How To Build Confidence From The Inside Out
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The document discusses how people often focus on small details or tasks to avoid confronting larger issues. It argues that a stronger internal state of confidence would allow one to naturally perform behaviors like maintaining eye contact without consciously thinking about it when giving a speech. To build true confidence, one should work on strengthening their internal state through practices like meditation and forcing their brain to recall feelings of confidence, rather than just pretending to be confident from the outside.
How To Build Confidence From The Inside Out
- 2. It's easy to miss the forest for the trees.
- 3. Even that statement is used so often that it can be easy to misunderstand it.
- 4. People tend to focus on little details (the trees) so they don't have to address the big picture (the forest).
- 5. Often times, when there's some big task at hand, we easily get caught up in the little things to avoid facing it.
- 6. Like if you need to do your taxes, you might spend a couple hours clearing up your desk.
- 7. That's easier, emotionally, than doing all the uncomfortable financial calculations.
- 8. It's been said that one of the reasons Victorian England was so "Victorian," meaning so focused on sexual behavior and etiquette is because they didn't want to address a larger issue of their crumbling empire.
- 9. We humans don't like big confrontations, so we avoid them whenever possible.
- 10. These can come across as lies we tell ourselves.
- 11. I won't try to create a relationship until I lose ten pounds.
- 12. I don't want to look for a job until I finish this project.
- 13. I don't want to have that conversation with my partner until I've cleaned out the garage. And on and on.
- 14. One of the ways we do this is when we focus on our external behavior, when we should be focusing on our internal state.
- 15. For example, if you've ever given a speech, you may have been told to, "maintain eye contact," or "don't memorize," or "don't shift your body weight back and forth," or "use gestures when you speak."
- 16. These are all good advice, but guess what?
- 17. Somebody who had a strong internal state would do these things naturally, without even thinking about it.
- 18. To be sure, you can "fake it till you make it."
- 19. Meaning if you started to pretend to be confident and self assured, you'd eventually become confident and self assured.
- 20. But that's kind of a roundabout, and emotionally unpleasant way of doing it.
- 21. Why not start from the inside?
- 22. After all, those reasons for discomfort are based on what you "perceive" to be "out there," now what's really out there.
- 23. One way is to simply FORCE your brain to recall feelings of confidence, before and WHILE you're speaking (in this particular example) instead of letting it run all over the place, like most people do.
- 24. Another way is to practice meditation.
- 25. Strengthen your ability to quiet your mind at will, so you can more easily turn off those doubts and worries, and be much more centered.
- 26. Then you'll open whole new range of behavior and energy most people never experience.