How to get confidence

A short guide on how to stop shying away from life

6 min readNov 21, 2017

Back in the days, I lacked confidence a lot, being a young green teenager, I was shying away from many opportunities that might have changed my life in many meaningful ways.

I was living in my head giving too much shit about the things that didn’t add up value in my life and it took me years to build my confidence from the ground.

I see many people wondering how to become confident and that is why I have decided to summarize all of my knowledge in a short essay to address all of these requests at once.

If I would be at the starting point of my journey again I would ask myself: what is a confidence?

Any self-development endeavor starts with a clear understanding of what one wants to work on, so the first thing I start with is the definition that helps to crystallize my objectives. So first,

Define the word “Confidence”

As I found it in the dictionary, confidence is the feeling of self-assurance in one’s abilities or qualities.

In other words, my confidence comes from the deep internal knowledge that I can do certain things.

This definition makes it clear that this kind of knowledge can’t come from fantasizing about things that are possible, they all come from practice.

I gain the confidence by acquiring the knowledge through experiencing things multiple times.

Repetition is the key to excellence.

Types of confidence

Confidence exists in all shapes and forms and splitting it into certain aspects of your life helps you to identify and list your action points.

Confidence with the opposite sex

It took me years to understand what works and what doesn’t work in the dating life. I will write about it in a separate essay.

Shortly I would say the confidence appears from three things only:

Practicing.
I just went and I talked to girls. A lot. Like A LOT. And the most efficient way to do it is to do it with the mindset of
Detachment from the result.
When I started I cared a lot. I was shy. My voice was trembling when I talked to girls first times, but I learned how to stay mindful, observe the sensations in my body, and embrace them. I learned the subtle art of not giving a shit.
Not being apologetic.
The skill of not being and saying sorry to anyone for what I am gave me a new freedom, and for the opposite sex, this quality is exceptionally attractive as it is a signature of an alpha male.

Confidence of Athleticism

As a man, physical strength that I acquired by exercising boosted my confidence.

The confidence that I can do such simple things as helping someone with heavy luggage or helping a friend who is moving out, gives the confidence that my strength gives me higher chances to protect myself or win in a fight if I am forced to it. Bigger and stronger men have the presence that could be intimidating, so it only natural that it serves as sports motivation for many young people as it did for me.

One of the best parts is that working out is reshaping the body and gives good looks and what I gained is

Confidence of Appearance

When my body started to change I started to like myself more.

Knowing that I look better let me care much less about how I look. I stopped to care about the clothes I wear. I started seeing how much time and money some people spend to choose, buy and wear fancy clothes to look good.

I wasn’t embarrassed to take off my t-shirt anymore. It helped me to develop a minimalist attitude towards clothing and not spend too much money on things that I find pretty worthless.

Of course, getting a nice suit and being well groomed is still helpful for boosting the confidence. However, the confidence that comes with an athletic body is stronger and more fundamental, after all, it is directly connected to the confidence in dating.

Confidence is the best outfit. Rock it. Own it.

But most importantly I started to like myself more because I earned my own respect for reaching my goals slowly one at a time.

Learning that I don’t let myself down gave me a confidence of self-respect which I didn’t clearly feel before I started exercising.

Confidence of Professionalism

Or in other words, intellectual confidence is a tricky one because there is always room for improvement, there is always a little doubt in one’s professional competence.

From the age of 10 to 20, one should try things and explore what really sets on fire. It is completely ok to be absolutely clueless about what to do in life, and try to find things of passion.

From age of 20 to 30, one should know what he likes and what he dislikes, and what are the things that he is good at.

At the age of 30, one should start focusing and mastering that one thing that he is exceptionally good at and perfect his mastery deepening the expertise.

I don’t consider myself an expert in a particular domain, rather I am a great generalist who knows a little bit about many things, which was always quite a useful quality. I grew to learn my strengths and my weaknesses, the former contributes to confidence and the latter reminds to stay humble.

Confidence of Spirituality

Deep knowledge of who you are and what is your place in this world grants you an unmatched power of presence.

This power of presence will be felt by people who surround you as a confidence far surpassing the confidence of a body or confidence of intellect.

When I found my center which serves me as an anchor not allowing me to get carried away by emotions, I learned how to stay present. I found a source of the true confidence — the confidence of a spirit.

Insecurities are loud. Confidence is silent

When I learned what I am, my confidence transcended to the whole another level. It is like an aura, projecting and shining through all of my being.

Dating and desire to seem intimidating to other men faded away as motivation long time ago. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone anymore. I have embraced myself.

To-do list

I would sort all of the action points to certain situational aspects where one needs to apply and work on his confidence.

Public speaking and Presentations.
Enrollment in acting classes, rhetoric classes, and dispute clubs, engaging in meetups, pitches, and presentations, playing music and singing in public boosted my confidence. I placed myself in situations where I was forced to speak up.
Social situations.
Talking to strangers, work in sales, work in customer service, participation in coaching sessions and workshops, meeting new people — these experiences were invaluable for gaining desired assertiveness.
Dating.
Doesn’t need explanation, this one is critically important.
Understanding how to behave with women, mastering dating dynamics, building relationships, and maturing through them was a hell of a journey and most effective experience for me in building up my confidence.
Leadership.
Starting a workout team, volunteering, managing charity and social events, starting a company and new daring projects, and even small opportunities for leadership like organizing trips with friends — those are some of the experiences that gave me the confidence of a leader.

You could pick what you like or find activities similar to those listed above. Just please keep in mind one thing:

To be = to do.

I don’t start doing something when I am ready.

I do it and then I become ready.

I can only dissolve my doubts by action. Idleness is paralyzing, the movement is liberating. It doesn’t really matter what I do. Just moving my body instantly starts gaining inner momentum for the mental energy that can be channeled into anything productive. Cleaning the home is always a good start.

As I learn more and more new things I embrace the confidence as a lifelong journey with its constant obstacles and challenges but persistence is rewarding. It is a path of a warrior.

Fill yourself with cool confidence quotes, study them, memorize them and after some time they will start automatically popping up on occasion in your head displacing the obsolete deleterious mindset.

I will finish this essay with an example of such quote: