The following article was sponsored by Freeman’s Fitness
Mention the topic of how to create confidence and some of the most common answers are dress better, groom yourself, and improve your posture. These techniques may help you to start building confidence, but they will not do much for you unless you step over the line into challenges. Real confidence is only built by taking on challenges, pushing yourself further than before, and being outside of your comfort zone. Anything less is just mental masturbation.
In the same way as working out, confidence is built by constant progress. You can buy all the best gym gear, have all the best gym equipment and read all about the best techniques to gain muscle, but you will never gain any strength or muscle until you actually push your body and work out harder and harder each time. Confidence is no different—we must strive to challenge ourselves.
The modern day gives us many comforts and taking the easy way out generally leads to a lack of confidence. Life is so comfortable and people can get by without doing anything remotely challenging for the most part.
Want to meet a girl? Why talk to a real one on the street just message one on Facebook or look at some porn. Need some food? Why go out hunting when you can just pick it up from the store. Without some hardship and the ability to push through the pain barrier, be it physical or mental, we weaken ourselves and our confidence suffers as a result.
Action Builds Confidence
You cannot simply read about confidence, buy some nice clothes, stand up straight, and expect have developed any sort of real confidence. You have to keep challenging yourself; putting 5kg more on your deadlift or squat, running further and faster than before, expanding your business each year or improving your skills. If you are not challenging yourself to do more and more then you will not be growing in your confidence!
Working out
This is where many of us start to build confidence, especially if we were not very confident during our younger years. Lifting weights and getting strong makes us know that we capable and helps us to understand that we need challenge to grow. The big compound lifts are great not just physically, but also because it requires a lot more effort and confidence to hit a 200kg (440lb for you Americans) deadlift than it does to do lat pulldowns on a machine.
Weight lifting is not the only way to challenge yourself physically. On top of regular strength training in my gym, I regularly go for 1.5-2 hour trail runs, large hikes, and do strongman style workouts to push myself. These are tough to accomplish and contrary to popular belief won’t make you lose your strength. Pushing yourself through regular physical exercise means that you will develop the confidence that you can take on any physical challenge that comes your way.
For help with exercise and nutrition, check out my online personal training program here.
Outdoor activities
I have been a firefighter for seven years and I am also part of a specialist team of firefighters who use helicopter insertion techniques. We winch into remote regions in small teams and build firebreaks with hand tools in 40+ degree C weather. This sort of thing is physically and mentally grueling and is a great confidence building activity.
There are many outdoor activities that require challenge. Long distance hikes, hunting (especially with a bow), basic survival-style camping. Anything that is hard to do is worth doing! Being outdoors is a big change from our comfortable suburban existence. It gives us a rest from the internet world and puts us into a more primal environment. The view was worth the five-hour trek up hills.
Your personal challenge
We all have different interests and hobbies and they can all be useful in helping us gain confidence. Your personal confidence boosting activities will be related to the things you want to improve most. Examples of this are public speaking, meeting new people, building a successful business, becoming better at a skill set, being a better father, the list goes on.
Whichever area you want to improve upon you must take stock of where you are at. Let’s say you want to improve your public speaking ability to assist your professional life. Currently you don’t do any regular public speaking at all and shy away from it. The only way to improve this is to build confidence by actively speaking in as many situations as possible, with bigger and bigger audiences and improving your ability and range of topics. Reading about techniques won’t cut it, you have to get out there and start doing it immediately.
Persistence and Failure
The other part of building confidence that you need to develop is persistence so that you can destroy the fear of failure. We will all fail throughout our lives. The confident ones will learn from their failure and push forward even harder than before. Each time your confidence building activity doesn’t work out, take account of what happened and ensure you work towards improving it next time.
Stop talking, Start DOING
The most important part of building confidence is actually acting upon what you need to do. Take stock of where you are at in life now and where you want to be. Maybe you want to improve your public speaking, become physically stronger, or talk to more women. Whatever it may be, work out what it is and what you need to start doing today to improve upon it.
Confidence builds upon itself. The hardest steps are at the beginning but we must push ourselves constantly to go outside what feels comfortable and move into dangerous territory. Strive to take action daily to push yourself outside your comfort zone. A life of constant comfort is a life of weakness and will lead to a generation of weak, ill confident men.
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Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins.
‘Why go out hunting when you can just pick it up from the store’….reaching pretty hard for this one right here
Especially when the answer is so obvious:
The store doesn’t have any squirrel or woodchuck.
Hunting is merely a sport that distracts men with guns away from the really serious reasons to have a gun.
In the same way that using a hammer to build a house is merely a hobby that distracts men from the really serious reasons to have a hammer.
Men left Valley Forge and went home because they were hungry.
You have not merely excluded the middle, but the entire spectrum. I can collect today’s dinner without losing sight of why I might want to be well fed tomorrow.
The world’s first sniper rifle, the infamous long rifle of the American Revolution, was, in fact, a squirrel gun.
When I speak of hunting I mean in order to obtain food, is it really considered a sport? I live in Australia and access to guns here is very limited unfortunately!
So let’s not take advantage of the modern division of labor and pretend we have guns because we might have to hunt for our food.
Then I can continue to see teenagers with apex technical level shotguns, top of the line, standing over dead ducks as if they accomplished something.
And those same teenagers go to school next day to get their heads pumped with more statist shit but hey, at least their mother allowed grandpa to take them duck hunting, right?
Preach On!!!
” . . . take advantage of the modern division of labor . . .”
And so, if I am trained in the use of a knife as a weapon, I must hire an expert to cut my steak for me.
” . . . we might have to hunt for our food.”
If somebody doesn’t, there will be a lot less food. It is one of the divisions of labor. Shooting woodchucks is part of the process of growing spinach, but then if food production is not the division of labor you work in, you might not know that.
I’m not interested in a Mall Ninja vs. Fudd argument. I’ve seen them and have observed that it requires both sides to act as if they were blinkered idiots to sustain it.
Great article.
Another idea I suggest that can help to help build confidence is to attempt something on your own. Everywhere I go, I see groups of “boys” (I call them boys, not men) hanging around and screaming for no reason from the top of their voices, acting like they are kings, when in reality, they look like a bunch of pussies.
The concept of doing something on your own, helps to establish your true independence and symbolises a man’s maturity. And never be afraid to do this, and more importantly, never be afraid to express your opinion and not to give a damn what others will think and say about you.
You would be surprised at how much this element alone, can help to boost your self esteem and pride as an individual.
The classic herd mentality. Groups are safe and one can avoid responsibility (and thus avoid failure). Facing and embracing failure is a classic tenet of self-improvement and even game.
Absolutely agree. Like the saying goes, “failure is the pillar of success.”
And I believe it is only through failure, that we can learn from our mistakes and become stronger individuals.
Agreed-all men should take the occassional trip on their own too. Pick any place you’ve wanted to visit and do whatever you want while there. Something outdoorsy is always a great idea-getting back to nature is good for the soul.
Agreed. Here’s a real challenge for the average man and woman:
Level 1:
“Can you put down the smartphone, laptop, internet, social media” for one day?
Level 2:
“Can you put down the smartphone, laptop, internet, social media” for one month?
Level 3:
“Can you put down the smartphone, laptop, internet, social media” for (fill in the blank with your duration of choice.)
Good advice however it is only a temporary reprieve. This technological society we live in DEMANDS that you are plugged into the collective. How much longer do you think it will be before it is a crime to turn off your physical location tracking cell phone?
I get what you’re saying but if you have a weak personality you can get addicted to anything. We can make endless lists. Things on your list can be put to good use too and also are being used for business (to make $$$) by ‘men’
“How much longer do you think it will be before it is a crime to turn off your physical location tracking cell phone?”
Not long at all. Obamacare set the precedent for that by requiring everyone to have insurance on the basis of it “being good for you and everyone else.”
I imagine the argument for mandatory cell phone usage would be along the lines of “If you don’t have a cell phone you won’t be able to report a medical emergency! You or someone else could die!”
Hmmm, now if your online playing video games or watching porn all day I agree. But if you use your time online to learn then no I disagree.
I agree that a weak sense of self plays a part but in addictions but the environmental factors should not be ignored.
This is a great suggestion – I often take a drive out in to the countryside and walk for miles and miles. I find it clears your mind and you can get creative if you bring a camera along too.
When I used to work on the road, the company I was contracted by used to have their own campsite and I would always camp somewhere else. It used to piss off my co-workers but I found the experience of camping alone extremely rewarding.
With outdoor activities venue choice is critical, If you choose a place where couples frequent this can be a confidence killer…
Ah you mean seeing couples hand in hand might make you feel bad? I suppose that’s possible but those guys may be thinking the flip. They wish they didn’t have their significant other tagging along. In my experience, the further out you go into the wilderness, the far less couples you’ll see.
Thank you, I agree with your post very true it is the easy way out to just rely on the group to do your thinking and acting!
No problem. Also, people are more attracted (especially women) to men who can stand their own ground and shows your leadership. People will respect you for this.
I agree but I would only advise this if you do not mind being alone/lonely or if you can stand up to the immense social pressure from cops and government all the way down to your own family members. Most people desperately NEED to be accepted and praised by their peers and if you or Jesus Christ Himself needs to be sacrificed for political correctness or for them to be accepted by their peers then so be it. Man is a social animal and if you do not go along to get along, well; just ask Jesus what they do to people who do not conform to This World.
“The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room” – Frank Lucas
Part of what you said is incongruent with reality. Expressing your opinion earns you physical fights and excommunication unless you parrot trite mainstream opinions as “your” opinions.
I’d like to add that cultivating a formidable intellect does wonders for a Man’s confidence. Nothing speaks of confidence quite as loudly as when a Man is able to cut through the foliage of bs with a machete sharp mind. Betas can only look back in hate and awe.
In addition, Women can appreciate a Man that seems to possess a vast wealth of knowledge. Granted that this can be easily overlooked if he doesn’t have the looks to back it up but it’s still a feather in his cap if he has more than just superficial looks to his credit.
women do not care how intelligent you are. You’ll just bore them if you try to boast your intellectual prowess.
There’s a difference between a brainless airhead and a Woman who takes more than just good looks to impress.
The thing that can put you over the top is an intellect. I know, i’ve used it to my advantage.
The greatest confidence builder IMO is to be your own businessman. What I mean overall is, owning the means of your own production (owning your tools, shop, etc.) and being able to sell your own products or services.
Look at the history of “beta-ness”. I would say that he height of the reign of the beta was the period of 1900 to 1970. Prior to 1900 either a man owned his production or (as was the case on the expanding industrial age and the frontiers) a “hired hand”. But the latter was temporary. The term “buy the farm” comes from those days when a fellow might have enough money and/or a reason to “settle down” and buy his own farm or ranch.
But in the growing slave-state model, starting slowly in 1865 where black slavery was traded for everybody slavery and the people who funded that pushed the notion to cover for their wage slavery, the ownership of production was reduced greatly. Part of enslaving people is to have a monopoly on the production. What does it matter if you can run a 1 million dollar machine when you can’t have one yourself and you’re laid off?
Also add to this mining, unions, railroad, and construction industries pretty much required equipment that individuals or small groups would be hard-pressed to own. Everything changed.
So in order to have this new order, a man needed to get what was coming to him still, even though he was being reduced to a wage slave and “given a job”. A lot of “the system” was all about making sure Mr. Beta was nice and happy, being able to get married, have that family, that mortgage, and a “steady paycheck” to pay for it all. And then at 65 he could retire and get his gold watch and run out his clock and that’s that.
You see, wage slavery is already soul-sucking and dependency creating, just a step above welfare. You can’t have a wage slave model AND a system that treats men like shit (family courts, inequality laws, constant shaming and misandry, etc.) because the men are going to be so downtrodden they will NOT have the strength to get up every day and put up with difficult and laborious jobs. When a man has a loving wife and children he loves he can swim in shit all day if he has to. When the society is “Oh a man, You are scum, you suck, you are a rapist blah blah blah” then it’s hard enough even to get reliable help for a simple job. I’ve seen technical job ads go without answer and I have worked around the machining industry where I’m told it’s still hard to get good help, the most common complaint being “it’s hard to get guys to show up on time”.
And that “deal” of “be a hard worker and you get what you deserve” lasted from 1900 to 1970. A very common story, even in my own family, was “he got a job at the factory after the war and worked there for 45 years”. Said of every relative who was also married by 21, having kids by 22, the whole deal.
Globalization, Marxism disguised as feminism and environmentalism, and last but not least (and the biggest reason) the ending of the gold standard (meaning the value of your saving is decreased) put an end to that in the early 1970s. Now you get laid off. Now you get outsourced. Now that money you saved is worth less. Now you say one wrong thing and the SJWs drum you out of a job. (Or as I have personally witnessed: not be “tactful enough” – yeah no kidding).
So in a way it kind of fits really. Mr. Average Beta has a set deal for him: job, wife family. Didn’t matter so much what the factors were. I’ve seen a lifetime of old yearbooks full of ugly and pretty people but their outcomes were all the same. They had families and worked somewhere.
But now you have to “game” everything. You have to set yourself up at work to be un-fireable or more like “well if we let this guy go and hire someone from India for less we are still screwed”. It does not matter if that’s true or not. And you have to “game” the women too, who are going to be fickle, play all kinds of games (say or do one wrong thing or worse, be “too nice” and you are voted off the island) .
I would even say that the path to being an independent businessman and the path to being “more alpha” (or even a PUA) are on the same vector. Either way you have to sell yourself and have the ability to handle rejection. It’s no wonder that the biggest pussy hounds I knew were also self-employed and fairly successful while the guys who would go 2 – 5 years between girlfriends and only end up settling on a fat 5 or less were the ones always “employed”.
So evidently I think the one thing you can do to boost confidence would be to go out on your own, in love and work.
Wow. That was a long post (much longer than the ones I posted) but I agree with what you said, especially about the ability to handle rejection. Being able to handle rejection is one of the fundamental pillars in building our threshold and ability to stand stronger.
This in turn leads to persistance and perseverance. Take a look at some of the greatest salesman who kept going right to the end.
But taking a good look and observing the way in which leftist propoganda and indoctrination have affected the schooling system and society in general, have turned men into pussified wimps who have become self entitled and spoilt in their mannerisms. But in the delusional world of a liberal, “everyone’s a winner.”
Great reply, I found this out myself in the last few years when I left working for good and started my own business.
How do you think society would look if most people had businesses? I think too many prefer the ‘comfort’ and fabled ‘job security’ of a paid position so that we may not ever see it change
WORD!!!
Doktor Jeep 4 President! I must say that it is VERY rare that I read someones post where I don’t find at least one point of disagreement. However, Dok Jeep has been to the top of the mountain, he has SEEN the Promised Land. Unfortunately I am afraid that his fate is the same as Moses, he will not be allowed to enter; or as Cassandra, no one will believe the truth he speaks.
Read a lot . The more you know, the better prepared you will be.
Books = Knowledge. If you do not have at least 3 books on the back of your toilet at all times then you don’t know Shit!
If you have time to read while on the throne you need to get more fiber in your diet. You should be done in 10 sec or less 🙂
Or maybe you speed read?
Yeah. I was going to add that to the article. Reading not only informs but a reader can start to form an alternate social/emotional realm making ‘real’ people less of a need. This does wonders for independence and can eliminate a supplicating mindset in general. If some friend or acquaintance disappoints or attacks you in some way, that can devastate a young man who is in a state of nearly pure approval seeking. But a reader can be like, “Really, dude? Well fuck you.” And then head off into the woods with some Conrad or London or whoever. Books=Independence. Good food, a library card, a barbell=3 things that will never let you down.
The only person that can differentiate between concious and subconscious confidence is yourself.
In other words, trying to be confident, is in fact, being confident. I figured out recently that there is nothing much to it. It’s like fucking a girl but you’re not really enjoying it; she won’t know the difference.
why is masculinity so often conflated with masochism? Confidence is the willingness to address whatever the future may hold; it is not the product of heat exhaustion or self-torture.
Masochism, heat exhaustion and self-torture! That’s over dramatic and inaccurate. Challenging oneself mentally or physically is not self-torture and it doesn’t automatically mean you’ll develop heat exhaustion. That’s pushing the limit too far and this article doesn’t advocate masochism in the sense you’re speaking of. It’s healthy to be challenged.
Challenging one’s self is its own reward, but it won’t make a man more socially confident or dominant. President Obama never crawled through mud under razor wire and a fusillade of live rounds (and has apparently never really challenged himself at all – never went in the gas chamber, piloted a jet, broke a sweat, etc.), but he is commander and chief of the world’s mightiest-ever military. And he is confident as hell
If you want to got hot, sweaty, tried, scared or dead, follow your bliss, but don’t assume that your great accomplishments will make you more attractive to women or influential to men.
Once again, this article is not suggesting crawling through mud under razor wire and a fusillade of live rounds. Challenging oneself does not mean going in a gas chamber, piloting a jet… Do you really think President Obama never challenged himself mentally, emotionally, psychologically and many other ways to get into that kind of role?
“Fatti maschii; parole femine”
Almost every aspect of our lives are controlled and we need permission for just about everything. Men are not allowed Deeds without the proper paperwork, licenses and permits.
http://i.imgbox.com/Ly35YIm7.jpg
Nah, I’d rather look like this guy:
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mediacircus.net/pitchblack___1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mediacircus.net/pitchblack.html&h=300&w=208&tbnid=Aa5tCN_FuzMJUM:&zoom=1&docid=LHwPy22Bs1X8YM&ei=m5btVL6ZMqjV7Aapl4GwCg&tbm=isch&ved=0CFMQMygXMBc
I would also recommend taking up a martial art, there’s no fear like the fear of getting hit. Also those who are prepared for a fight are better off than those looking for one – Road House.
What’s a firefighter? Don’t you mean fireman?
American English vs British English.
No actually its PC English vs Un-PC English. That is the point I was making.
Disagree, This site is always harping on the value of working out well here’s the reality most men lack the prerequisites genetics that allow them to look anything like Arnold Schwarzenegger or even Hugh Jackmen even then you still need hours a day and professional guidance ( personal Trainers and nutritionists ) Most men do not the time, money or desire to do this for questionable gains and it’s not like you walk around shirtless all day anyway. Even worse when you do see the few buffed gym rats and realize that your never going to look anything like them this can be a confidence killer. Now I agree there are merits in working out as a part of self improvement but do it for yourself first and go into it with realistic expectations.
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