of your life. Hence your confidence has now become dependent on other peoples validation of you. In other words don’t care too much about what people think of you, even if it is good or your confidence will be up and down like a yo-yo. 
2. So the next logical question is where do you attain this validation? Simple answer, I thought about it long and hard and then it hit me. Come to me for it, that’s where I go for my validation and it works. I think I am awesome therefore I am. So I told him to ask me and I was willing to validate him
3. But he was adamant there are going to be situations/contexts in which I might not be around. I agreed and said this is true and expected because, I’m way too cool to hang out with you in public. Unfortunately he didn’t catch on that I was being serious and then stated there are going to be times when I am not good at things and therefore don’t feel confident doing them.
4. His issue was, what if he comes across as really confident because he doesn’t care what other people think but then he sucks at something really hard. He didn’t want to be caught out as an imposter or looked at by his peers/friends/strangers as inadequate/a fake and then those confident attributes are no longer useful as he would be seen as an incompetent ‘delusionist’ (Now this sounds like me) He asked how should I be confident in those situations? The answer is you do not pretend having fake knowledge/competence in something you don’t have but rather a general feeling of confidence in you as a person. So, rather than focus on specific skills have trust and faith in yourself that you will come to correct conclusions/decisions based on the information you do have. Even when confident accept you won’t always be right, and then when it happens it doesn’t surprise/phase you. Then enact an action plan. Note why/how you failed, find out what you should have done in that situation and ensure you do that the next time. This results you being confident the next time the situation occurs. In terms of your perception of failure to others, the way to deal with that is don’t care what other people think, or blame someone/something else. If you are a girl, I’ve noticed hormones and time of the month works.
5. Being outcome independent – This is a clever way of saying: Don’t care what happens. If you are normal and being good at something helps you to be more confident, especially when learning a skill or technique, do not focus your attention on the outcomes you achieve. This is also a useful way of breaking down a big problem into smaller parts. Focus on a known technique that will equate you in becoming good at something. Let’s say you want to do the high jump, don’t worry if you try to jump but knock the bar over. Why? You may ask. Well look at your run up and examine if was that good? If so, it means you are one step closer to being awesome at the high jump, or maybe your run up is crap, well, then make sure you put an awesome lycra high jump outfit on. Then when you fail at least you look awesome! Ha, I say awesome, you will probably look like a loser, but hey you can always pretend you are a high jump expert trying out a new technique. Or better yet wear lycra, and don’t care what people think.
6. However if you can’t help but care what others think when you fail, ask yourself, will I care in 10 minutes? If the answer is yes, ask, will I care in an hour? If the answer is yes, ask yourself will I care tomorrow? Continue until you get to 4 (because you can try the high jump at the Olympics in 4) years, if the answer is still yes… Stop being a whiny pessimist! And go listen to Bob Marley ‘Everything is going to be all right’ The only exception I can imagine is unless you contract aids, that’s got to be a bummer (Pun, funny as it isn’t, is not intended) in which case, another rule is be pro-active: Wear condoms and/or use clean needles.
7. Be pro-active – Ummm I think it’s a good idea, never tried it myself, but I’ve heard nothing but good things. Good for not getting aids, there’s one positive at least!

Let’s say the reason or inhibiting factor stopping you from being confident is that you do care what other people think, and or their perception has a lot of effect on you and some of the above tips don’t help. What should you do then?  Well then I advise you set up an alter ego. PS ‘Abs’ is taken. Ooooh or actually set up a fight club and an alter ego. PS 'Tyler Durden' is taken.