Seven Ways to Get a Hold of Confidence
by 
Eric Disco
Confidence is a loaded word.
How many times have you read in a popular magazine that women are attracted to confidence?
The word has been thrown around so much that it’s lost all meaning.
That’s why you won’t see the word even once in my upcoming book.
Still, understanding the concept can go a long way in sifting through all the riff raff out there.
Here are seven definitions you can refer to when someone uses that word.
Confidence is the expectation of success.
At its root, confidence is not necessarily your likelihood of success in a given task, rather, it’s your your own expectation of success at that task.
For example, you may feel confident that since you studied for an exam, you’ll pass. You may or may not actually pass the exam.
Confidence–socially–is the expectation that people will like you before you talk with them.
If you believed that every single person you spoke with would be happy to speak with you, you would have all the confidence you need.
Problem is, you can’t simply decide to believe something. Your beliefs change with real-world experience.
Confidence is: I did it yesterday and I can do it again today.
Having done something consistently will give you confidence that you can do it again.
For example, every single day last week, you went out and gave one woman a compliment. You felt very nervous, but you did it every day.
So you are confident you can do it again today, even though you may feel nervous during the task itself.
Confidence is a set of physical behaviors.
When someone says, “Just be confident,” they are usually referring to a set of evolutionary behaviors that demonstrate leadership.
The primary behavior is initiative-taking. The leader leads.
Secondary behaviors are associated with being the center of attention:
- Speaking louder
- Physical contact with others
- Taking up space
- Relaxed
- Not over-reacting to the actions of others
- Playfulness, etc.
Confidence is not worrying about the repercussions of your actions.
When you are “in the moment,” you’re not thinking about how your actions will be taken. You’re simply doing it.
Whatever environment you’re in, you feel that nothing bad will happen when you take action.
Confidence isn’t a lack of weakness. It is not caring about your weakness.
When an ugly guy feels confident, he doesn’t truly believe that he could win a beauty contest with Brad Pitt. He just doesn’t feel that his physical beauty affects him in social situations.
Confidence is being able to be yourself no matter who you’re with.
Confidence isn’t a specific personality, it’s the ability to display your personality as if it’s the coolest personality in the world.
Whether you’re with a grandmother, a child, your boss at work, a random stranger or a gorgeous woman, your personality still comes out. You don’t change who you are based on who you’re with.
Posted in Self-Improvement Strategies | 
9 Comments »
This word is thrown around so much in the seduction community. Every single PUA or member throws this around without any explanation. Its just “be confident Bro” and its like oh really? What then?
My question is this – why does a woman value confidence so much in a guy? Guys like David DeAngelo and such are always saying that women love confidence no matter if you are balding, short, fat or not conventially attractive.
So my question is, why do women value confidence so much? Why is that supposedly the ultimate attractor?
Let us say a guy who is on a 1 to 10 scale is a 5 or 6 and he wants to date say women that are in the 8 to 9 range. Why would confidence help this guy? Why would she be attracted to him over a conventionally better looking guy just because he might be more confident?
Because women are in touch with their emotions and often care more about internal qualities than external. Granted if you’re good looking it helps but it’s not the primary factor. A confident man conveys that he can protect her, believes in himself, he can show her a good time and make her laugh, that he’s passionate and driven, etc. Those traits are infinitely more important to a woman that just physical looks.
Many women date good looking men with shitty personalities and the novelty wears off. They realize they’d take a decent looking guy with an amazing attitude over that any day of the week.
The last two are absolutely critical–but I think they’ve been almost completely lost in the focus on ‘image’ and ‘alphaness’ that pervades this world..
One problem is that people are deathly afraid of the ‘be yourself’ mentality because as they see it (incorrectly), ‘being themselves’ has never worked for them–therefore they look to become anything OTHER than themselves. Which may get a few girls in the sack (1 out of 500 is obviously better than 0 out of 0)
I’ve said a few times–that if it never occurred to you that you’re supposed to have difficulties with women, you wouldn’t have difficulties with women.
@Rick–
One problem is your ranking system–lose it. Girls want to be sexually connected to a guy (i.e. physical + emotional). You can have that quality no matter what you look like–but you need to be open to it within yourself. That’s why confidence is so important–or rather, it’s not really the confidence itself that’s important–it’s the absence of poor self-worth and fear. If you’re fearful or timid as you interact with a woman, she’s not going to feel the sexual connection she’s looking for.
All that conventional good looks get a guy is a quicker first look in a crowd. That’s a useful perk–but it doesn’t really carry that much weight.
@Rick
Confidence is a strong correlate of success. Women have to quickly make a decision about a man’s social value. Imagine how complicated that decision would have to be if women had to evaluate his skills and aptitudes in all possible human pursuits. Instead, evolution has given women a quick first filter. If a man is confident, they rightly assume that he is accustomed to success with women, and, as confidence tends to carry over to other activities, success in other aspects of life as well. For example, women who observe a soundless video of two men dressed in identical clothes talking to each other are surprisingly accurate in guessing which man makes more money in his real life job.
–Lee
@Lee:
What is your opinion about guys who are fairly confident in other areas of their lives but just can’t get over the hump when it comes to approaching women?
@Mickey
I see it all the time – men who have focused on business and career and are much more confident in those pursuits than they are with women. There is definitely some correlation between the two. I would expect to see more players in a convention of entrepreneurial business types than at a convention of postal workers. But the correlation is not perfect. But now think of this from a woman’s perspective. When a woman knows nothing about you except that you seem to be relatively relaxed talking to her, just that piece of information – the knowledge that you have probably seen previous success with women – is incredibly valuable.
–Lee
my personal definition of confidence as it pertains to women is:
SHE IS MINE. For me it’s handy, it feels good and it’s a pretty operational one.
The rest is tactical. Finding out what works on her and what not.
Women are attracted to a confident man simply because that type of guy makes her feel good. He creates good emotion in her. She feels that he is up to any challenge.
Confidence is situational. A guy might be very confident in his work environment, but have no confidence with women. A guy who is not good with women has low self esteem. He believes he’s not good enough for her. That low self esteem translates into approach anxiety, not being capable of having a normal regular conversationsw, and sexual anxiety. He doesn’t currently have any or enough positive male to attractive female experiences to draw on.