Strong self-confidence to me is the faith I can handle what’s ahead. That faith comes from many sources like my faith in Christ, body language, speech patterns, and ways of thinking you’re about to discover. It is not having the elusive anxiety-free life nor is it knowing I can get what I want. Confidence is the opposite.

The more I see that I am a flawed human being, the more courage I have to know things can go to the crapper and that I’ll come out ahead. I can still be anxious and not get what I want, yet remain a confident person.

Below is a list of scientifically-backed tips to build unstoppable self-confidence. They are organized into helpful categories. Confidence is formed by how we interact with ourselves and others. Little adjustments in your thinking or behavior that seem silly at first glance, add up to make you a confident person. Take a handful (or the whole set) for a spin. Instill a surplus of confidence in your life.

Appearance, Body Language, and Speech

Don’t fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become.Amy Cuddy

1. Practice Power Poses

You’re probably familiar with how other people’s body language affects your perception of them. Harvard social psychologist Amy Cuddy’s research shows that your body language also affects how you perceive and think about yourself. By practicing certain “Power Poses” for 2-minute increments, you physically and psychologically change how you feel about your sense of control, assertiveness, comfort, and self-confidence. You boost your testosterone (the dominance hormone) and lower your cortisol (the stress hormone) to handle stressful communication. Power Posing isn’t about making others perceive you differently. When we think of confidence we wrongly limit it with the mind. Power poses put your mind and body in a state of confidence. In Cuddy’s words, “Our bodies can change our minds, and our minds change our behavior, and our behavior changes our outcomes.”

2. Power Pose 1: Pride

Expanding your arms or leaning back in your chair with your arms behind your head conveys an internal sense of power and control. Animals across nature do this to express their dominance and pride, and you are no exception. Practice expansive gestures with your arms and legs in the short-term to feel long-term courage and confidence.

3. Power Pose 2: Table-Lean

Another high-power pose involves a prop. Stand beside a table, place your hands shoulder-width apart on the table, and lean forward as if you’re facing an audience. This pose is another variation on the open Power Pose. It owns the space. You communicate to yourself, “What I say and think is important.” Use this pose before your next meeting or job interview to finalize your points and strengths in your mind.

4. Power Pose 3: Hands at the Hips

This Superman pose may bring to mind some cliché images—a mother who catches her children disobeying her, for instance. But think about what that pose says: “I am the authority figure. You need to pay attention to me right now.” Use this Power Pose in private to get you in the mind of assertiveness and remind yourself of your own confidence and authority.

5. Power Pose 4: Sitting at Desk, Hands Behind Head

This pose crops up in the business world all the time. The boss or manager leaning back in his or her chair, feet directly under them (or even on the desk), and their hands locked behind their heads. Like the other Power Poses, this one conveys not only your willingness to listen, but your level of poise and low-stress. Practice this one in your office behind closed doors right before a stressful meeting.

6. Power Pose 5: Arm Behind the Seat

Another open, expansive gesture. For this one, when you sit, instead of keeping your hands and arms close to your body, reach an arm behind the seat next to you. This gesture doesn’t have to be reserved for watching movies on the couch, either. Practice reaching behind the passenger side seat when you’re driving alone for 2 minute bursts. That’s enough time to feel a confidence boost.

7. Posture and Sitting

You can also change how the world sees you outside of Power Posing. Walking with your back straight, your shoulders back, and your head forward demonstrates purpose and intent. Use what I call a “capitalizing posture” where you visualize a string tied to your sternum that gets pulled directly upwards. How you sit also speaks volumes: crossed legs and arms tell others you are self-protective and unapproachable, so don’t bunch up! It takes practice to change something so simple that you take for granted. But how you stand, walk, and sit convinces yourself and others of your confidence.

8. Refine Your Speech

How you speak is an oft-neglected part of self-presentation, but an important one. For instance, speaking with few “ums” and “uhs” presents you as more competent than people who say them constantly. Studies have also shown that speaking quickly makes you more charismatic in the eyes of others, and even more persuasive at certain times. The speed and fluidity of your speech has tremendous potential to affect your confidence and how others remember you. Carol Fleming is my recommended person to learn speech improvement. See her guest article “5 Steps to Develop a Charming Voice that’s Sexy“.

9. Volume and Clarity

Do you mumble when you speak? Are you lazy about how you phrase things? If so, your confidence is a casualty of your carelessness. A strong voice with good diction and word choice shows others that you take care when expressing yourself. When you feel that you have said what you want in the way you want to, you’re confident that you can always communicate your needs and grievances with clarity, strength, and precision. Every time you speak, I want you to speak 20% louder than you feel comfortable and move your mouth more than usual to boost articulation.

10. Dress Well

Your self-image, whether you accept it or not, alters significantly depending on how you dress. Wear clothes that are clean and free of wrinkles. Tuck your shirt in for situations when it is appropriate. Even if you work at home, how you dress affects how you approach your confidence and daily tasks. Present your best external self to feel the internal gains of confidence.

11. Groom

When we think of confidence we wrongly limit it with the mind. Power poses put your mind and body in a state of confidence.

Just as important for your sense of self-confidence are your grooming habits. Do you shave regularly? Do you wash your hair? Do you shower enough and wear deodorant? A low sense of self-confidence can throw a wrench into these necessary steps. “Looking sharp” has two major benefits. It improves your self-image, and it advertises that you are approachable and attractive to other people. Let your internal confidence shine through on the outside.

12. Make Eye Contact

Meeting someone’s eyes during conversation tells them that you see yourself as equal to them, that you are both worthy of expressing yourselves. Lack of eye contact can send several wrong messages. You may be interpreted as weak, rude, easily dominated, or the big one, lacking confidence. Show your interest in others and respect yourself as a person worth talking to by making eye contact.

13. Hold Your Gaze

This practice is enlightening for several reasons. First, you’ll notice that most people are just as shy about making eye contact as you are. This will give you confidence that you’re not alone. Second, a longer gaze shows deep interest and a sense of control that confident people possess. Don’t intimidate people with your stares, but show them that you are interested, and give them the confidence to be confident around you.

14. Smile

The simple act of smiling is an enormous confidence builder. People notice you more when you smile. Laughter and smiling reduce your blood pressure and anxiety, which eases anxiety. Research also shows that smiling when you don’t feel like it activates brain areas related to happiness. The happier you are, the more room you give for your confidence to grow.

Thoughts and Beliefs

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.Paul Tillich

15. Be Resilient

Resilience is your ability to rebound from setbacks and negative life events. All of us have an innate sense of resilience to draw from, but research shows that having a complex, dynamic view of yourself and thinking in the “abstract” about general goals increases your resilience, no matter your disposition. You can also improve your resilience by making plans, connecting with others, practicing new skills, and accepting life change. Having confidence that you’ll recover from life’s curve-balls is a great skill to cultivate. It makes you adaptable and ready to tackle tough challenges.

16. Use Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are little phrases you tell yourself when your self-confidence is in the pits. The things you say to yourself before, during, and after setting or achieving goals have enormous influence over your perception of self-worth. And a strong sense of self-worth means a strong sense of confidence. Follow this link to make your own list of positive affirmations.

17. Know Your Values

Values define what is most meaningful in your life. You have to stand for something to grow conviction, and be willing to share and defend your point of view with others. When you know who you are and what you believe in, your self-confidence is more personal and is less likely to be corrupted by outside voices of doubt.

18. Know What You Can/Cannot Control

When you blame yourself for circumstances and outcomes beyond your control, you kill self-confidence. Learn that there will always be things outside your control, and no amount of personal preparation or confidence can change them. On the flip side, be sure to know what you are responsible for so that the judgement calls and decisions within your control feed your self-confidence.

19. Don’t Be Overconfident

Too much confidence is an unhealthy thing. You feel overconfident when you lack an accurate measure of your own abilities, limits, and skills to get things done. One sign you’ve succumbed to overconfidence is when you “pass the buck” to other people. Another is never admitting you are in the wrong. Eventually, your self-confidence will take a tremendous beating if you always put yourself in situations that are beyond your grasp. True confidence practices what it preaches. Cultivate friendships where each of you are honest with each other.

20. Know Your Negativity Bias

Human beings are prone to focus on negative aspects of situations above positive aspects. This was and remains integral to our survival. Unfortunately, focusing on the negative, no matter how inconsequential, adds up. Self-confidence needs positivism to grow, so put positive spins on situations whenever you can. All situations are neutral before you react to them—why not see the bright side, no matter how small? Tips to do this are revealed in the distortions section of the guide.

21. Avoid Fixed Mindsets

Self-confidence requires failure to grow.

People with fixed mindsets believe their intelligence and level of motivation are permanent things that can’t be altered. For instance, believing you were terrible at math, are terrible at math, and just don’t have the mind for it. This is untrue. Thinking like this causes you to avoid situations where failure is likely and to feel pressured to continually prove yourself. Self-confidence requires failure to grow. You can’t hide behind perceived personal barriers and doubt and expect to gain any confidence. Believe you have the power to change yourself!

22. Pursue Growth Mindsets

A growth mindset refers to how you believe your qualities to be malleable and capable of change. You don’t think of failures as personal reflections of your own permanent inadequacies. Instead, every failure is a launch pad for further development. Self-confidence doesn’t develop in a vacuum of self-blame and disappointment. Know that you can and do grow, that you can change core parts of yourself, and that your confidence is a skill like any other.

23. Know That Happiness and Purpose are Different

Research shows us that being happy and feeling you have a purpose are not always bedfellows. You can live with purpose but not be constantly happy, and you also don’t need to have a purpose to find happiness. For self-confidence builders, this means you are unbound to always be happy or have purpose to feel good about yourself. Be flexible when it comes to short-term and long-term contentment. Your self-confidence is as flexible as your outlook on these concepts.

24. Mental Rehearsal

Self-confidence is practiced. It takes dedication and practice to grow a sense of it within yourself. Practicing what you will say or how you will behave in a situation gives you a safe mental space to take risks and avoid the eyes and ears of the crowd. Remind yourself where self-confidence comes from (inside conviction, not outside opinion) and rehearse social encounters in private—your thoughts and opinions matter the most!

25. Be Intrinsically Motivated

Self-confidence is born from within. That’s why it’s important to motivate yourself to change in ways that help you personally, not ways that affect others. Intrinsic motivation means doing things to help yourself, not conforming to the expectations of the outside world. As you will soon learn, you can be intrinsically motivated and help other people to boost your self-worth.

26. Leverage Extrinsic Motivation

If you’re overly concerned with the opinions of others, you erase the great pleasure of doing things for yourself. Extrinsic motivation has its place in life (how many people would turn up to their current job without the extrinsic reward of money?) but it’s intrinsic motivation that sustains long-term change. Relying on your own personal goals, and not the fickle goals of others, helps you feel more self-secure and confident in your abilities and desires.

Intrinsic motivation—doing things for the sake of loving them—is the preferred choice for self-confidence. But there is also a place for extrinsic motivators. Once you set major intrinsic goals and processes into motion, there’s nothing wrong with rewarding yourself with an extrinsic gift. Take yourself to a movie or go out to that new restaurant. Make your self-confidence experience internally guided and (occasionally) externally validated.

27. Focus on Accomplishments/Write an Achievement Log

The concern I have in writing such a large guide on confidence is the idea you need them all to be confident. Perfection is not confidence. One of the best things you can do for yourself in building a strong self-confidence is to set a number of small, incremental goals on the way to a larger goal. Your sense of progression and competence will thank you for taking little steps, and you’ll be less likely to give up because you know a large goal can’t happen all at once. Make your goals personal and realistic, and leave a record of your daily strides.

28. Invest In Your Self-Image

This term (with self-esteem and self-worth that follow this tip) is confused with self-confidence, and is also integral to it. Your self-image is how you see yourself emotionally, physically, and mentally. How you think of yourself across these dimensions determines how you feel about your strengths and values, as well as your overall personality. The better your self-image, the better your sense of well-being, and the more confident you will think, feel, and behave.

29. Enhance Your Self-Esteem

If self-image is how you look at yourself on different levels, self-esteem is to what degree you believe those qualities to be good. For example, you may consider yourself an excellent tennis player (positive self-image), but feel that you really don’t have what it takes to be better than average (low self-esteem). Think of self-esteem as how far your opinions of yourself reflect reality. Know that your qualities are likely degrees better than how you negatively evaluate them to be. That alone is a confidence booster. See Nathanial Branden’s solid work The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.

30. Improve Your Self-Worth

You have a strong sense of self-worth when you feel you are a worthwhile human being. Think of your self-worth as the overall grade you’d give yourself as a complete package, self-confidence included. Increase your feelings of worth by learning to forgive yourself, trusting your opinions and instincts, improving your self-talk (and acting on your affirmations), and budgeting your time between personal activities and activities with others. We are created equal in God’s eyes.

31. Think Long-Term/Globally

This one may seem like a contradiction to setting small goals. Really, it’s just a personal reminder that the daily trenches of your self-confidence program will be worth something bigger in the future than the sum of their parts today. Holding a tangible, realistic end game in mind lets you know that every small step you’ve taken, and will continue to take, is in service to a much bigger design. I encourage you to think big. Think of a future you want to be involved in that makes you uncomfortable to think how much work it’ll take to get there.

32. Expect Success/Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Only you can define what success and failure mean; other people must fend for themselves. It’s a good idea to expect that you will succeed at what you set out to do. The more you believe and repeat to yourself a thing can come true, the more you prime yourself to act in ways that make that goal likely to come about. Confident people can’t control the future, but they do set themselves up for success, starting with believing success is an option within reach.

33. Silence Negative Self-Talk

You would be appalled to speak to others the way you speak to yourself. Whenever you call yourself stupid, incompetent, lazy, ugly, or unworthy, you’re doing more than just putting yourself down. Negative self-talk defines how you think about yourself and your place in the world. Every negative evaluation cements neural pathways in your brain that activate negative thoughts faster in the future. At any time, you can reverse these automatic trains of thought, compliment yourself, and give your self-confidence a clear runway for takeoff.

34. Think of Possible Solutions

People who lack self-confidence ruminate about things they’ve done wrong. They may feel that nothing they do will alter their situation and only imagine how things can get worse. Self-confidence demands options to operate. It takes just as much time and effort to think of solutions to a problem as it does roads to failure. Be upbeat, optimistic, and find solutions.

35. Accept All Parts of Yourself

Everybody has good qualities and bad qualities, a Swan Side and an Ugly Duckling side. The sooner you make peace with your strengths and faults, the sooner your self-confidence will have a baseline from which to improve. Accept your imperfections as a consequence of being alive, not as some reflection of your worth or confidence. You are capable enough as you are, flaws and all, and are certainly worthy of change. This is revealed in-depth in Big Talk.

36. Admit Your Mistakes

An unhealthy habit is to never admit your mistakes. For starters, this tactic reinforces the idea that you are perfect or incapable of taking the blame for situations that really are your fault. It also projects you as pompous or arrogant to your peers. Admit when you are at fault, and have the perseverance and confidence to get better in the future.

15 Common Cognitive Distortions to Reframe

It’s not my responsibility to be beautiful. I’m not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.Warsan Shire

Cognitive distortions are inaccurate modes of thinking that put you on a biased, negative track. We all fall victim to them, so as a confidence builder, it’s your job to spot your own cognitive distortions and challenge them with the truth of things. Here are 15 common distortions to look out for during your pursuit of greater self-confidence:

37. Filtering

You cognitive filter when you strip away any positive qualities of an experience and dwell on the negative. This is related to your negativity bias, except here you obsess and pick apart even the smallest negative details. No self-confidence ever came from putting a microscope to minute negative things. These experiences give you lessons for later use in life. Embrace the whole.

38. Overgeneralization

This cognitive distortion turns molehills into mountains. You overgeneralize when you take a specific example from a specific situation (saying something rude at a party) and use it to draw blanket statements about your self-worth and abilities (I’m always a rude person). Differentiating the general from the specific will save you lots of heartache, undue blame, and preserve your self-respect.

39. Catastrophizing

This is a favorite cognitive distortion of people with anxiety and low self-esteem. You snowball negative things in your mind to epic proportions. For example, if you’re running late for work, you may think you’ll get on your boss’ bad side, that she has always had it in for you, and that you’ll be fired within the week. Know that just because you can think it, doesn’t make it realistic.

40. Control Fallacies

These kinds of cognitive distortions are cousins to your internal or external locus of control. If you feel you must have complete control over situations and outcomes, your self-esteem will never live up to this “perfect world.” And thinking that everything is beyond your control gives you no chance to gain experience or mastery. You can’t boost your self-confidence without practice, and you practice because failure is part of life. Constantly look to differentiate what you can and cannot control. Repeat to yourself, “I’m not always in control, and that’s okay.”

41. Blaming

Blame weasels its way into everyone’s life at some point. It deprives you of self-awareness and introspection, which are strong ingredients for a self-confident existence. A person with true self-confidence, however, doesn’t have the need to blame others. They know that no one “makes” them feel or think a certain way. How you react to situations and interpret them is all up to you.

42. Emotional Reasoning

Our feelings are the product of our thinking, reasoning, and sensory experience, all of which are imperfect systems. You can make yourself feel great though emotions are unreliable for confidence. Just because you feel lazy or stupid does not make it true. Emotions are useful and give color to our lives, but they are also very poor mirrors to hold up against reality. Don’t put all your self-confidence chips on how you feel; seek other evidence. Feeling good is not a condition of living good.

43. Global Labeling

Global labeling is the extreme version of generalizing. When you refuse to interpret your actions or the actions of others in context, and instead apply a label to them, you’ve surrendered your critical thinking skills over to emotional thinking and self-defeating understanding. Don’t label yourself a “bad person” just because you once forgot to call a friend back, and practice giving other people the benefit of the doubt.

44. Heaven’s Reward Fallacy

The universe nor Christ does not keep a score card for your life. Make your own rewards in life through confidence-building techniques. If you’re the kind of person who sacrifices happiness or self-confidence for other things, you’re delaying a reward that will never come. Don’t expect your negative or positive behaviors to be “adding up” for some big future treasure. Christ gave you his grace and you have nothing to earn it but to accept it.

45. Discounting the Positive

When you do something well—for instance, catch yourself in a common cognitive distortion—and still tell yourself that this somehow “doesn’t count,” you only hurt yourself. Self-confidence demands a proper acknowledgement of your small victories. Your master plan for greater confidence embodies your small victories.

46. Fallacy of Change

Do you feel that if you can just “get through” to someone, just bully or drill your beliefs into their heads, that they’ll change for you? This is a sign that you rest too much of your confidence and happiness on the opinions and actions of other people. Self-confidence comes from within, not from forcing the world to conform to your point of view. Let others think what they will and focus on changing yourself.

47. Using “Shoulds”

You’re not the root cause of how other people behave or how life events unfold.

Whenever you tell yourself you “should” do something or “ought” to finish something else, you prime yourself to feel dissatisfaction and guilt. It may feel like these kinds of statements motivate you to take beneficial action, but really you’re superimposing arbitrary rules and deadlines on yourself. Don’t treat your self-confidence development as some strict code of ethics that you can’t break. It is a process of experimentation and change.

48. Fallacy of Fairness

Everyone has a different idea of what “fair” means. Yours will never perfectly match someone else’s, and vice-versa. Furthermore, fairness and self-confidence are not the same thing; something can feel unfair to you, but still present an opportunity for growth and self-worth. Start putting your self-esteem to work.

49. Personalization

People who use this cognitive distortion feel that everything around them—from how people react to external events—is somehow related to how they think and behave. Instead of forging all control, they take on too much responsibility. You’re not the root cause of how other people behave or how life events unfold. Refocus and narrow your responsibility.

50. Jumping to Conclusions

No matter how confident you are that you or someone else will do this or say that, your confidence needs evidence to back it up. When you jump to conclusions, you write the future in stone before it happens, blame yourself for mistakes you haven’t made, and are so convinced something negative is in store you don’t bother to ask yourself if it’s even possible. You aren’t a time traveler; you don’t know what will happen. That’s where self-confidence comes in.

51. Polarized (Black and White) Thinking

We like to think in opposites—good and evil, right and wrong—but this thinking when narrowed to a specific moment makes it hard to see the progression of your bigger picture. When you put yourself on line between two options without any gray area between, you’re prone to label yourself as a total success or colossal failure. Self-confidence depends on sifting through the gray areas to work on particular parts of your thinking and behavior. Save the binaries for English class.

Feelings

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.Eleanor Roosevelt

52. De-Stress

Strained minds are pessimistic things that rob you of any agency to change yourself for the better. When your mind is calm and relaxed, it’s less prone to fall for the debilitating negative thoughts, distortions, and biases that throw its positive aspects off track. Take time every day to de-stress yourself, emotionally and physically. Give your self-confidence the platform of positivity it needs to fully mature.

53. Enforce Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy is psychologist Alfred Bandura’s theory that the things you say to and about yourself affect your ability to plan and follow through with action. His idea has been proven many times over. If you change how you believe you can approach challenges and goals, you fundamentally alter how you will approach thinking and behaving toward that goal. Positive begets positive, negative begets negative. There are four parts to improving self-efficacy, and they all affect self-confidence. Let’s take a closer look:

54. Self-Efficacy Part 1: Mastery Experiences

Bandura emphasized that mastery experiences are the primary way to improve self-efficacy. Essentially, you have to complete a task again and again, no matter how small. Once you master a task (changing your self-image, for instance), you alter how you approach that problem and other problems of different scale and difficulty.

55. Self-Efficacy Part 2: Vicarious Learning/Social Modelling

Our common humanity is a great blessing for the confidence builder. Watching other people of your skill level and desire to improve complete their own tasks instills a confidence inside of you. Their success motivates you to pursue your own. You vicariously feel that their achievement is and can be yours with just a little more effort.

56. Self-Efficacy Part 3: Verbal Persuasion

To truly believe that you have the power to direct yourself toward goals in life, you need positive feedback. Coaches, parents, and peers all help our self-confidence and self-efficacy by encouraging us. You need to know that others believe that you are competent enough to reach your goals. Self-talk, or telling yourself in the third-person that you have what it takes, is a way anyone can boost self-efficacy, especially if they don’t get positive encouragement elsewhere.

57. Self-Efficacy Part 4: Emotional Arousal

Self-efficacy isn’t a perpetual motion machine. It feeds off your active engagement and energy—your arousal and activities—in order to fully develop. Keep your mind aimed at self-efficacy improvement by making your program as personal and uniquely yours as possible. Keep physically engaged by visiting different settings to try out your growing set of confidence skills. The more time you spend thinking about your self-efficacy and putting those thoughts into meaningful action, the more stimulated you become to invite real change into your life. Revisiting this article can provoke the arousal you need to step closer to confidence. Bookmark this page in your browser.

58. Get Excited, Not Stressed

Stress is a natural and positive reaction. It motivates us to take action and be creative in short bursts. Long-term stress, however, makes concentration and planning difficult. Research shows that thinking about stress as “necessary” or “unnecessary” instead of “good” or “bad” reduces many of its physiological symptoms. Psychologists have another name for the positive, exciting kind of stress—eustress—which you experience doing things you really enjoy. This one-two punch of redefining stress and seeking as many eustress situations for yourself as possible helps you avoid chronic debilitating stress; less stress, more confidence.

59. The Illusion of Transparency

Ever get the feeling that the people around you can read your thoughts? Then you’ve experienced the Illusion of Transparency bias. The good news? It isn’t true, and most people have a hard time guessing what other people think. It can be hard to remember this “in the moment,” so try to focus all of your attention and energy on what the other person has to say. This will get you out of your own head, show that you’re an active listener, and redirect your energy in a positive, outward direction. I have a habit of under-communicating in conversations so reminding myself of this cognitive distortion also improves my communication.

60. Be Self-Compassionate

Compassionate people know that other people are flawed, deserve dignity and respect, and need gentle encouragement during life’s hard times. Self-compassion means taking these ideas and applying them to your own life. You are often your own judge, jury, and executioner. Take a large step back and be confident that you deserve the same degree of kindness and understanding that you provide for other people.

61. Intentional Optimism

Being optimistic doesn’t mean that you’re naïve, deluded, or see the world through rose-colored glasses. It’s about rationally knowing when you have the necessary skills to come out on top. For example, if you’ve never skied before, it would be irrationally optimistic to think that you will succeed on your first slope run. If you start practicing and buy some decent equipment, however, you’ll have a better set of tools to use, and more reason to be optimistic in your abilities. “Taking stock” of what experience you still need to be successful helps you reach a realistic perch of self-confidence and avoid the burnout of overextending your abilities. Read Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism.

Behaviors

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.Hebrews 4:16

62. Risk The Risk

When you take risks, you prove to yourself that you have enough confidence to try something new, even at the cost of failure. Taking small, everyday risks (going out to a new restaurant) can be enough to shake you out of complacency or the fearful inertia of messing up. Risk and danger are separate things. Healthy risks don’t endanger your long-term health and happiness. If the only major negative outcome of taking a risk is temporary embarrassment or everyday failure, you know you’re choosing the right risks to improve your self-confidence.

63. Slow Down

Trying to do too much at once or expecting immediate improvement from new routines is a surefire way to stress yourself out. Successful people realize that decisions demand deep thought and nuanced consideration. Apply the same principal to your self-confidence program. Is a certain new behavior not working for you? Press pause and consider why that is. Is something else working well? Figure out the underlying strength before you stretch it beyond its limits.

64. Exercise

Self-image shares a strong link with self-confidence. If you’re on the hunt for greater confidence, working on your body image is a great place to start. Exercise increases discipline and production of the happiness chemical dopamine, and a happy mind is a confident mind. Even modest amounts of exercise boosts your self-confidence more than in people who exercise like Rocky Balboa. Give frequent, low-intensity workouts a try for a better, more confident body image. I highly recommend gymnastic body-weight training.

65. Prepare

Risk and danger are separate things.

A plan reduces overwhelming thoughts. When laden with a messy mind, I write down anything that comes to mind. For tasks you need accomplished, this is a great way to cut stress and boost your confidence that you can handle what needs doing by seeing everything on paper. If you’re the kind of person used to “winging it,” know that following through with plans gives your confidence a serious leg up. Taking the effort to prepare cuts down on the time you spend worrying or fearing the outcome of unprepared activities. Plans let you focus on what matters: devoting more time to your confidence-building program.

66. Set and Achieve Small Goals

Give your self-confidence the support it needs to flourish by setting small goals. Don’t let the outside pressures to be confident at all times scare you away from taking gentle steps to see your confidence grow. A great exercise is to make a short and long-term goal list and keep a record of your progress. This kind of catalog will give you confidence in what you’ve already accomplished and will remind you not to take on unrealistic goals.

67. Practice Mindfulness Exercises

Mindfulness is both a practice and a mental state of noticing your inner-feelings and reactions, as well as the immediate state of things around you. To be mindful is to pretend the past and future don’t exist—only this moment matters. Psychologists have found significant benefits to mood, memory, and stress levels in people who stick with mindfulness meditation programs. A mindful state redirects your focus where it belongs—on your present strengths and goals.

68. Deep Breathing

Deep breathing techniques activate your body’s parasympathetic responses—your muscles relax and your heart rate quiets down. Armed forces are trained to breathe tactically during combat scenarios, and you can follow their lead. Take in a breath through your nose and expand your belly for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 4 seconds, exhale completely in 4 seconds, and sit with an “empty breath” for 4 more seconds. Repeat between 3 to 5 times to re-center yourself. Schedule brief periods throughout the day for deep breathe work.

69. Visualization

The next time you feel like a sinking ship in a sea of self-blame and doubt, refresh your mental palate and visualize a calm scene. Mental imagery is a great supplement to the other more methodical ideas on this list. Even better, visualizing who you’d like to be or how confident you’d like to behave in the future gives you a target to shoot for when nothing else is working.

70. Do What You Enjoy

Doing what you love connects you to like-minded people who help keep you motivated and goal-directed. And when you find your niche, you give yourself plenty of positive self-confidence fuel in ways “day in, day out” activities can’t hold a candle to. Pick up an old hobby or develop a new passion today. One hobby I started that has been really fun is mountain bike riding. I find myself with a little boost of confidence knowing that I will enjoy a ride on the weekend no matter how bad work goes over the week.

71. Don’t Hide Your Interests

In a similar vein, hiding who you are and what you enjoy siphons passion out of your life. Don’t give in to the social pressures around you or try to conform and repress the things you love for fear of being singled out. Passion gives you direction, and expressing your passions provides endless chances to practice self-confidence techniques. Live that passion and share it in conversation with others.

72. Get Creative

Even though creativity feels spontaneous, it actually activates the same self-confidence muscles setting and achieving other personal goals does. Any creative act—playing music, painting a picture, baking a cake, learning to surf—teaches discipline and exposes you to manageable failures. Self-confidence needs practice and structure to exist. Think of a skill you’ve always wanted to learn, and pursue it using all of the self-confidence tips you’ve learned so far.

73. Assert Yourself

Assertive people communicate their needs and grievances in straightforward ways that respect themselves and their audience. If you feel someone treats you unfairly, set aside time to speak with them one-on-one. Tell them how you feel using “I” statements, not “You” statements. Assertive communication isn’t about passing blame or lording over someone else. It’s about telling the other person that your feelings and needs are just as important as their own, and “I” statements put confidence in your hands.

74. Aim to Reframe

When you reframe negative situations, you put a positive and self-bolstering spin on them. The more ways you can reverse negative patterns of thought, the better chance your confidence has to breathe. Monitoring your thoughts through free-writing, deliberately changing your self-talk to the affirmative, and interrupting less-than-positive ideas with silver lining thinking repackages stressful events as challenges you can take on. Positive thinking leads to positive emotions and far more confident behavior. Mind-Lines is a remarkable (and complex) book that teaches you the methods to frame your thinking in an empowering manner.

75. Pull the Plug on Procrastination

Despite what you’ve heard, procrastination is not a sign of laziness, but a complex defense mechanism you use to avoid experiencing failure. Procrastination convinces you that crises are averted, but in doing so, robs you of the self-confidence needed to believe that you are strong enough to take on what life doles out. Whenever you catch yourself procrastinating, abstain from incompetent or underprepared self-labels. Have self-compassion and realize you are only trying to protect yourself. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

76. Redefine Perfectionism

If you’re a positive perfectionist, you use conscientiousness to motivate yourself to achieve more. If you’re a negative perfectionist, your self-confidence suffers because you set unrealistic expectations for yourself. Take the brave step: see the many faces of your perfectionism. If your steps toward perfection cause you more stress than inspiration, choose a different path.

77. Ignore Imposter Syndrome

If you feel like a fraud in life, you’re a candidate for Imposter Syndrome. This frame of mind convinces you that nothing you do or receive is the result of your efforts or inner strengths. And if you can’t internalize your accomplishments, self-confidence will melt like a snowflake. Counteract these thoughts by laying out the facts: both internal and external events shape your opportunities and success. Mindfulness shared earlier is also helpful. You deserve many of the good things that come your way!

78. Take The Hit, Don’t Self-Handicap

A self-handicap is any behavior that lets you dodge negative feedback and criticism. Self-handicaps put the blame on your “condition” that you self-impose on yourself (bad deadlines, drinking before a test) instead of having you rectify your behavior. Do your confidence a favor and don’t make excuses; take the criticism and bolster your sense of endurance.

79. Be Grateful

When you show gratitude, you increase your emotional resilience to negative life events. This brand of resilience has many benefits that indirectly affect your self-confidence for the better. You’ll find yourself able to relax more and feel it’s easier to set and achieve meaningful goals. An easy way to practice gratitude is to remind yourself of truly bad times in your life. This will give you a renewed sense of context and reinforces how far your self-confidence has come.

80. Keep a Gratitude Journal

I like to start each day by writing down three unique things I’m grateful for. It challenges me to identify simple things and accomplishments easy to overlook.

Every day, set aside time to write down things you’re grateful for. I like to start each day by writing down three unique things I’m grateful for. It challenges me to identify simple things and accomplishments easy to overlook. Anything from the weather to marriage proposals are fair game. One I wrote this morning is the flavorful sausages like plum and chilli sausages that I get to cook from a butcher.

Gratitude training gets you appreciating the many good things in life. Keep a record of things, day in and day out because there will be times in the future when your self-confidence is in shambles. With a gratefulness journal filled to the margins, you won’t have to look far to re-motivate yourself.

81. Ask 3 Questions

When feeling drained of confidence, ask yourself: “What have I received from_____? What have I given to ______? What troubles and difficulties have I caused_____?” The first two questions remind you that you are inherently a grateful being. They remind you not to take what others do for you, and what you do for others, for granted. The last one asks you to introspect and open yourself to receive the truth about your recent actions. It’s hard to admit that your own behavior can cause others inconvenience and pain, but self-confidence requires responsibility for things you can control.

82. Set “Approach Goals”

Psychologists recognize two basic kinds of goals. Approach goals are by far the best to make on a routine basis. An approach goal is any goal you can use in the form of “I will do X to get Y.” These goals give you clear direction, internal motivation, and checkpoints for success, three things self-confidence thrives on. Just about every goal can be framed as an approach goal. An example, going to the gym to “feel good” instead of “to avoid heart disease”.

83. Don’t Set “Avoidance Goals”

The other type of goal is the avoidance goal. These are goals you set in the form of “I will not do such-and-such.” These kinds of goals are the “easy out” options to make. Saying that you won’t screw up your final exam feels like motivation, but it really puts stress on your mind and sets you up to make value judgements on your abilities. Between the two options, work hard to spin avoidance goals on their heads: only approach goals have a laundry list of self-confidence benefits attached to them.

84. Use Albert Ellis’s ABC Model

The famous psychologist’s theory states that how you think about situations dictates how you react to them. Because you want to think about situations in ways conducive to self-confidence, follow his ABC model of situational appraisal. Know what the Activating Event is, recognize what your Belief about the situation is (positive, negative, neutral), and face the Consequence of how you feel about your belief. For example, a job interview (Activating Event) may make you believe you will botch it up (Belief) based on the feeling that you are scared of failure (Consequence). You are free to change to your Beliefs in these situations, because the emotional Consequence you feel has yet to happen.

85. Practice Public Speaking

Public speaking does wonders for your self-confidence. Why? It provides you the perfect situation to try out many self-confidence building tips. All of the strongest confidence-building tips are represented in the single act of practicing and delivering a speech. It becomes a mastery experience, filled with chances to use your voice and body language, that you can approach with a growth mindset. Toastmasters provide a good start especially if you are afraid of speaking in public.

86. Talk to Strangers

You can also always practice self-confidence skills, body language, and creative expression with strangers anytime you want. Strike up conversations and small talk during your everyday chores and routines. Build up to more self-confident exercises likes asking someone on a date or delivering a speech, and practice your fundamentals with people who you have very little stake with. Use my list of 101 conversation starters to get ahead of brain freezes.

87. Practice Making Phone Calls

Do phone conversations sap you of confidence? I remember a time when I refused to eat pizza one night because I was too afraid to talk over the phone. Practice phone conversations with no stakes. Cold call businesses in your neighborhood to ask them very simple questions. “What time do you close? Do you have this book?”

88. Respond, Don’t React

Self-confidence is a strange mix of preparation and risk-taking. No matter which approach you find personally helps more, always take the time before and after a decision to respond to how you think and feel about yourself. Don’t take your initial reactions of failure for the truth. Your mind has many tricks up its sleeve to convince you of your incompetence. Evaluate yourself honestly and you’ll see your confidence reflected clearly.

89. Fake It Till You Become It

Studies in body language and communication show that speaking and posing in a confident manner makes you more likely to feel confident and continue behaving confidently. Even minimal, consistent “faking” behavior can have a cumulative effect. Self-talk that feels fake has limits when it is not coupled with behavioral change. Start believing yourself to be confident, speak and behave as if you are, and the reality will soon follow.

90. List Your Positive Traits

Whether you’re taking your first steps on the path toward self-confidence or you’re a seasoned pro, reminding yourself of your positive qualities is an instant stress and fear killer. If you’re shy about your own strengths, write out your traits as if you were listing the traits of a great friend or role-model. The act of writing brings unconscious thoughts into clear relief.

91. Don’t Over-Apologize

Many people with self-confidence issues apologize. They apologize for the things they do and the things they don’t do. Go to another extreme and don’t apologize for a single thing all week to experience the other spectrum and expand your repertoire of behavior. Self-doubt’s favorite food is someone who takes no stance for themselves, who is defenseless and feels awful. Apologize once when you are in the wrong, don’t give it a long leash, and move on.

92. Give Compliments

Do you remember the last time someone complimented your looks or behavior? Remember that feeling of being on top? Self-confidence relies on your self-image to function. If you’re feeling down about yourself, compliment someone else’s looks or behaviors. Making someone else feel confident will inspire your own confidence to compliment more, and they may also compliment you in return. Win-win.

93. Take Compliments Well

There are infinite ways to botch someone’s compliment. The best way is to belittle yourself or to correct the person who complimented you. You can also go on and on about the deep ways their compliment is inaccurate. But you are a confidence builder! You won’t fall into this cycle of self-defeat. Instead, you’ll genuinely thank them, compliment them back, and avoid drawing attention to details outside their immediate observation.

Social Context

It’s surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you’re not comfortable within yourself, you can’t be comfortable with others.Sidney J. Harris

94. Find Your Confidence Idol

We’ve already recommended modelling someone who’s at your same confidence level. It can also help to have an ideal person in mind. Think of a person in your life or a personal hero who embodies exactly the kind of confidence you’d like to have one day. Read about them or study their work. When your own confidence lags from time to time, they’re the paragons you can look to for advice.

95. Keep a Great Support Network

We’ve said over and over that self-confidence is an internal state. But that doesn’t mean you should neglect the family, friends, and mentors in your life who can give you positive feedback and unconditional regard. The self-confidence road can be lonely at times, so connect with others who are striving for a similar goal as yours. Ask your social network to help keep you accountable on your journey toward self-confidence.

96. Volunteer

Helping others is one of the greatest, yet obscure ways to build confidence. If you’re to build yourself up, aren’t you suppose to just focus on yourself? Volunteering does several things for your self-confidence. First, it connects you with other people in ways you normally wouldn’t connect in everyday life. This means you can focus on new mastery goals and self-confidence tips. And having a sense of purpose and community helps put your personal efforts into a greater context. You get to see the fruits of your labor positively affect the lives of other people.

97. Limit Negative Social Comparisons

You compare yourself to other people, both physically and cognitively because you’re human. Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research shows that unhappy individuals are sensitive to social comparison. If you already lack self-confidence, social comparisons increase feelings of guilt, stress, envy, and defensiveness. It’s best to focus on your own personal progress and achievements as you start your self-confidence adventure. I call this a “self-to-self comparison”.

98. Break Up With People Who Bring You Down

Nobody likes a killjoy. If someone in your life, family or friend, treats your efforts to better yourself as anything but a good thing, you don’t need to stomach their criticism and negativity. Confronting negative feedback is part of self-confidence. You must also draw the line with people who have no support for you in the slightest. Keeping contact with them will poison your progress. Be confident enough to erase their influence from your life by breaking up the relationship.

99. Follow God’s Word

Complete courage was void in my life despite following a lot of the tips above. That is until 2016, when I accepted Christ then followed his Word. He is the “meta” source of courage that surpasses fear, anxiety, worry, life, and death. When I choose to follow his Word, I know He is beside me.

⁶ Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” ⁷Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. ⁸The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.Deuteronomy 31:6-8

I ended a long-term relationship when I accepted Christ because He was not first in my life by being in the relationship. Praying for courage while in pain, I flipped open the Bible and was taken straight to the story of King Asa where the Lord re-affirms his supply of courage when His word is followed. You have nothing to fear when your footsteps travel along the path Christ has before you. With this as the foundation, I use as much as I can in this guide to build confidence. These gifts and abilities have been given to us.

100. Encourage Other People

Once you get into a self-confidence groove, help others who are in the position you found yourself recently. Pass on your knowledge and expertise to someone else who wants to improve their self-confidence, befriend them, and at the same time keep the fundamentals fresh in your own mind. I learned a lot writing this guide for you. Teaching anything is a sure sign that you’ve learned it, so share your self-confidence wealth with other confidence-building travelers.

For everything you need to develop people skills for a great life, especially if you’re shy, I suggest you get my Big Talk course.

How do you feel? Probably crushed. Anger and confusion pulse through you. You wonder what the person who got the job has that you don’t – perhaps they interviewed better than you, they had more experience, or perhaps you did something horribly wrong. You might respond with venom. “I never really wanted that job, anyway.” Or you mind find yourself feeling depressed and de-motivated…if you can’t even get a job you pour your heart into, what hope is there for your future?

Change the scenario to dating or sales and the same pain plays out. Rejection is painful in its many forms. A romantic partner has probably left you, or you didn’t get a job. Less obvious situations can trigger feelings of rejection; a friend cancelling on your dinner date at the last minute, a store clerk who doesn’t return your smile, the party you weren’t invited to. Rejection can sting.

Rejection is About Shame

John Bradshaw in his book Healing the Shame That Binds You, argues that we all carry around the idea that we are inherently flawed and inferior. He calls it a sense of shame. The shame can perpetuate by retaining a burden of sin in religion and the media giving us ideals that are almost impossible to live up to. Rejection stabs at our core, because we are social beings, and by our nature we obsess with what people think about us.

You learned about the world around you by asking other people when you were a child. If your teacher pointed to a new object and told you it was rhinoceros, then that’s what it was. Our knowledge about ourselves mostly comes from other people. We “learn” we are great or inferior based on how others treat us. Rejection tells us what we fear on the inside: we are flawed, defective, and unlovable.

Emotions are a form of energy in motion. They signal us of a loss, a threat or a satiation. Sadness is about losing something we cherish. Anger and fear are signal of actual or impending threats to our well-being. Joy signals that we are fulfilled and satisfied. Whenever a child is shamed through some form of abandonment, feelings of anger, hurt and sadness arise. Since shame-based parents are shame bound in all their emotions, they cannot tolerate their children’s emotions. Therefore, they shame their children’s emotions. When their emotions are shamed, children numb out, so they don’t feel their emotions.John Bradshaw

Rejection is inevitable. It is impossible to always get exactly what you want, for everybody to behave exactly as you want them to. What can you do to stop yourself from spiraling into a pit of despair every time a potential lover turns you down or a new job prospect chooses another client over you?

Did you know that J. K. Rowling had her Harry Potter books rejected by twelve publishers before they hit the big-time? 302 companies allegedly turned down Walt Disney for funding before getting it for Disney World. Over a thousand restaurant owners rejected Colonel Sanders’ fried chicken recipe.

How different would things be if these people stopped at the first hurdle, and let rejection stop them from trying again? Their experiences show that it is not about what happens to you, but about how you respond to rejection.

There are practical steps you can take for improvement to decrease your chances of being rejected such as taking care of your appearance, learning interview or flirting skills, and building a good résumé. The most powerful tool for handling rejection is your mind. By changing the way you look at rejection, you free yourself from the pain it usually brings.

Here are the powerful ways to handle rejection:

See the Experience as a Learning Opportunity

You poured your heart and soul into that relationship, and broke up. The easy solution is to feel sorry for yourself, to wonder why you just can’t keep a great relationship, or to feel angry that the ex couldn’t see what a great asset you’d be.

See it as an opportunity to learn something instead of viewing the rejection as a negative event. You’re on the right track when you replay moments of conflict and wonder what you did wrong. Keep it realistic. Think about what you could have done better instead of thinking of what “messed things up”.

For a job interview, ask the interviewer what advice they can give you for the future. Some companies are busy and don’t have the time to answer such queries. You might receive useful feedback about what would have helped your interview.

Imagine a world that never rejected you. What would you learn about yourself?

Imagine a world that never rejected you. What would you learn about yourself? Not much! Go into a situation ready to do your best with an openness to learn instead of letting your ego take a massive blow every time you hear a “no”.

This reframe is effective. Think of it as trial and error toward your formula for success rather than “I’m putting myself out there”. If you don’t get the job, look at what you can do better next time. If you do get the job, note down what helped you. I encourage you to learn more about NLP presuppositions and get Mind-Lines for a healthy perspective on anything.

Differentiate between rejections you had control over, and rejection that was inevitable. If you propose to a married woman on your first date or ask for a job at a firm that isn’t hiring, then the rejection is a result of circumstance, not your approach. For those things you can control, think about what you can learn from this rejection, and don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way.

Get Over Perfectionism

When perfectionism is driving…Shame is always riding shotgun.Brene’ Brown, author of Rising Strong

If you’re the kind of person who spends hours getting things “just right”, it can be really hard to accept negative feedback. Imagine you’ve spend hours getting ready to go out, only to be rejected by every woman at the bar.

What’s going on? Surely you look amazing…the problem must be theirs. You tell yourself these women must all be blind, or frigid, if they can’t see how amazing you are. This kind of thinking can lead you to ignore rejection and focus on bitter, angry thoughts toward the people who rejected you.

Be careful of thoughts like “They should recognize how great a catch I am” or “It’s their fault they can’t see what I great lover I’d make”. This takes away your power to do something, and leaves the judgement in the hands of others. Nobody is perfect, and you are no exception.

Once you let go of the idea of perfection, you can start to accept criticism and rejection a little more. Rather than every woman in the bar being blind to your awesomeness, consider that you might need to re-evaluate the way you approach them.

Good writers know the danger of perfectionism. An effective way to write a book loved by Timothy Ferriss, author of three bestsellers on business and self-optimization, is to deliver sections of a book to various people early on in the process. That way feedback is given early to determine what should be edited. Any big project can be broken into small runs with some aspect of feedback to direct future actions, rather than one big delivery at the end that can setup the project for rejection because no one likes it.

Look Out for Faulty Attributions

We don’t always think clearly when we reel from the pain of rejection. Rejection can lead to illogical thoughts that drag us deeper down into depression and self-pity.

Imagine you have been on two dates with a new girl. You thought things were going well, but she cancels your third date without warning and you don’t hear from her again. Do you immediately think, “Well, she’s probably very busy. Besides, I might have put her off with all that talk about psychology.”

Psychologists found that people who make global, stable, and internal attributions are more likely to be depressed…

Not everybody is this logical. How often have you ended up thinking “I’m so unlovable! Nobody will ever want to be with me because I’m so boring/stupid/ugly. Why do chicks always reject me? I’m so useless. No wonder my friends never want to see me!”

As humans, we naturally seek order from chaos. We try to find patterns in everything, so we look at our rejection to date and imagine the same will happen in the future.

Attribution theory looks at how the way we do this affects our levels of happiness. When you imagine one rejection means nobody will ever want you, ever, you are making an unrealistic attribution. You assume one time = always; this is known as stable attribution.

What’s worse, you decide you must possess a rainbow of negative qualities that caused the rejection, and it is your own fault (internal attribution). You might start thinking of all the other aspects of your life in which you’ve been rejected (global attribution).

Psychologists found that people who make global, stable, and internal attributions are more likely to be depressed than those who use the opposite attributions. Those who realize the rejection only applies to the current situation (e.g. this one chick), there are factors beyond their own control, and this particular example is only relevant to the dating scene, are much likelier to be happy.

In moments of self-pity, you will only remember experiences that back up your theory of rejection and ignore any experiences of acceptance. This is known as confirmation bias: we selectively recall information that suits us at the time.

When you find yourself thinking like this, ask yourself what evidence you have that the same thing will happen in the future. Look at all the possible reasons you were turned down. Ask yourself whether it is logical to extend rejection in one sphere (dating) to another (friendship or jobs). Recognizing your brain’s thought patterns will help you to change them.

See the Doors Rejection Can Open

Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior).John Bradshaw

The first experience of major rejection can hurt if we fail to feel a reliable source of love. Perhaps your mother refused to hug you, a classmate didn’t let you join in their games, or a teacher gave you a bad grade. You learn that being turned down is bad. From then you likely tout rejection as a negative experience. Rejection is seen as something to avoid and suffer through.

Imagine you are strongly attracted to one of your friends. One day, you tell them how you feel. Your friend is surprised, and kindly says their feelings for you are platonic. You may feel awful. You put your heart on the line then were shot down.

Your friend gets with someone and, and two years later they get married. However, things don’t go as you expected. After only a few months, it seems there’s trouble in paradise – it turns out your friend is very jealous and possessive when in a relationship (a trait you can’t stand).

Soon after, you meet somebody else. They’re everything you ever wanted in a partner. You wonder why you ever felt so torn up after being rejected by your friend, and you realize your life would be very different if they hadn’t rejected you.

Rejection can sometimes be a blessing in disguise. In this scenario, without it you wouldn’t have met your wonderful new partner and you might be trying to handle your friend’s romantic jealousy. While the sting of rejection can feel bad in the short-term, realize in the long-term, it might be much better for you.

Think about the new possibilities that lie ahead of you following rejection. Move on from what has happened with a focus on what you can do now. One door may have closed, but a hundred doors are waiting for you. You are free to approach anybody else when split from a potential lover, as being turned down for a job means a wealth of new doors are waiting for you to knock.

Seek Rejection

When you hear the word “NO”, you may shut down. It can feel like a door slamming in our face. Imagine you are trying to win a new client for your business. After wining and dining them and giving your best sales pitch, they still say no. Exhausted, you feel like giving up.

Motivational speakers Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz argue that we think about the word “no” in the wrong way. Instead of setting goals for how many “yes” answers we receive, they say we should aim for a specific number of “no” responses. Not surprisingly, their website is GoForNo.com.

If you tell yourself you will get three “yes” responses in one week, you will probably stop once you have them. If, instead, you tell yourself you won’t stop until you have received two hundred “no” responses, then two things happen:

1. You increase the chances of hearing a yes.
2. You come to think of “no” as something you want to hear.

Instead of panicking before a potential rejection, you anticipate it, and even feel the same as you would from a “yes”.

Don’t Take it Personally

You’re at a party and don’t know many people. You take a deep breath then approach a group of strangers. They smile and say hello, but you can tell that they don’t want to talk to you. After a few minutes, they make excuses and go their separate ways.

A thousand scenarios play through your head. They’re going to regroup, away from you. They didn’t like you. Perhaps you weren’t charming enough, you left a bad first impression, or your energy in entering the conversation was too below theirs. It might be that your appearance put them off. You talk about it with friends later on and they give you bad advice of “just be yourself“.

Rejection can feel personal. It attacks every part of you. To you, these people were not just walking away from a stranger at a party, but from everything that makes you.

Think about it from the other people’s perspective. Perhaps they didn’t know what to do. They might have been in the middle of a personal discussion, which they didn’t want anyone else to hear. To them, you were a random person they knew nothing about.

When you put your soul into something (like summoning the courage to say hello) and lack the lessons in this article, you can feel your very core is rejected. Again, look at things from the other people’s perspective. A man who turns you down for a date might still be in love with his ex. A company who fails to get back to you might be swamped from identical mail.

It might help to think about the times you have rejected others. Have you accepted every offer of a date or had a long conversation with everyone that approached you? Have you bought something from each salesperson that stopped you on the street?

We reject people all the time, whether it’s ignoring the homeless person begging for change or forgetting to reply to a text message. It can hurt being on that side too! Let it be a lesson of compassion.

Giving and receiving rejection is a natural part of life. The most empowering thing you can do is see you have a choice in how you respond to rejection.

I get it – once having a social anxiety disorder own me years ago. It’s a weird experience. To help I made a videographic of surprising facts about anxiety disorders. You might get stunned by the celebrities who suffer from anxiety, symptoms of anxiety, and ways to deal with the disorder.

Watch the Video:

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1. Quotes to tweet

1. Anxiety disorders are in the top 10 reasons for disability in nearly all World regions: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
2. 36% of people with social anxiety disorder experience symptoms for 10 years before seeking help: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
3. Anxiety doesn’t limit you – only your choice can: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
4. Feeling good is not a condition of living good: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
5. Develop skills to perform well in situations you are anxious over. Competence leads to confidence: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
6. You can feel anxious because you care. Anxiety is normal so be with it: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  

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[raw]<iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/eoKtz8IoROE” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe><p>The infographic was created by the <a href=”https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder”>Tower of Power</a>.</p>[/raw]

Each of these unique individuals have impacted my life in some way through what they teach. I’m excited for them to reveal their best tips right here.

Notice similar answers because what is shared clearly matters. Notice different answers because you learn from various perspectives. Then change your behavior otherwise what you learned is not learned.

Leil Lowndes

About: Leil is an internationally recognized expert on dating and conversation skills. She’s written many books on these topics including How to Talk to Anyone, How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You, and How to Instantly Connect with Anyone. Larry King with Leil’s advice said, “You’ll not only break the ice, you’ll melt it away with your new skills.” I love what she teaches because it’s simple, practical, and effective – it’s what I used to become more sociable.

Follow @Leil_Lowndes

Q1. I see a pandemic developing in the past 20 years where children struggle to develop social skills through activities and role models. Young people lack solid friendships because connections are formed based on what is liked and commented on. Intimacy is easily avoided as conversation is substituted for connection. Quantity of relationships is favored over quality. This carries through to teenage years, employment, intimate relationships, and into young adult lives. It’s not all doom as forums, groups, and amazing guides exist at the finger tips of anyone who wants to learn how to build good relationships. What do you think about modern social skills development?

You’ve asked an important and multifaceted question, Joshua. I am afraid that, thanks to Facebook and other social media sites, the word “friend” has taken on a new connotation. Unfortunately, other than words which suggest a romantic connection, no word seems to be replacing what people, of my generation at least, think of as a “friend” — someone you know well and who knows you, someone you’ve spent a good amount of time with, someone you would help in time of need and someone that you could depend on. Younger people have much less time to establish these relationships because they primarily know that person in two dimensions – literally (on the computer screen.)

Having grown up with these two dimensional relationships, they are inexperienced at forming deep friendships and don’t quite know how to go about it. Lack of real face-to-face human contact seems to be, in my experience, one of the causes of social anxiety.

I agree, there are forums, groups, and guides to help. But reading something on a website is not the same as experiencing it. And “friendship groups” and seminars which are intended specifically for that purpose are also not “real life.”

Q2. Is it acceptable to approach people in public for conversation? If so, what’s the easiest way to do it?

ABSOLUTELY! It is often difficult but it is a crucial skill and, seriously, so easy once you get the hang of it. At gatherings, I make it a habit to look for someone standing alone, approach them, and say simply “Hi, my name is Leil. And yours?” Then follow up with an open-ended question, something like “what brings you here?” Or “how do you know the host?”

So simple, but it works almost every time.

Q3. What’s a common misconception about making friends?

I would love to hear you your answer on this one Joshua. What misconceptions do you feel exist?

Josh: That you have to be this iconic, interesting, and impressive person to befriend others. Such expectations put what you think your imagined self needs to be to make friends, on an elusive pedestal, which makes you anxious. Yes, you should learn how to be interesting and impress others because there’s a skill set to make friends. Friendship has existed since the beginning of time with people who had no knowledge of complex social skills (useful for fine-tuning relationships).

There’s an “effective minimal dose” of abilities you need to make friends. The best one coming from a question: “How can I be friend right now to this person?”

Q4. What’s the single biggest thing someone can do to get out of depression and loneliness to high self-esteem and a happy social life?

…every time you avoid a social situation successfully, you get a short lived ‘high’ that can be addictive. So avoid avoiding.

For those of us who have suffered clinical depression (I have,) “depression” is a horrific mental condition which needs counseling and medication. Feeling in the dumps and lonely is also excruciating and I think that’s what you’re talking about.

My two answers to this are “force yourself to get out there and mingle.” And “fake it till you make it.” As I said in my book “Goodbye to Shy, “every time you avoid a social situation successfully, you get a short lived “high” that can be addictive. So avoid avoiding!

Q5. What’s the simplest body language adjustment someone can make to become better with people?

When talking with someone, keep things out of your hands so that you can have “open body language” with nothing between you. I liken it to the Chinese feng shui which means arranging a room so people come into it comfortably. With open body language, people can approach it more comfortably.

You can also stand a tad closer to someone because we stand closer to people like and farther from those we don’t. However, if he/she steps back, don’t move in. That means you have arrived at their comfortable body space.

And we both deeply know how crucial good eye contact is. (In Asian societies, as you know, it differs.)

Q6. What’s a piece of wisdom you discovered to help with a struggle in your social life that you wish someone told you earlier? (If you’re willing, share your struggle.)

Wow, I guess the short answer is, again, “fake it till you make it.”

The reason I am so passionate about helping you become a more confident and charismatic communicator is because I know the anguish of not being one. I first became obsessed with communicating when I entered first grade. I was so shy that I clammed up whenever I talked with teachers or other children. My severe shyness, or “social anxiety disorder,” lasted through college and beyond. (Attending an all girl’s high school and university didn’t help much especially when it came to talking to guys!)

About the time I graduated, my mother had a stroke so I came home to care for her and became an elementary school English teacher. I loved the kids but didn’t do much communicating with people over the age of 14! Sadly, my love-life was non-existent.

When Mama died six years later, I decided that at the end of the school year, I was going to leave teaching and, to cure myself of shyness, only work in jobs which put me in constant touch with a wide variety of individuals.

My first job after teaching was extreme immersion in interacting with people! I became a flight attendant for the now defunct Pan American World Airways. Traveling around the world meeting people from every country was a great help, and fabulous fun. I credit airplanes full of people for giving me a lot of the “people skills” I had so desperately craved. But it wasn’t a job I wanted to do forever.

Still craving to be a better communicator, I decided to try something very scary—performing in front of people. Much to my total amazement, I landed a starring role in a Broadway show! But it totally bombed due to my lame performance.

After that, I’d had enough of acting and, craving more travel and connection with people, I became a Cruise Director. Making the same stupid jokes for hundreds of new passengers every week on a cruise ship was the final cure! I could officially say my shyness was a thing of the past.

I then became substitute host on New York’s #1 late night talk show and wrote my first book on communication skills. That led to my second current profession and passion, sharing my techniques with the public as a professional speaker.

Now, every time my audience applauds, a poignant image of that shy little girl floods me.

Every day we can thank whatever God we worship for living in a country and in the times when anything is possible for anyone with a passion.

Q7. Have a favorite quote about social skills and personality development? What is it?

Well, you’ve heard the first one twice now. And the second, I alluded to earlier:

Avoid avoiding at all costs.Leil Lowndes

Nick Savoy

About: Nick is President and Program Leader of Love Systems. He’s been on Dr Phil and The Tyra Banks show. I first discovered Nick after he rebuilt the primary company mentioned in New York Bestseller The Game. A lot of what he teaches took me away from being unable to talk to women.

Follow @nicksavoy

Q1. I see a pandemic developing in the past 20 years where children struggle to develop social skills through activities and role models. Young people lack solid friendships because connections are formed based on what is liked and commented on. Intimacy is easily avoided as conversation is substituted for connection. Quantity of relationships is favored over quality. This carries through to teenage years, employment, intimate relationships, and into young adult lives. It’s not all doom as forums, groups, and amazing guides exist at the finger tips of anyone who wants to learn how to build good relationships. What do you think about modern social skills development?

Clearly there’s a problem. If it were very easy for everyone to have the social life and dating life that they wanted, then there would be no need for Love Systems. But clearly there is, and every day we turn guys who are unhappy or frustrated or settling into men who have the dating and social life that they deserve.

As for the WHY our world is so screwed up – that’s probably a much longer conversation. Every generation complains about the one after them. I think there’s something more fundamental going on here – that our instincts, biology, and deep-rooted culture are not designed for the modern world.

Human biology has not changed much in the last 5000 years, but human society has changed a lot. Our instincts about how to connect with people and how to date are designed for a world where we live in tribes and no one we deal with on a day-to-day basis is a stranger. I wrote about this mismatch in my book Magic Bullets, and why men need to ignore their instincts sometimes if they want to date quality women.

Q2. Is it acceptable to approach people in public for conversation? If so, what’s the easiest way to do it?

Of course. Many Love Systems clients have gotten married to women they approached in public during or after one of our programs. The easiest way to do it is have a default go-to “opener”, understand the secrets of body language (as it affects attraction), and to know where to go next. Usually within the first hour of a Love Systems bootcamp, we have men approaching women successfully.

(Nick opted to not answer the third question.)

Q4. What’s the single biggest thing someone can do to get out of depression and loneliness to high self-esteem and a happy social life?

Taking action, no matter how small, builds momentum… do something.

Remember Lao Tzu “Every journey begins with a single step”. Taking action, no matter how small, builds momentum. The worst thing you can do is let negative thoughts bounce around in your head without addressing them. Get a gym membership, sign up for a Love Systems program, or call some old friends – do something. Action is valuable in itself.

Q5. What’s the simplest body language adjustment someone can make to become better with people?

That depends on what your body language is like now. There’s no one-size-fits all model – when we got two of the world’s biggest experts in body language and social dynamics together, the end result filled 5 DVDs (update: no longer available).

The Beyond Words DVD course has a ton of insights. One that comes immediately to mind is when Derek Cajun said to “move like you’re moving underwater”. It’s amazing what slowing things down does to your presence.

Q6. What’s a piece of wisdom you discovered to help with a struggle in your social life that you wish someone told you earlier? (If you’re willing, share your struggle.)

To stop making excuses and to start taking action. I wasted five years messing around before I got on the right track.

Q7. Have a favorite quote about social skills and personality development? What is it?

I gave you some Lao Tzu earlier, and his stuff is full of great insight. But I’ll go in the other direction for this one, to the Rocky Horror Picture Show:

Don’t dream it; be it.

Henrik Edberg

About: Henrik lives on the West-coast of Sweden and for the past 7 years he has written about improving social skills and happiness on The Positivity Blog. He teaches how to improve your people skills in the Smart Social Skills Course. Check out his post on 10 conversation mistakes for a sample of his solid advice.

Follow @positivityblog

Q1. I see a pandemic developing in the past 20 years where children struggle to develop social skills through activities and role models. Young people lack solid friendships because connections are formed based on what is liked and commented on. Intimacy is easily avoided as conversation is substituted for connection. Quantity of relationships is favored over quality. This carries through to teenage years, employment, intimate relationships, and into young adult lives. It’s not all doom as forums, groups, and amazing guides exist at the finger tips of anyone who wants to learn how to build good relationships. What do you think about modern social skills development?

I haven’t done any research into how social skills development has changed over the past decade or two. But one big thing that has happened since I was a teenager (I’m 33 now) is:

It has become easier today than ever before to not confront your own comfort zone…

How much more people interact from a distance. Like online and via cell phones. This does on one hand give people the opportunity to get to know people far away in the world or more easily find others with the same perhaps narrow passion that they have. And the internet does of course make it very easy to find really helpful information quickly that someone in the 1980s might have had a very hard time to get a hold of.

But on the other hand I think that communicating in this distant way and how easy it has become to do so can have a negative impact on people’s social improvement. It has become easier today than ever before to not confront your own comfort zone when it comes to shyness and social skills for example. And that can have a negative impact.

Q2. Is it acceptable to approach people in public for conversation? If so, what’s the easiest way to do it?

Sure, I think so. One way to do that is to simply comment on something in the environment.

Like what kind of cake he or she recommends if you are trying to pick something out in a café.

Q3. What’s a common misconception about making friends?

That you should try to impress them and be as interesting or cool as possible.

Being genuinely interested in them instead tends to work better in my experience and if there is a good connection then they will reciprocate and get interested in you too.

Q4. What’s the single biggest thing someone can do to get out of depression and loneliness to high self-esteem and a happy social life?

To take one small step after another and to not take failure or a stumble too harshly and as a sign that the world is ending. But to get up on your feet again and keep going, step by small step.

By taking action in this way on improving your conversational skills, listening skills and self-esteem you can over time make a huge positive change in your own relationships and life.

Q5. What’s the simplest body language adjustment someone can make to become better with people?

To smile more. A simple smile will relax you and help you to reconnect with positive feelings.

And by doing so the person you are talking to will be more relaxed too and positive towards you from the first minute you meet.

Q6. What’s a piece of wisdom you discovered to help with a struggle in your social life that you wish someone told you earlier? (If you’re willing, share your struggle.)

I used to be quite self-conscious about what to say and well, about just anything in a conversation. I spent too much time in my own head over-analyzing what I should say, what someone said, how I looked, what might happen next and so on.

A great tip and habit I learned that helped me with this was to be more mindful. To be in the present moment fully instead of off somewhere in my head while in a conversation.

A good way to apply mindfulness practically in social situations is to slow down and to focus on your breathing before you step into a meeting or a date.

So a few minutes before you go into this situation slow down. Walk slower to the meeting place. Move slower. Even stop for a minute if you like and stand still.

Then breathe. Take a little deeper breaths than usual and make sure you breathe with your belly. Not with your chest (a common problem when people get anxious).

Focus on just your slow in-and-out breaths for a minute or two. This will calm you down, make it easier to think normally and that singular focus can draw you back into this moment again and what is happening outside of your own head.

Q7. Have a favorite quote about social skills and personality development? What is it?

I love this one by Mark Twain and think it can be applied to anything you may dream of, including better social skills:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.Mark Twain

Barrie Davenport

About: Barrie is creator of the Simple Self-Confidence course and blogger at Live Bold and Bloom. Her passion is in helping others find their passion after she felt unfulfilled in a PR career of 20 years. I particularly like the angle of her words on topics like how to be beautiful and curing a victim mentality that contribute to self-confidence and a great social life.

Follow @CoachBarrie

Q1. I see a pandemic developing in the past 20 years where children struggle to develop social skills through activities and role models. Young people lack solid friendships because connections are formed based on what is liked and commented on. Intimacy is easily avoided as conversation is substituted for connection. Quantity of relationships is favored over quality. This carries through to teenage years, employment, intimate relationships, and into young adult lives. It’s not all doom as forums, groups, and amazing guides exist at the finger tips of anyone who wants to learn how to build good relationships. What do you think about modern social skills development?

I have mixed feelings about it as you outlined in the question. In my work as an online entrepreneur, the ability to connect with people all of the world through my blogs (Live Bold and Bloom and BarrieDavenport.com) and with social media has been amazing. Not only has it helped my business, but also I’ve made some real friends whom I’ve met in person and remained connected with. It is so much easier to share information, find clients, and create partnerships than it ever was prior to the explosion of the internet.

That said, many of the social skills I learned as a young person seem to be lost or irrelevant to the generations behind me. I had to pick up a phone, get in my car, or write a letter if I wanted to interact with someone. Socializing was a face-to-face activity. And conversation was a skill you had to develop in order to build friendships and survive in the business world. I guess every generation feels wistful about the loss of the “old ways” of doing things.

I think the horse is out of the gate in terms of modern social skills. The internet and smartphones are defining a new way of socializing, whether we like it or not. So the question is, how can we maximize this technology in a way that fosters real relationships? And how can we redefine social etiquette and manners using technology? I think this will evolve in the same way people in the early 20th century had to acclimate to the telephone. Change is inevitable, and we must adapt.

Q2. Is it acceptable to approach people in public for conversation? If so, what’s the easiest way to do it?

Yes it is absolutely acceptable in the right circumstances. You don’t want to interrupt someone who is in conversation or clearly focused on something else. And if you’re good at reading body language, you can generally tell when someone doesn’t want to be approached. But the ability to strike up a conversation with strangers is a sign of self-confidence and sociability.

I think the easiest way to begin always is to start with a smile. It’s the universal icebreaker. And then you can open a conversation with a comment about the event, the weather, a question, or an observation. Or you can simply say, “Hi, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Barrie. It’s very nice to meet you.” Most people are responsive and open to someone who reaches out and makes conversation. I recently wrote a post on this very topic called 30 Conversation Topics to Kickstart Your Speaking Confidence.

Q3. What’s a common misconception about making friends?

I’d say the most common misconception is that all friendships happen spontaneously. Sometimes this is the case, especially when you’re in a situation where you’re around the same people day in and day out (like school or work). But quite often you have to seek out friends and work on building relationships. For a lot of people, this can be intimidating.

Friendships are like gardens. You have to plant the seeds, water them regularly, and pull the weeds before you really enjoy the fruits of a lasting friendship.

Friends don’t fall out of the sky. So if you don’t want to be isolated and lonely, you need to put yourself in situations where you meet new people. You need to strike up conversations, ask questions about the person, and find common interests. You need to reach out to new friends to build rapport and trust. And you need to be an initiator, rather than waiting for the other person to always take the lead in getting together or planning events. Friendships are like gardens. You have to plant the seeds, water them regularly, and pull the weeds before you really enjoy the fruits of a lasting friendship.

Q4. What’s the single biggest thing someone can do to get out of depression and loneliness to high self-esteem and a happy social life?

If someone is clinically depressed, the most important thing they can do first is seek proper treatment with a doctor or therapist. Depression isn’t something to take lightly, and you certainly can’t build self-esteem when you’re depressed. However, if you are simply feeling blue and lonely and somewhat down on yourself, the very best thing to do is take action. Don’t sit around ruminating on how lonely you are or what a bad social life you have. Do something about it. Join a club. Invite people over for a party. Get involved in a volunteer activity. Initiate social interactions and reach out to people. Not only will this improve your social life, but also you will feel more in control of your circumstances which improves self-esteem.

Q5. What’s the simplest body language adjustment someone can make to become better with people?

Look them in the eye. Be truly engaged with them so they feel you are actively listening and interacting. Also, notice when you have weak or defensive body language like crossing your arms, looking away or at your feet, or slumping your shoulders. Body language is the first clue to others about how you are feeling on the inside.

Q6. What’s a piece of wisdom you discovered to help with a struggle in your social life that you wish someone told you earlier? (If you’re willing, share your struggle.)

Don’t use sarcasm when you first meet people. I have a sarcastic sense of humor that some people appreciate and others find off-putting. I’ve learned through experience that using sarcasm with the wrong people can end the relationship before it gets off the ground. Always begin a relationship being straightforward, open, and kind. Save sarcasm for later with those you know enjoy this kind of banter and don’t take offense.

Q7. Have a favorite quote about social skills and personality development? What is it?

You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.Dale Carnegie

Josh: Share in the comments below your answer to one of the questions. We’d all love to hear what you have to say.

I was “undiagnosed” for 7 years. This stopped me getting help and helping myself. I lived believing I was broken, but it turns out you can turn your life around once you know the problem. I hope the test and resources provide guidance to help you.

Here are three notes about the test. Your results are 100% confidential and never stored. The quiz is not intended to replace a one-on-one professional diagnosis. Respond to each question by picking the answer you think is most accurate. Get started with 16 simple questions below!

[quiz=2]

What to do Next

Once you’ve done the social anxiety disorder test above, continue with these three pointers:

1. If the test suggested you have social anxiety or a social anxiety disorder, watch this free video and read this article about the only cure to social anxiety.
2. Get people you care for to take the test. You never know who you will help. Tweet the quiz. Share it by clicking the social media buttons below or emailing the link:

   https://www.towerofpower.com.au/social-anxiety-disorder-test

3. Learn everything you need to confidently talk, make friends, and build a great social life even when you have severe anxiety and am unable to talk to strangers. Check out Big Talk, a special course to get you comfortably making friends with who you want.

The most common tip you hear to be better with women and men is “just be yourself”. Jump in a forum, blog, or conversation where people discuss the secrets of making friends or attracting the opposite sex and you’ll hear the unanimous piece of advice echoed like ancient wisdom. I’ve received many emails and comments on articles like What Women Want in Men saying, “Forget everything. Just be yourself.” I manage to withhold from clicking reply and sending an angry response.

Being yourself is as useless advice as being told to “be confident”. How do you just be confident? You can’t just do it. Unless the word triggers what you need to do like “express your feelings” or “stand up straight”, being yourself is not helpful advice.

It’s time you understood this cliché and what you can do to be the best real you.

Why You’re Told to Be Yourself

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.Aeschylus, ancient Greek playwright and father of tragedy

Understand the reasons people say to be yourself and you begin breaking down the belief it’s useful advice.

The majority don’t know how to attract women, get a guy, or make friends. Asking the average person how to keep a conversation going is like questioning a poor man for the secrets to be rich. If you ask your well-intentioned mother how you can get that cute girl at school, she’ll tell you to be yourself because she knows no better. Few have studied what makes one good with people.

The second reason someone tells you to “just be yourself” is to reassure you that as a person you’re fine. To change something about you implies something is wrong and flawed. Those who care for you want to preserve your self-esteem.

Asking the average person how to keep a conversation going is like questioning a poor man for the secrets to be rich.

The third reason someone tells you to “just be yourself” is that’s what most of us have heard about social skills our entire lives. Popularity creates familiarity and belief.

Mention these three weapons to counter the folly advice and you’ll be told “okay, then just be patient” and “it’s not meant to be if it doesn’t work out”. The reasons someone tells you to be yourself also explain this pathetic advice.

Talk to these people about conversational strategies, body language, or NLP and you’ll see a blank look flush over their face. It’s like getting a layman to explain how a bulb is switched on. Most lack understanding and consciousness of everyday systems we take for granted.

The Dangers of Being Yourself

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.Mike Murdock, televangelist.

One of the main differences between happy, successful people and their opposite is an attitude of responsibility towards creation. The common miserable man believes he’s a victim of the world. “There’s no point learning how to speak on stage because I’m bad at it.” A belief that being yourself is the way to go creates victimization and laziness to get what you want.

“Just be yourself” excuses you from leaving your comfort zone. It grants you permission to surf the Internet all day, not approach someone you want to talk to, or avoid that class you want to attend. Such thinking is like: “This feels uncomfortable so it’s unnatural. I better stop.”

An unchallenged body does not know itself. Talk to someone who’s been through severe adversity and you’ll hear someone who knows what matters to them. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience,” said Martin Luther King, Jr. “but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

An unchallenged body does not know itself.

The risk in being yourself and not leaving your comfort zone is stagnation towards achieving your goals. You get your current results in life for a reason. If you’re fat, I guarantee you eat and think different to models on TV or bodybuilders. If you’re lonely, I guarantee you move and think different to someone popular. If you’re shy, I guarantee you talk and think different to a confident person. In this lies the problem of being yourself: you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got and be what you’ve always been.

The Case for Being Yourself

You never find yourself until you face the truth.Pearl Bailey, American actress and singer

If you’re fuming about what you’ve read, I’ve just undermined your belief system of what to do to be good with people. To get what you want, you have to evolve. If you keep your daily habits, your future will be the same if not worse.

Pete Sampras, Wade Gretzky, or Jack Nicklaus didn’t give up after a lost match, missed shot, or lost tournament. They certainly did not think being themselves was the secret to sporting success. Each of them practiced something everyday that wasn’t “them”.

Your true self is not your habitual self. You do what you do now for many reasons. Influences of what you do include friends, family, culture, and general experience in the world. A woman can be a rape victim fearful of intimacy or she can be a loving wife. Experience shapes who you are but it doesn’t define you. You define yourself.

“Just be yourself” has too broad of a meaning to be useful. Getting more focused, there are certain situations where it is good to be yourself depending on context and meaning.

Being yourself is good advice when its understood as not comparing yourself to others. When you compare yourself to the billionaire or the guy who gets a hot new woman every week, you’ll feel worthless. You’re better off doing what I call a “self-to-self comparison” where you juxtapose your present self to your past self. Your past is too different from others to compare yourself with them. Stop putting people on pedestals.

It’s not about being someone you’re not. Authenticity is saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

Being yourself is also good advice for authentic conversation. “When one is pretending, the entire body revolts,” wrote French author Anais Nin. What you feel shows in your body language. Psychologist Paul Ekman gave the term “microexpressions” to describe how the face gives off subtle signals of one’s true feelings. You can say you’re fine about a friend going to a movie without you, but your narrowed lips and eyebrows close together give the person an intuitive signal you’re angry.

Fake a smile in the mirror to sense the weirdness of being unauthentic. Begin to imagine how hiding yourself damages relationships. It just feels wrong. Most of my teenage years were spent with a mask on covering my true feelings with family because of shame. Your emotional health and relationships eventually suffer when you’re not yourself.

Why then do we act “fake” in relationships? You most likely do it because you fear rejection and not being loved for who you are. It is deep stuff.If someone dislikes your mask, that’s only your mask and not you.

To be what I call “the real you” entails vulnerability. The real you entails equal effort, fear, and risk. If this scares you, know that a challenge will cause evolution. The best real you is saying what you mean, meaning what you say, and doing what you can to be trustworthy, reliable, and responsible.

The path to the best you is ****en hard if you’ve been unauthentic most of your life. People judge and treat you a certain way based on the image they expect you to uphold. Heck, you have an image of you called a self-image that regulates what you do.

The question is: what’s your self-image at the moment and what do you want it to be? As you answer and think about that question throughout the week, keep in mind what Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”

The next time you hear “just be yourself”, email or post the link of this article to your advice-giver.

You can do a social anxiety test to learn if you have a disorder, but it’s likely you suffer from a social anxiety disorder having tried to treat it for years. Your infatuation with anxiety and curing it go hand-in-hand. What you resist persists making problem-solving ineffective.

Watch the video above for the start of this article and the only social anxiety disorder cure

From a young age we’re tricked to believe in emotional regulation. We believe adults are mature, stable, and happy because of emotional control. “Stop crying and being a baby.” “Don’t be angry.” And of course my dreaded, “Don’t be a scaredy cat.” Emotional regulation has lead to your search here today as you try discover the cure of your social anxiety.

What are the affects of battling your anxiety? What’s the secret to better socialize and start living a meaningful life?

The Hidden Danger of a Social Anxiety Disorder

Cowards die many times before their deaths.William Shakespeare

To understand the world one must not be worrying about one’s self.Albert Einstein

Social anxiety affects you on the outside. You’re in a conversation looking at someone, but really you’re looking within, monitoring what’s going on. “Am I getting more anxious? Is my nervousness dropping? What do they think of me?”

A battle with a social anxiety disorder is life-limiting. Imagine yourself at a banquet of delicious meats and foods on the table with anxiety sitting beside you. If you battle anxiety, both hands grasp the knife and fork for weapons as you focus on slicing anxiety to death. Anxiety sometimes gets hit yet morphs into a more intense form. You swing harder only to tire yourself out – all the while you miss a delightful moment of treats.

Your battle with anxiety consumes plentiful amounts of energy that diverts your mind and body from activities, daily tasks, and relationships meaningful to you. If someone was to choke you right now, of all the things you could do (look out the window, scratch your head, laugh), you’d be obsessed with one: breathing again. Fighting anxiety is like being choked as it narrows your repertoire of behavior. There’s a banquet to enjoy in life instead of fighting anxiety.

In conversation you can focus on learning what someone does for a career, how your friend spends free time, or listening to make someone feel heard to live out a value of being friendly. At the moment though, you fight anxiety. This makes a social anxiety disorder an awkward problem. If you have the disorder as characterized by a resistance to anxiety, you’re not present in the conversation and people notice it.

I created an anxiety video and infographic to help you better understand what it’s like to have an anxiety disorder in today’s world:

How Anxiety Experts Cure a Social Anxiety Disorder

If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.George S. Patton, World War II general

Fear is natural. Be with it.Thomas Leonard, founder of CoachVille

I picked up a social anxiety disorder at 14 years old. I’m now 27 years old and don’t consider myself cured. “What?! You can’t teach people then you jerk!”

The moment you consider yourself treated from social anxiety or other forms of anxiety is when you’re vulnerable. It’s the same mind-trap as wanting to banish anxiety.

Stephen Hayes, co-creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), was a psychologist when he developed a panic disorder. In an interview I did with him, he applied advice from cognitive therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), but they felt to him as if he had spat into a hurricane.

Here’s one example. CBT uses the term “cognitive restructuring” to be more rationale about anxiety-inducing situations. Shifting a thought of “I’m going to look like an idiot at the party” to “I’m extremely nervous at this party, but I’ll leave in one piece tonight and probably make some new friends!” wasn’t very helpful for him. You may have tried the same restructuring that helped in the short-term only to find the spit flying back at you soon after.

The problem and infatuation with removing anxiety go hand-in-hand.

One day Dr Hayes became an assistant professor when he was in a department meeting watching the professors angrily fight with each other. He raised his hand to ask a question, but couldn’t make a sound come out of his mouth. After 30 seconds, no sound was made and the meeting resumed.

“That event,” says Dr Hayes, “is not what created my anxiety disorder.” If you get humiliated talking to a hot blonde, it doesn’t mean anxiety will be with you for the remainder of your life. It can start an internal battle where you fight the internal experience of anxiety. You start to project the experience where you see yourself fainting and dying in the future.

Imagine a young boy freely running around a playground. Suddenly he falls into a dark, dirty hole called “anxiety”. It’s not his fault he fell into the hole. How the hole got there doesn’t matter because it’s just there.

The child is scared of the black ditch because one day he heard bad creatures live in the dark. Afraid of this, he quickly decides to escape by digging. 10 minutes later he looks up to see no progress so he digs more dirt out and digs faster. Sweat beads down his forehead.

One hour of strenuous digging later, he glances up with his glassy eyes only to see he’s further from freedom. He is more afraid than before.

Has digging hard (attempts to conquer anxiety) freed you? I doubt it has because you’re reading this article hoping to cure a social phobia. Have a pad and pen handy because in this article I’ll ask you to do a lot of tough and fulfilling work that’s counter-intuitive to what you’ve done most of your life.

How to End Suffering Forever

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.Seneca, 1st century Roman philosopher

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Neibuhr

Anxiety sufferers believe anxiety causes pain and must be gone before they can live a meaningful life. Self-talk of social anxiety sufferers include: “Before I can talk with that girl, I need to feel confident”, “I need to be comfortable to get on stage and speak”, and “I can’t make friends as long as I’m a nervous wreck”.

Anxiety sufferers believe anxiety causes pain and must be gone before they can live a meaningful life.

You may believe you can’t make friends or chat with cute girls until this yucky thing that is anxiety disappears. That’s what you’ve been lead to believe by self-help gurus who pronounce you have to think and feel a certain way to achieve a goal. Georg Eifert and John Forsyth, co-authors of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders, wrote something worth burning into memory: “Feeling good is not a requirement for living good.”

When you believe you must feel good to live good, you battle anxiety. The truth is: anxiety doesn’t cause pain – your struggle with anxiety creates undue pain.

Suffering forms from pain and nonacceptance according to Linehan, author of Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder. Ultimate suffering is suicide, an attempt to end pain from nonacceptance. You suffer when you don’t want to be hurt, when you don’t want to be anxious, when you don’t want to fear.

Fearless is unnecessary to have a great social life. You don’t need to be fearless to contribute. You can be fear-ridden and live a meaningful life. “You don’t need to think this way or feel that way to be free of social anxiety,” said Dr Hayes. “Instead of wanting social anxiety to disappear and then you can be with yourself and others, it turns out you can go directly and quickly to the end if you compassionately hold your insides.”

Anxiety does not mean something is wrong you – it’s the approach of battling anxiety that causes suffering. Sexual abuse is one unfortunate event in life that causes trauma yet it doesn’t always lead to being broken or living a sexually suppressed life. Victims of sexual abuse can feel anxiety in sexual situations yet live as they please. Psychological health is not the absence of trauma, pain, and negative experiences.

The difference between a free outgoing person and someone shy is not the experience of anxiety, but if the anxiety is held onto, battled with, and pushed away. Escapism constricts your social life because your internal experiences are inescapable. You cannot run from yourself. Drop the mindset of “curing anxiety” altogether. “I’ve learned to never say no to anxiety,” said Dr Hayes in my interview with him. “If anxiety wants to show up, it’s perfectly welcome to do so.”

My question to you is: are you willing to make room for anxiety to be in your life?

Why Doing What You’re Anxious About Works

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytical psychology

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.Fr. Alfred D’Souza in Happiness Is A Journey

Do the thing you’re anxious about and anxiety will rot away. That’s a truth of fear and a better lesson self-help teaches. The underlying message is to conquer fear and anxiety, which contradicts what you learned so far.

Firstly, fear and anxiety differ. Fear promotes action in the present while anxiety anticipates the future. You can fear being punched in the head by a muscle-jacked boyfriend if you approach a hot girl and he pushes you, but worrying about being punched by that guy before you approach is anxiety.

Fear and anxiety reduce when you experience what you’re afraid of. Neither emotion is worse than the other. A skydiver will likely fear his tenth jump less than his first and a guy who approaches a hundred women will be less anxious than if he approached none. This is exposure and it works at living with anxiety.

You didn’t learn to ride a bike by reading or thinking about it. You crashed, you fell, you got hurt. There’s no other way than direct experience to ride a bike.

“Exposure therapy” has you repeat contact with what you fear in a safe environment until the fear is extinct or minimized. If you’re petrified to leave the house, it might begin by putting your head out the window, sitting on your verandah, or walking around the garden. If you’re afraid of cafes, day one could be to order a coffee, day two is to order a coffee while holding eye contact, while day three also gets you to ask how the barista’s day is going.

How can you use exposure to step into your social phobia? List three steps on a pad. It could be: 1) go to a mall and sit down, 2) make eye contact with 10 people who pass you, and 3) say “Hey” on the tenth person.

You may feel your heart increasing right now with just the thought of exposure. Don’t battle it. The battling is what causes suffering. Be mindful of your increased heart-rate and shallow breathe. Be okay with it. Continue to write your three steps.

The discomfort experienced signals your evolution. Something different is happening in your life right now! Remember Jung’s words: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” Whenever I feel discomfort, I acknowledge a transformation – an evolution – is occurring inside me that’ll produce a different a result to what I’ve had in the past.

Be careful making exposure another cure to social anxiety. Cognitive therapies use exposure to reduce anxiety and treat symptoms, but ACT uses it with the purpose of getting you to be okay with feeling anxiety. That’s a big difference.

Make doing what you’re anxious about a feeling experience that enriches life.

Anxiety is natural so it makes sense to not suffer with attempts to conquer it. Bootcamp students get a great feeling experience from exposure therapy. We might go to a bar or club with no intent but to be there. The student says “Hey!” to a group and keeps walking. The goal is to be okay with feeling afraid of meeting people so you can live a purposeful life. The belief you shouldn’t be afraid of new people only increases suffering.

If you do what you worry about to remove anxiety, is that another short-term tool to battle anxiety? I suggest you use exposure not to reduce anxiety, but to experience anxiety, feel how it’s normal, and believe a purposeful life is possible with it. Anxiety is natural so be with it.

Lesson: make doing what you’re anxious about a feeling experience that enriches life.

How to Free Yourself From the Fight with Social Anxiety

One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.Albert Einstein

He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War

Creatures relate to things based on their attributes like speed, color, and size. Humans do too but we can abstract these perceptions. We often do not take a fast beating heart for what it is: a fast beating heart. If your heart thumps hard, you may infer you’re about to have a panic attack. Once you learn to categorize something within, it seems like a thing. Anxiety to you seems real and dangerous.

In the past century since Darwin’s work, we’ve categorized anxiety as an unhealthy emotional affect of worry. Anxiety is seen as bad due to the surge of pop-psychology books in the 80s, positive-thinking tapes in the 90s, and now blogging in the 21st century where anyone can chant self-help advice. Western society teaches you to master your emotions, control your thoughts, and move from unpleasant states through manipulation.

Answer these questions to do with categorizing emotions:

• Is “joy” good or bad?
• Is “sadness” good or bad?
• Is “anxiety” good or bad?

You probably answered “good”, “bad”, and “bad”. But is it bad to be sad when your friend dies? Is it bad to be anxious when you’re in a new environment and meet someone you don’t know?

The self-help myth and belief that anxiety is bad cause you to try cut it out like a parasite from your body. You read endless articles on dealing with social anxiety, post in forums desperately seeking help, and beg for anything to alleviate you of this disease. All this makes you more anxious.

You fight anxiety because of the belief and categorization it’s bad. You can also take this control approach because it’s an adaptive method to survive in the external world.

You fear climbing a high cliff for survival and pain reduction. Bruce Chorpita, Professor of Psychology at UCLA, and David Barlow, Professor of Psychology at Boston University, in a 1998 study called The Development of Anxiety confirm a control approach to make life right is important to healthy well-being. Nothing is unhealthy about avoiding an unchained dog growling loudly or taking an aspirin to alleviate a headache.

Problems arise when control is used at an extreme level as rigid thinking and behaving do not work. Not approaching a cute girl because you’re nervous does not work. Calling in sick because you’re afraid to give a presentation does not work. Saying you’re not in the mood to go to party does not work when you’re really staying home to avoid your fear of dancing. It’s once you avoid crossing a bridge because your friend jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge that control doesn’t work.

Anxiety and other feelings like anger typically understood as “bad” are not bad. They typify human experience. The belief you need to think and feel positive all the time is inhuman. Emotions don’t have an off and off switch. Our emotional spectrum of fear, sadness, happiness, anger, and disgust (Darwin’s five emotions) makes you human. Those who accept and experience the five emotions and their lesser ones without defense are healthy.

Anxiety and other feelings… typify human experience.

Here’s a quick exercise to do in this moment. Try to make yourself happy. Give yourself a minute. Now try to make yourself anxious. Give yourself another minute to create this state.

Did you make yourself happy or anxious? You didn’t directly create the emotion. You induced either by remembering a happy or anxious memory, which created the emotion. You experienced something that triggered happiness and something else that lead to anxiety. Emotions like anxiety naturally arise from experience and cannot be easily controlled like a power switch.

One point I must make clear is regulating actions of an emotion is completely different to emotional regulation. It’s okay to accept the one second of anger when your son doesn’t wash the dishes, but it isn’t okay to abuse him about it. You have the power to control the action-side of anger by breathing to gain clarity, thinking about the need that caused your anger, and being assertive.

A Breakthrough Model for Social Freedom

He who is brave is free.Seneca

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.Voltaire, 17th century writer on social reform

You now know to not resist anxiety. If you try to not think of a pink elephant, you’re stuck thinking about a pink elephant. What should you do instead of obsessing about the pink elephant that is anxiety?

Before we can answer this, let’s first understand what you were trying to achieve by removing anxiety. Here’s a quote from my special member’s only report The Only Cure to Social Anxiety, available in part three of Big Talkers, where for the first time this breakthrough model of social freedom is revealed and simply applied to socializing:

You’ve heard the terms “social anxiety” and “fear”, but what words are their opposite? You probably think terms like “calmness” is the opposite to “social anxiety” and “confidence” is the opposite to “fear”.

You’ve been “working on yourself” for a few years now and banish fear in pursuit of confidence. You try to erase anxiety in pursuit of calmness. Such actions are driven by the belief that an opposite – more ideal – state of anxiety exists. This belief drives your fear in social situations.

You can see this traditional model to deal with social anxiety below:

Continuing on in the report:

What if I told you an opposite term didn’t exist? What effect would that have on your belief system and actions?

If social anxiety and fear had no opposite, you wouldn’t pursue another state. You wouldn’t seek out calmness to move away from it’s polar opposite of social anxiety. You wouldn’t seek out confidence to move away from it’s polar opposite of fear.

With anxiety and fear being their own states with no opposite, you couldn’t make them transform or disappear into another state. They would simply exist because it’s natural.

What does the new model look like then?

If anxiety is a natural experience to be held, the other end of the “confidence spectrum” becomes freedom. You’re free to experience what you feel!

The problem is not anxiety, but the desire to avoid anxiety.

Freedom is not an alleviation of barriers, but complete acceptance of them. You don’t have to like the barriers. You don’t have to like anxiety. It’s your choice if you drop the tug-of-war rope with anxiety and allow it to be there.

The problem is not anxiety, but the desire to avoid anxiety. Attempts to move from social anxiety towards confidence, calmness, even freedom – whatever it maybe – snares you in the same trap of fighting anxiety. This new model of socializing and living happy aims to not push you from social anxiety towards social freedom, but to move you to accept social anxiety, which is freedom.

You can quickly comprehend how free you are by asking: “Where’s my focus when anxiety arises?” The free person sees what’s important to them (value-based living) while the anxiety sufferer battles with anxiety (desire to avoid social anxiety).

A girl who thinks everyone analyzes her is not socially free – she will be afraid to speak and socialize. Another girl who says what she feels and speaks her mind even when she’s afraid is socially freer than the first girl. Social freedom is therefore the absence of a desire to avoid social anxiety. The later girl lives a freer social life because she knows anxiety and fear is okay to exist. How can you too live a free social life once and for all?

How to Live a Meaningful Life and Treat a Social Anxiety Disorder with ACT

Has fear ever held a man back from anything he really wanted?George Bernard Shaw, recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize in literature

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.Ambrose Redmoon, rock band manager and writer

You don’t decide to feel anxiety – you decide to live a meaningful life. Pain exists either way. The push-pull of fear and love is expected if you move towards what you care about like friends and social freedom. Your decision is not whether you feel anxiety, but if you want to reflect on your past and feel proud. How do you go about this? You use the ACT formula.

The ACT formula below is part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. CureTogether.org, a place where patients of almost any health problem come together to share their self-experiments, found Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to be one of the most effective yet hidden solutions for anxiety treatment.

Three components exist to start living a meaningful life when you suffer from social anxiety: Accept, Choose Directions, and Take Action.

Accept. Follow the serenity creed by accepting what you can and can’t change. If you get anxious around attractive women because you’re short and you think women find shortness unattractive, as erroneous as that belief is, you can’t change your height and need to accept it.

Your decision is not whether you feel anxiety, but if you want to reflect on your past and feel proud.

By accepting your height, you don’t resign to the thought you’ll forever suck with women. It means you end your struggle with what is. This creates space for you to do something productive like learn the many other things women want in men.

Acceptance is your willingness to openly live. It is not resignation to your anxiety, a feeling, or one decision. It is a choice you make to approach life each day. There may be a law you hate, but you accept it and openly live with it. Acceptance transforms your suffering into plain pain. Acceptance ends your battle with social anxiety.

Besides, how has resistance to anxiety gone for you? You struggle with the internal battle doing things like screen phone calls, skip parties, and shop at the least busiest of times. The anxiety temporarily subsides then explodes in another situation.

You’re not a bad or messed up person because of your battle with anxiety and use of strategies to deal with it. You’re just using ineffective methods. Can you see how resistance is not working for you and why this first step of “Accept” is important for you?

Choose Directions. Where do you want to be one year from now?

Viktor Frankl was a man confined to life-threatening barriers yet used choice, acceptance, and values to survive then live a valuable life. Frankl was a prisoner of war transported between Nazi camps relentless as the other. Prisoners were stripped naked, called a number instead of their name, starved, placed in gas chambers, and put in dehumanizing moments.

Fellow prisoners committed suicide to avoid the suffering of another day with the Nazis. Some prisoners lay in bed refusing to get up as they submitted to Nazi beatings. Statistic experts estimate there was a 3% chance of survival.

Frankl noticed a common thread amongst those who endured the pain: they had reason to live. What did Frankl do? He stood outside to give a psychotherapeutic speech on concentration camps, studied and helped fellow prisoners, and did what he could to give life purpose. Surviving prisoners imagined reunion with families or completion of a valuable project back in their home country. No Nazi could steal a prisoner’s vision.

Freud said man is driven from sexual instincts. Frankl developed Logotherapy and says your deepest desire is purpose. Carl Jung echoed similar sediments saying, “The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

Again I ask you… Where do you want to be one year from now?

You may struggle to head in a direction because of your language that describes anxiety. It’s typical for anxiety sufferers to be low on life consumed with the anxiety battle. I’ve heard and said things like, “I can’t go to parties until my anxiety is fixed”, “I’d do public speaking, but I’m afraid”, and “That girl is hot and I’d like to talk to her, but I don’t want to embarrass myself”.

Why have you previously wanted anxiety to be gone? To be less anxious? How uninspiring! You know at some level that less anxiety through techniques, anti-depressant medication, or some other remedy doesn’t create a richer life.

How would it feel if your tombstone had written on it:

[Your name] battled anxiety for 14 years. He dedicated each day to researching techniques, taking medication, and doing what’s possible to dodge anxiety-inducing situations. He had few friends, never volunteered to help the less fortunate, and never married. He was never able to lie down on the beach with the sunset and cool breeze blowing through his hair because he never conquered anxiety.

Write your tombstone if you died today. We’ll get to the second part of this tombstone exercise soon.

Do another useful exercise for change to this new model of social anxiety. Spend five minutes now writing your list of Life Costs of Anxiety Avoidance. This list is to include the costs of what you have missed in life because you avoided anxiety. Common life costs of my students battling social anxiety include:

• No partner, ever
• No fun at social events
• No promotions at work from weak behavior
• Abuse from strangers for awkwardness
• The frustration from not voicing needs
• A disbelief great goals can be achieved

To further help you choose directions, ask yourself,“What values do I hold?” These values can be outside of relationships because anxiety affects your entire life. You can avoid going to university from your anxiety of being afraid to meet fellow students.

Values are different to goals because a goal can be achieved while a value may never end. You achieve a goal of making friends but you can’t complete the value of being friendly. Values are a path you go on. You may like to think of a value as an intention.

Example values are below along with questions to stimulate value-extraction and the problem of anxiety avoidance to show its affect on what’s meaningful:

1. Example: Loving brother/sister and parent. Questions: What type of brother/sister/parent do you want to be? How do you want to be around family? Problem: I’ve avoided talking about the elephant in the room (what everyone knows is there, but ignores) and prevented a deep connection with family because it’s scary.
2. Example: Great friend. Questions: What does it mean for you to be a great friend? What is it about friendship that’s valuable to you? Problem: Skipped my anxiety by not approaching people and accepting invitations to events that’s lead to few friends and low-quality relations with current friends.
3. Example: Help people with my career. Questions: What do you care about with work? What work do you like? Problem: I’ve stayed at home to avoid my anxiety that comes from meeting with clients and co-workers.
4. Example: Learn new skills. Questions: What would you like to learn? Why learn or undergo training? Problem: Stagnation and unfulfillment from a non-acceptance of anxiety to do with failure.

Take 10 minutes to list various values. Your answers are extremely important and guide you to purposeful living. Don’t let the importance of values bog you down because you can shape your answers later on. Hold values playfully to do this exercise because life and purpose is fun!

If you’re yet to locate your values, go inside the pain where you struggle the most then flip it over by saying, “What would I have to not care about to not have this pain be hurtful?” If your pain is social anxiety, you may not have to care about being with people, contribution, and loving others. Values reside in fear.

Your Life Costs of Anxiety Avoidance list motivates you to step into anxiety while your list of values motivate and direct you where to go.

Take Action. Once you accept what you can and can’t change and choose directions valuable to you, action is the last step. Act on your values.

You likely already act on your values. Your values are better clarified by what you do. If you avoid your anxiety, you probably value avoiding anxiety. With anxiety, however, it muddles what’s meaningful to you.

A commitment to take this third and last step of action is itself a value that shows you care about your life.

Spend 10 minutes now to build an action plan that puts you on a path aligned with your chosen directions. In your action plan, list the first action-step to get you started. This is critical to build momentum and meaningfully live.

Behave aligned with your values and meaningful goals.

If you value family, a step could be to phone family members to organize a date for dinner by the end of next month. If you value being friendly, maybe a step for you is to get How to Win Friends and Influence People and Big Talk. Put together a concrete action plan to get going.

Unless you do something different, whether it’s follow ACT or some other treatment plan, you will not generate different results in your life. When you follow these steps, you shift from emotional regulation to emotional acceptance. You go from anxiety reduction to a fully functional being with values and goals meaningful to you.

The “cure” to social anxiety disorder isn’t accepting anxiety to remove it. That’s the same trap. Forget curing anxiety altogether. Behave aligned with your values and meaningful goals. It’s not easy. You either be friendly or you do not. There’s no “I tried to socialize” or “I tried to be nice to people”.

Your willingness to live meaningfully is a choice you make through action. Feelings and thoughts come and go, but where you travel is a daily-decision acted out with your feet. Will you join me at the banquet beside anxiety?

Recommended Resources About a Social Anxiety Disorder

1. Free test to see if you have SAD.
2. Fellow Aussie Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap, has a good overview of ACT I recommend you read if you want to further explore this therapy.
3. For a complete step-by-step guide to effortlessly make friends when you’re shy and quiet, get my Big Talk course.
4. Another good resource (saying so myself) is Big Talkers, particularly part three where you’ll access my interview with Dr Stephen Hayes quoted in this article.

Question of the Day

What will you do this week to live a more meaningful life instead of trying to cure a social anxiety disorder?

Over the past year I’ve collected some great social skills resources I’d like to share with you now. Some are from friends of mine, myself, and just others who’ve given good insight into a topic.

From improving your social skills, overcoming anxiety, and starting a conversation, all the way to ongoing conversation, being charismatic, and making people laugh, here are some great resources I recommend you read even if they take you a while to get through (each of these great resources will open in a new window so you keep track of this page):

1. How to Improve Your Social Skills: 8 Tips from the Last 2500 Years

Henrik Edberg has some good social skills insight to share. A lot of what he discusses builds on from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Read some of his other posts on communication and socializing if you have the time.

2. The Only “Cure” for Social Anxiety Disorder and Achieving Social Freedom

If you’ve suffered from social anxiety disorder having tried to treat it for years, it is maintaining your problem. Your infatuation with anxiety and curing it go hand-in-hand. I’ve written all you need to “cure” your social anxiety disorder here.

3. 101 Conversation Starters People Love

A goldmine from none other than yours truly. Get all the conversation starters you could ever need with anyone.

4. 40 Ways to Make a Good First Impression

According to research, if someone judges you as “attractive”, “friendly”, and “open” within 100 milliseconds, they’re likely to think you’re all that by the end of the conversation. In this killer article of mine, you’re given 40 tips on body language, conversation techniques, and mind strategies to quickly and permanently impress people. Get all the ways to make a good first impression.

5. 7 Hacks to Remember Any Name

End the embarrassment of forgetting someone’s name by using seven neat mind-tricks. Charismatic persons like Richard Branson are masters at remembering people’s names. You may not become a billionaire by knowing John is John, yet people will feel special, you won’t feel awkward, and your relationships will be richer.

6. How to Keep a Conversation Going

There’s a lot of garbage advice out there on how to keep a conversation going. Most people just don’t know what they do to continually talk to anyone. Paul reveals to you the secret to keep a conversation going is unlocking your inhibition.

7. 10 Tips: How to Be Funny

Onto some cool skills now that make you a better socializer. Even if you’re a serious type of person, you can lighten and learn how to be funny. Your ability to make people laugh will win you many friends, business deals, and glances from the opposite sex that make you glee in delight.

8. 50 Body Language Secrets You Need to Succeed In Life

Though the start of the article mentions a major communication myth, you get 50 great little tricks to improve your often overlooked nonverbal communication. You can say all the right things when socializing, yet ignore your nonverbal communication and you may look like a weirdo. Get your body language down pat to be cool.

9. 10 Ways to Instant Charisma

You’ll notice this post on charisma summarizes points in other resources mentioned here. Read the social skills resource if you want to become more likable and win the respect of people you don’t yet know.

10. The 10 Principles of Listening

Listening is another topic of many where “experts” give ordinary advice like “maintain eye contact”. Like you didn’t know that already. There’s more to socializing, rapport, and friendship than the surface aspects of communication. Listening most times is at least 50% of a conversation so make sure you master this skill if you want to be popular and make cool friends. Also see this listening article written by a therapist to more deeply connect to people.

11. Presence in Conversation

You may be surprised to see presence mentioned here. Someone “present” is in the Now. They are fully absorbed in the present moment. Presence is a secret skill in Big Talk. When you’re present in conversations, you deeply connect to people. You get the feeling of being in the zone as time and worry banishes.

12. How to Make Friends and Get a Social Life

Author Chris use to be a shy, awkward loser. I can call him that because I used to be as well and I’m linking to his article! If you’re not good at making friends and have a social life of stalking others on Facebook, you’ll get a lot of practical tips and theories in this useful resource.

13. How to Network with Busy People

This 12-part series written by Steve Pavlina, a leading self-help blogger, shows how to get in contact then build relationships with hard to reach people so you dominate life. Should you become a successful networker, life becomes easy because you have resourceful and trustworthy connections.

14. More Social Skills Resources: Your Suggestion

Have something amazing to share with other readers? Contact me or comment below. If I feel it’s a one-of-a-kind helpful resource, it may appear in this list!

I hope you enjoyed these social skills resources. If you’d like more and want the best free resources on other topics like behavior and being a bad ass, follow me on Twitter and like Tower of Power on Facebook.

Inaccuracies make being an introvert more of a pain than it already is to attend parties, network at events, and socialize anywhere. Introverts must understand the truth about their personality type to maximize their career, build a fun social life, do well in dating, and enjoy happy relationships.

What is an Introvert?

On the playground, children compare their belly buttons with one another. If you had an outtie, you were laughed at and probably labeled “weird”. If you had an innie, you were considered a part of the group.

The feelings of belly buttons in the playground are reversed for the extroverted and introverted personality types. Innies (introverts) are considered weird while outties (extroverts) are normal. This perception of introversion and extroversion flow from misinterpreting their original definitions, making it scary to be an introvert.

Carl Jung brought the “introversion” and “extroversion” terms into our language. Jung’s definition of an introvert is “the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one’s own mental life.” He defined an extrovert, which some people refer to as an “extravert”, as “the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self.” These definitions when misinterpreted confirm most people’s idea of introverts being self-centered anti-social beings while extroverts happily socialize and enjoy relationships.

Introverts are not narcissistic persons. Just as introverts are not necessarily self-centered, extroversion is not synonymous with popularity and compassion for others.

The correct definition Jung gave introversion and extroversion is the direction of psychic energy. Psychic energy is hard to conceptualize, measure, and even describe. This makes some modern psychologists disagree with the concept. I like to think of it as a life force exchanged with the world.

The flow of psychic energy describes where your energy tends to reside when you think and socialize. If you have an inward flow of psychic energy, your energy builds from solitude making you an introvert. You get energized from reading, listening to music, and being alone.

If you have an outward flow of psychic energy, your energy builds from interactions with people making you an extrovert. Extroverts need to be around people otherwise they feel drained.

Lets look into this further. The knowledge in this article has given me (an introvert) freedom and acceptance that nothing is inherently wrong with me. The more I understand myself, the more acceptance, self-love, and compassion I have for who I am. This self-love allows me to make great friends.

Introversion and Extroversion Model

If you have an inward flow of psychic energy, your energy builds from solitude making you an introvert.

Since Jung, the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test is famous for its accuracy at defining people’s personality type. Introversion and extroversion is one of four dichotomies in a MBTI test, but by itself provides insight into your way of feeling and behaving. Knowing the signs of an introvert is a great way to understand this personality type.

You may occasionally have the opposite personality type surface from your behavior. For example, if you are an introvert, sometimes you find yourself excited and energized talking to people. Similarly, extroverts need moments of silence in solitude. Rare persons have the “pure personality type” of extreme introversion or extroversion.

Jung said the degree of introversion and extroversion varies along a continuum. We exist between the two extremes. It’s common as we age to move towards the center of introversion and extroversion by losing the introverted or extroverted characteristics once embodied.

The Challenge of Being an Introvert

According to introvert expert Marti Laney, an innie herself and author of The Introvert Advantage, we live in an extrovert world. Lang says about 75% of people are extroverts, leaving 25% to be introverts.

Like Laney, I’m an introvert! ToP subscribers are surprised to hear I’m introverted. They envision a communication skills coach as someone with wit, who loves to talk with people, and who is dominant in conversations. I have some of these characteristics, but I’m absolutely an innie. I think that’s why a lot of shy people love connecting with me.

From my experiences, I have wondered why introversion makes life and socializing feel like an uphill battle. The general perception of introversion is bad for several reasons – some of which were revealed earlier.

Extroverts are put on holy ground reigning over introverts. Extroverts enjoy themselves in conversations, move forward in their careers, give the best presentations, persuade people to buy, and win dates. What about introverts? They are labeled as anti-social nerds that cannot converse with people because they have no social skills. Both beliefs are myths.

If introversion is generally frowned upon, it makes sense then to try be an extrovert. Can such personality transform occur?

You cannot transform yourself from one personality type to the other contrary to common lies told by self-help gurus. I’m not saying introverts are forever stuck with a suck social life. I’ve found you can change from an introvert to an extrovert in the sense that you can become more social. You don’t really change from an introvert to an extrovert – you embody the characteristics often associated with extroversion.

You may mistake introversion for shyness or suffering from social anxiety. Such qualities and experiences have nothing to do with an introverted personality. I suggest you do this shyness test to help understand the side of shyness. Introverts are often uncomfortable meeting people because their personality pushes them away from socializing. Anyone becomes anxious without experience and practice.

Breakthrough Brain Battle: Introverts Versus Extroverts

Nerds in lab coats can see if you’re introverted or extroverted by injecting radioactive material into your body then looking at how your brain functions. You will not turn into Radioactive Man from the Simpsons, but the findings will help you appreciate how you socialize and feel about yourself.

In a popular study by Dr. Debra Johnson, positron emission tomography was used to look at the blood flow of extroverts and introverts after participants completed a personality test. The medical technique involves injecting patients with a small amount of radioactive material into their bloodstream before a brain scan to see the brain’s activity. Red indicates high blood flow and intense activity.

The first significant finding Dr. Johnson discovered was that introverts had more blood flow in the brain. Their brains were stimulated more than extroverts. Secondly – and more importantly in understanding the difference between introversion and extroversion – Dr. Johnson discovered that introverts had intense blood flow through brain regions responsible for memory, planning, and problem solving.

Introverts had intense blood flow through brain regions responsible for memory, planning, and problem solving.

Extroverts on the other hand had intense activities in faster regions of the brain where sensory information of sights, sounds, touch, and taste (not smell) is processed. This meant extroverts were soaking in the visuals of the scanning machines, voices of the researchers, and feelings of the surface they lay on. Fascinating!

Dr. Johnson had extended on Jung’s definition of extroversion and introversion. She concluded based on blood flow in the brain that introverts revel in their inner world while extroverts direct their focus on the outer world.

Benefits of Being an Introvert

Up to this point, you can now appreciate your personality type. This by itself helps you thrive in an extrovert world. You come to see where your strengths and weaknesses dwell.

Keep in mind that because we are blended with introverted and extroverted characteristics, you are not excluded from the benefits and downfalls of either personality type. There are further situations, careers, and skills each personality type is strong in due to the qualities in introversion and extroversion.

Extroverts thrive in situations and careers like emergency services, mediators, stockbrokers, and pilots that require quick responses. They love logical analysis for quick decisive action. They also have a curiosity for exploration and creation, which leads them to a career in science, marketing, investigation, acting, and entrepreneurship. Famous extroverted leaders are Bill Clinton, Muhammad Ali, and Steve Jobs.

An extroverted person tends to focus on the present moment. These people prefer to be around others instead of reading, sitting at a computer, or doing some other social activity.

Introverts on the other hand, thrive in unique situations on their own. They are reliable experts at assimilating information by gathering complex information and filtering it through their experiences and knowledge. Introverts may love a career as an accountant, engineer, computer programmer, or counselor. Famous introverted leaders are Albert Einstein, Warren Buffett, and Mahatma Gandhi.

An introvert generally has trouble meeting and talking with strangers, but they are good at building deep connections with people by listening, understanding, and appearing calm. Their ability to listen and understand with calmness makes them good writers and psychologists.

If an introvert learns to meet and talk with people, he or she may find the later stage of the relationship easy to maintain. People conversing with introverts feel surprised and intimate to discover a personal self hidden from others.

There’s a lot to love about your personality.

Your personality does not have to be the sole determinant of success and happiness. Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Clint Eastwood are a few famous introverts in an extroverted industry. I know many successful communication trainers like myself who confidently socialize and enjoy life with an introvert personality.

There’s a lot to love about your personality – stop being ashamed of it. Whether you are an introvert or extrovert, you can build friends, influence people, and live a life you enjoy. No matter your personality, it’s up to you to build the skills that give you the life you want.

(I developed the Big Talk Training Course to help the shyest introvert socialize and talk with anyone. What makes this course even better for introverts is I’m an introvert and know what’s it like to suffer at social events not knowing what to say. I recommend you check out the course if you’re frustrated with your social life, have few friends, and don’t know how to talk with people by by clicking here.)

For men, this means you can cultivate and maintain happy friendships and intimate relationships with women. If you are already in a relationship, this is what your woman wish you already knew. Anytime you can get a woman feeling attraction, whether it be over the phone, in a business deal, or placing an order at a restaurant, you will get more out of the situation – not necessarily at the expense of her.

If you are a woman, the mysteries revealed could mean many things. You will gain a clearer understanding of what drives you as a woman in your relationships, why past relationships have failed, and even how to select a real, authentic man that is Mr Right.

3 Sources That Trick You to Believe What Women Want

I’ve read dozens of books, subscribed to attraction newsletters, talked to attraction experts, talked to women about what they want in a man, tested techniques, and have observed many scenarios comparing and contrasting variables men display in their interaction with women to create a set of complete, holistic characteristics women want in men. In my search, I came across my first dilemma: experts gave contradictory advice – more so in the diverse stages of a relationship.

At the start of a relationship, dating experts attempt to describe what women want. There are pick-up artists and attraction experts that tell men to neg (a gentle, teasing insult), take advantage of a woman’s insecurities, and advance the relationship as fast as possible. Such people praise themselves as pioneers in defining what women want, but in reality nearly all of them cannot keep a long-term relationship. They excuse themselves as having the power to be selective, instead of dating and keeping any woman that comes their way, though their denial is a facade for deficiencies in their personality.

…long-term relationship advisers transform men into sensitive, new age, wuss-bag, girly men.

At the later stages of relationships are marriage experts, psychologists, romanticists, and communication trainers that teach men to listen to women. According to such experts, women want to be heard, understood, and made to feel special. These teachers do not tell you the skills and personality characteristics that create animalistic urges in women because the principles are counter-intuitive to “good relationship communication”. Pick-up artists and those that teach men how to succeed in dating, bash marriage trainers and the like over their teachings because the dating coaches feel long-term relationship advice transform men into sensitive, new age, wuss-bag, girly men – and I agree… to an extent.

Most men that learn communication skills from me fall into the trap of applying interpersonal relationship advice at the start of a relationship. It is not so much what they do as it is how they do it. The men become needy, have low self-esteem, and fail to communicate strength. Women don’t want to feel understood, listened to, worried about, and comforted at the early stages of a relationship – such “nice boy” characteristics send them running. Women want to feel indescribable urges that arise from bad boy qualities.

Culture and society creates the second dilemma: society infuses disempowering beliefs and limiting norms into men. I don’t blame guys for their limiting beliefs about what women want, but I do blame them for holding onto the beliefs when the truth is revealed. We are lead to believe women only want tall, handsome, wealthy men. Such advice drives men to feel insecure about themselves then validates their initial belief. They may get rejected on an approach, dumped by a girlfriend, or divorced from a long-term relationship, and reason through their perceptual filters that their shortness, ugly looks, or poor wealth did it to them.

If most experts and society don’t know what women want, surely women know? What better way to get the answer, then from the source itself, right? No. Most women don’t even know what they want – and therein lies the third and last dilemma.

Women preach to guys the characteristics they feel attracted to. They reason, “I’m a woman so I know what I and other women want.” This causes confusion.

Malcolm Gladwell in Blink says attraction is one topic of many when our rapid judgments and feelings are unconsciously processed. When our conscious, analytical mind enters the fray, errors occur. Gladwell says we label what we think attracts us to what really attracts us. Few people are aware of what lurks beneath the conscious mind. We succumb to personal qualities that leave us feeling out of control and bewildered.

If these three sources of information create dilemmas in defining what women want in men, what is the source of truth? What I’m going to teach will probably shock you, but put your preconceived notions about this topic aside so you can learn. “Empty your cup” as Bruce Lee would say.

Why Women Are Confusing

Women say one thing and mean another thing. A woman says she wants you to spend more time with her, but according to David Deida, author of The Way of The Superior Man, if you give her that in certain circumstances, your compliance disappoints her. If a woman sees she can upset you by calling you ugly, she will weed you out of being a potential mate – not because of your looks, but because your weak self-esteem let her easily destroy you.

When women say what they want, it isn’t really what they want – it’s an attempt to rationalize something abstract to them.

When women say what they want, it isn’t really what they want – it’s an attempt to rationalize something abstract to them. The surface is not a description of the depths. Attraction is a confusing subject to intellectually understand and experience. Often guys and women cannot explain why they are attracted to someone because attraction isn’t a logical decision (“I keep dating the wrong type of person”). Attraction isn’t decided. Attraction certainly isn’t a choice.

Women say they want nice guys, so men be nice, but a woman does not make the logical decision to be with a guy because he is nice to her with compliments, presents, and gifts. Both genders make emotional decisions on their relationships. If a man compliments a lady, gives her gifts, buys her flowers, and earns her affection, the techniques may work for a while, but he is just being used. Such behaviors are fake, manipulative, needy, and undesirable.

Another confusing characteristic men adapt that women say they want is humor, one of the most universally attractive qualities women want in men. Being funny is not the whole story. A good sense of humor isn’t what they entirely want. Women aren’t crawling over comedians. What they want is a guy who is cocky, has a sense of humor, can tease, and doesn’t constantly degrade himself. Unstoppable confidence combined with humor attracts nearly every woman – even the psychotic type so be careful. (Here’s a good guide on humor to attract women.)

Do Physical Looks Matter?

One of the strongest beliefs I need to destroy is that women must have a physically attractive man. Society overemphasizes physical appearance as it pries off male insecurities. Physical attractiveness in women is important for men, but guys get into relationship-trouble projecting their desires onto women.

A guy’s attractiveness towards women comes more from his personality than physical looks. I’ve heard countless stories of guys over 40 years old, bald, short, and even over 300 pounds, who date and keep very attractive women. On the contrary, I know plenty of wealthy, young, good looking men who initially attract a woman, but they don’t keep her because these guys do not have the complete package described to you in this article.

Physical looks grabs a woman’s initial interest, but it fails to maintain any strong relationship. (Remember, this a holistic approach to what women want in men.) If that’s the case, why do tall, good looking, rich guys attract and keep beautiful women? Such men have other characteristics that attract women. They emit confidence, are challenging, and show other alpha male qualities.

If you still do not believe a man’s personality, communication, and other non-physical aspects attract women more powerfully than tangibles, you are a “theorist”. You theorize on what you think works and does not work based on limiting beliefs. Put your limiting beliefs aside to discover the truth.

How you communicate to a lady, and not your physical looks, determines how attracted she is to you in the short-term and long-term. Non-physical qualities are more important in the long-run because they determine the condition of a relationship.

How you communicate to a lady, and not your physical looks, determines how attracted she is to you in the short-term and long-term.

Of course, there are women who only accept a man based on his looks. These women probably make up 2% of females. Don’t worry about these few women! In fact, avoid them like the plague! Their shallow personality is created from low self-esteem and other self-related problems that make them a pain to be around.

Though the characteristics described throughout this article is attractive to even shallow woman, do not avoid such women because they may dislike you. Avoid superficial people because they are unhealthy to be around. If a potential partner adds no value to your life, and you only want them because they are attractive, then you are the one with a shallow personality seeking to cover a void only you can fill.

With that said, the importance of a guy’s looks for a woman is more about looking good rather than being good looking. Women get repelled by a man’s looks when he has poor hygiene, awful attire, and annoying nervous habits. These negative physical qualities hold any man back from success with women.

Rather than worry aimlessly over your looks, focus on looking good. Firstly, to make better use of your looks, get some good clothes. Ask your friends what they think you could change to improve your physical attractiveness. Even better, ask a female friend what she thinks you could change. Most women will be more than happy to fix you up. If price worries you, good clothes need not be expensive. You can jump on eBay and search Google for online clothing stores to pick up bargains.

Oral hygiene is another physical aspect that must work for you instead of against you. Brush your teeth in the morning and night. Remember to brush the roof of your mouth and tongue to remove bacteria that makes your breathe smell like an unemptied disposal unit. Floss at least once a week to remove food stuck in between your teeth. Furthermore, you can rinse your mouth regularly with water, gargle salt water, and use a mouth rinse. Do what you can to prevent the build up of bacteria that creates smelly breath.

Another physical quality any guy can improve to become more desirable to women is his health. I encourage you to workout at the gym at least three times a week to improve your strength and aerobic fitness. Hit the weights and do cardiovascular workouts to improve your vitality. The sessions will develop your endurance throughout the day, better your happiness, improve self-perceptions, and help you maintain an energetic personality.

Working out gives you psychological benefits beyond characteristics favored by women. You can overcome personal insecurities and live a happier life with regular workouts. You will emit confidence, dominance, boost your self-esteem, and improve your wellbeing – all characteristics women desperately want in a man. Anything that improves your life makes you more desirable to women.

Why Women Hate Nice Guys

Women do not want what attraction expert David DeAngelo terms a “wussy” or “nice guy”. A wussy is an omega male. He is not confident, has no power, and is too compensatory with women. He is dominated by females and other males.

A high percentage of males are wussies because society conditions everyone to be nice to strangers. It is an area where most communication coaches fail. Good communication is being nice to people, though this doesn’t cut it for the holistic approach we’re after to describe what women want. It is counter-intuitive to traditional communication skills that teach “be nice and people will like you in return”. Many marriages fail because the man stops being a man – he transforms into a nice wussy.

Nice guys are too boring, submissive, easy, predictable, anxious, indecisive, agreeable, clingy, and insecure.

A nice guy runs after women. He is willing to dedicate his life to a woman, forever begging like a puppy for attention. He desperately wants a woman, any woman that gives him the attention to make his lonely life worthwhile. Because he is chasing and crying for approval, he is not being chased and is disproved by women – further hurting his low self-esteem.

The nice guy versus jerk argument of who women like more is confused by what is “nice”. Being a nice guy in the sense that you smile all the time, listen to a woman’s problems, compliment women, and be ultra sensitive to not offend a woman, is not what women want.

Geoffrey Urbaniak and Peter Kilmann, two researchers from the University of South Carolina, in 2006 had 20 women analyze 191 male college student’s answers to a questionnaire designed to measure their niceness. Now, niceness in this study was defined by agreeableness, which brings up this problem of defining a nice guy. “Proponents of the nice guy stereotype argue that women often say they wish to date kind, sensitive men,” write Urbaniak and Kilmann, “but, in reality, still choose to date macho men over nice guys, especially if the macho men are more physically attractive.” The researchers found nice (agreeable) guys had no real advantage in short-term and long-term relationships.

Ask any lady who is frequently approached by guys. She will tell you she hates nice guys because they are too boring, submissive, easy, predictable, anxious, indecisive, agreeable, clingy, and insecure.

A nice guy tries to buy a woman’s attraction instead of creating it through his communication and personality. He cannot keep a woman interested through himself so he does it with gifts and dinners to make her like him. He has the disease to please, suppressing his own needs and emotions in favor of giving women what they say they want. Women are too happy to receive gifts, but only to fulfill material needs. They view such a guy as a provider; not someone they want. A woman’s attraction cannot be brought.

What You Can Learn From Animals

In the animal kingdom, an alpha male is followed by its specie within a given geographical location. It is the dominant animal of the group. An animal that possesses an alpha status breeds abundantly.

An alpha animal has responsibilities. Males often try to take down the alpha male. The dominant creature must successfully fight challengers to keep its alpha status otherwise it will become an outcast and possibly die.

In the human world, alpha males get what they want with humor, confidence, composure, and a lack of need for people’s approval without domineering behavior. They overrule fearful males in possession of low self-esteem. While jerks are not very different to nice guys deep down because they are easily intimidated, show insecurity, and put on a false front, nice guys lose out altogether in sucking up to women and collapsing in any situation. Jerks pummel invaders beyond necessary means while nice guys run away scared.

Like the animal kingdom, alpha males are challenged by other males in pursuit of alpha status. Fortunately, death isn’t associated with these challenges. Being challenged can make or break you, however. Women don’t want jerks who try to physically take down any guy that threatens the relationship. (You’ve probably seen these jealous, overprotective boyfriends try to dominate.) A true alpha male can walk-away from ego-headed jerks who pick a fight and come out of the situation stronger than before because of his confidence and humor.

Women don’t necessarily want alpha males, but they do want a man with alpha qualities.

Alpha males are territorial. If a threatening person invades their space, they defend themselves or leave the location. An alpha male is protective. He does not fight to prove his toughness, because he is tough in his own right, but he does protect people he cares for.

A strong male takes lead when a couple goes out to a movie or dinner. He chooses a movie or place to have dinner with his woman’s preference in consideration. He does not say, “I’m happy with whatever you want” or “I don’t care where we go”. He takes control without being controlling.

What I recommend you learn from this is to set a goal of developing alpha male qualities. You don’t need to be the macho leader of a group; rather, work on building qualities seen in alpha males. An alpha male has confidence, strong self-beliefs, and power in the relationships. He is assertive, takes the lead, knows what he wants, and isn’t afraid to get what he wants with integrity and honor. Women don’t necessarily want alpha males, but they do want a man with alpha qualities.

5 More Hidden Qualities Women Love in Men

A man women love gets through any situation. When a situation fights him, he comes out stronger. When a woman treats him poorly, he challenges her thoughts and behaviors to bring out the best in her. He does not require people’s approval. He never degrades his values. Other qualities I feel need emphasis follow:

Leadership and Status. A man’s status to a woman is a woman’s looks to a man. Higher status means the man is more able to obtain the necessary resources for surviving and thriving. The high school quarterback, the company CEO, and manager of a nightclub are positions traditionally attractive to women.

Fortunately, there are situations and skills outside of your career that will increase your status. Become more social. Make friends easier. Learn to speak in public. Make great female and male friends. These are few of the many ways to increase your leadership and status.

Cocky and Funny. The attractive man balances cockiness with humor. He teases women like playful puppies. It may appear serious to outsiders, but participants know its fun and enjoy it. He is confident enough to play with people. Studies show that two people comfortable enough to playfully tease one another share a stronger relationship.

The attractive man balances cockiness with humor.

One example of cocky and funny can be noticing something unusual about a woman then busting her for it. Let’s say a woman is going out to a party you were not invited to and she has a large bag (it doesn’t have to be really large). You can bust on her by smiling and saying, “That bag is huge! Do you have a bomb in there? Are you going to blow up the party? Glad I’m not going *smile*.” This example is funny and shows no need for her approval.

The other day a woman complimented me on how good I looked. (I’m not actually that good looking. It’s just that I was teasing her and the only response she knew to feeling attraction is to be nice). A wuss would have reciprocated the compliment and let the situation fizzle down. I knew this was an opportunity to keep building the tension. I looked at her in a calm manner, said, “Thank you”, and made my eyes trace down her body. I saw her shoes, which were these strappy things with small heels. I then teased her by asking, “Did you make those shoes this morning with strings and some bamboo?” She laughed, loved it, and I loved it. It was confident, appropriate, cocky, and funny.

Ambition and Passion. Women want men that know their life purpose. Women want men to passionately pursue their life’s passion no matter what. Even when the woman complains about her man’s passion, deep down she wants him to not succumb to her complaint. A man willing to forgo his life purpose to pursue a woman is not what women want.

Truth. Women, like men, want someone authentic. Incongruent communication and behavior turns off anyone. Avoid dishonesty. Being truthful does not mean you approach a woman you like and tell her, “I want to get to know you because you’re beautiful” (that violates other qualities that women want, though it can work in some situations). It does mean being authentic to people and true to yourself. The truth will come out later regardless of your choice to be truthful so make it a virtue instead of a limitation. Truth and honesty is a core theory of my Big Talk training course that lets you quickly build relationships with anyone. (You can learn about my course so you can effortlessly talk to women – even if you’re scared of them – here.)

Chivalry. Chivalrous behavior defines courteous gestures towards women. It is another confusing topic for men. Chivalry has never been, and never will be, dead. Here are examples of chivalry:

• Opening doors for women.
• Walking on the footpath closest to the road.
• Pulling out a chair for a woman to sit on.
• Buying a woman dinner – not to impress her or to take her out, but because you are eating there in the first place regardless of her accepting your invitation.

The context of chivalry determines its effectiveness. Chivalry behavior can be negative when the chivalrous man does not take a holistic approach to what women want. Women like chivalrous men when they have other qualities mentioned in this article.

If you ever get confused with what to do, avoid being the desperate nice guy. Keep your power in the relationship. Take the journey of personal development so you become a better person day-by-day. Use all the advice share here and you could even make women attached, needy, and wanting your approval.

Any man can improve his success with women by following the holistic advice. You may not want to attract women in dating, yet qualities women want in men help any relationship, whether it be with a spouse, friend, or business associate. Communicate what women want and they will give you what you want on a silver platter.

(To learn more about women in dating and relationships, I recommend you learn from David DeAngelo. Also check out a follow-up article on what men want in women.)