Feel Less Confident Than Yesterday? It's Natural.

It’s been almost four years since I first approached a woman I didn’t know.

Four years since I began this journey of changing my confidence with women.

It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and, by far, the most worthwhile.

There is nothing like feeling great in social situations.

Human beings are social creatures. When we feel good socially, we feel good in our selves.

You probably wouldn’t recognize me before I began. I was a shadow of the man I am now.

Still, it’s not all good days.

I noticed throughout my journey, that no matter how good I get, no matter how confident I become, I still feel unconfident at times.

Sure, even at my least confident now, I am ten times more confident than I was at my most confident before, but those unconfident days hurt.

I feel down.

No matter how good I get, I raise the bar for myself. So even though I am way better than I was, I am still below par for me.

This is normal.

In fact, I notice a pattern. It’s not just that one day I’ll feel great and the next day I’ll feel down. It’s that the confidence–and lack there of–tends to be cumulative.

It has momentum.

It seems to follow a sine wave:

When I’m feeling great, at the top of the wave, I am on top of the world. Every person I take initiative with responds well to me–or at least it feels like it.

I expect people to respond well–and they do. If feels like I’ve hardly ever been rejected.

Women I’ve met before are texting me, taking initiative with me. My friends are calling me up to hang out.

I walk around with an air of confidence.

And then it subsides back down to a normal level. I’m at zero.

Not bad. But not amazing.

And the trajectory continues.

I may start to feel unconfident. Maybe I get a few rejections in a row. My game feels “off.”

I become slightly more needy–wanting validation from people. Perhaps trying to hard.

I expect worse reactions from people–and so I get it.

All I can remember are the rejections I’ve gotten.

I feel like I don’t want to take initiative. There’s more anxiety, more fear and what feels like depression. I just want to go home and hide, entertain myself alone until I feel better.

When I hit this low point, it helps to know what to do. What’s important here is that I realize that I am at that point.

This helps me to do the most important thing I can possible do at this point:

Laugh.

I just laugh. And think to myself, okay, I’m at my low-point. This is a natural process.

One week from now, if I keep going, I’ll be feeling great. This low point will pass.

I try to take everything with a grain of salt.

Stop thinking about texting that girl. Wait it out for a day or two. Let her text you.

And often–but not always–she does.

Things start to change.

And the trajectory starts to shift again. I come back up to where I’m feeling normal.

And then, if I keep at it, I will eventually feel great again.

A few things to consider about this:

It would be great to be non-reactive. It would be great if I could be 100% internally validated and not depend on the reactions of others.

Yes, this is a good goal. But it’ s not completely possible.

We react to the world we live in. That’s what makes this beautiful and fun.

That confidence, or lack of self-confidence, seeps out of every fiber of your being. When you’re on, you radiate.

When you’re off, people can sense it.

That’s why it helps to “know” what confidence looks like. You can still be fairly confident on the outside, even if you don’t necessarily feel super confident on the inside.

For example, a lack of confidence could come out in speaking quietly. You could force yourself to speak loudly and act confidently, even if you aren’t confident.

This helps you to regain that confidence and swing back up into the top of the wave again.

You also want to keep taking initiative. Being able to take initiative is at the heart of confidence.

So even though I’m feeling down, I still exercise. I still initiate interactions with people I don’t know, even if I have my doubts whether it will go anywhere.

Or, depending on how down I’m feeling, I’ll pull it back and at least take a walk around my neighborhood.

Do something.

If I can take initiative when I’m down, think about how much more confident my initiative-taking will be when I feel good.

And when it comes down to it, the taking of initiative is the very thing that will get me to feel good again.

Everyone has felt the deep, dark black hole of depression.

That cycle of feeling bad and not taking initiative is what keeps you in that hole.

And you may wonder, why go through all the work if you still have good days and bad days no matter what you do?

I still feel better, more empowered overall. I’ve come to expect these fluctuations in my life.

But most importantly, I have the ability to act, to change my situation.

When you feel empowered, the lows don’t stay low for long.

And the social is always key. There’s nothing like having friends to help you back up when you’re feeling down.

We all have ups and downs. Every person on earth feels great some days and less great on other days.

That’s the beauty of living this life. But it can help to know that those ups and downs exist and are natural for each and every one of us, no matter how confident you become.

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posted in Self-Improvement Strategies