What does the phrase "confidence comes from within" really mean

[Doc73]

Ever since I started visiting this site I have seen the phrase "confidence comes from within" many times, and it seems very straightforward. But what does it actually mean?

For almost my entire life I have been trying to find 'real' confidence. There are things that have happened in my life to make me gain confidence, like meeting a bunch of people that like me, or succeeding in school, or having a cute girl flirt with me. But those I have found produce fake confidence, because when those factors leave for whatever reason, it causes me to lose the confidence I have gained and when the dust settles I actually have less confidence.

The way I see confidence in my head is a wall being built to resist negative thoughts and feelings. At first the wall is thin without foundation so it can easily be toppled over by strong enough negative thoughts or events. As time goes on, and with the help of positive actions/feelings more layers are added to the wall strengthening it and eventually it gets rebuilt with stronger materials, which makes it harder to even crack. On the other side of the wall are negative thoughts and feelings, constantly trying to find ways to knock it down either by constant brute force or by finding a weakness in the wall and attacking said weak point. I want my confidence level a 2 foot wall of solid titanium, where nothing short of a catastrophic event could topple it.

So I ask you all again, what is real confidence and how do you know when it is real and not influenced by outside forces. By that I mean if you were to lose your job, your friends, your girlfriend, would you still feel as confident with yourself as when you still had those factors. That is my ultimate goal, to be able to lose everything that makes me confident in myself, dust myself off and say 'NEXT"

 

[spider_007]

MY 2 CENTS;

Reall confidence comes from realizing things about life. FOR EXAMPLE; realizing that there is actually someone who at one point in time was attracted to you, realizing that life is ****, and everybody has their **** loads of problems, your not the only one. Realizing that you CAN DO ABSOLUTLY ANYTHING, if you try hard enough. And biggest of all, YOU ARE A MAN, MEN MADE THIS WORLD, the society, the laws......

All these are just words to you right now. but If you really sit down and think about it for a FEW HOURS, and look back on your life, you'll understand. ALSO for most people there is somebody or some situation in the past that made them withdraw (lose thir confidence) and hide. eg; for me It was someone close to me who I looked upto (while young) who put me down every chance he got. You got find a way to deal with that and move on.

 

[MindOverMatter]

I think the problem with many guys here is that they start out with 0 confidence, and build it with positive experiances. You get a phone number from a girl, and you feel like the king of the world. You get a date, you feel even better. You sex the girl, nothing can stop you now.

Then, sooner or later, you get negative experiances. The girl gave you a fake number, or she flaked out on you after you called her. Your confidence plummets.

See, you only know how to feed off the positive experiances, and whenever you get a negative one, your confidence begins to starve.

"So what's it all about Mind?"

It's all about teaching yourself how to feed confidence off BOTH positive and negative experiances.

There was a time where I thought I was gonna flunk out of high school and be a failure. Now I have a university degree, and looking back, I realize that I was being ridiculous to stress myself out like that. But back then, I thought it was the end of the world. Whenever I have a problem in life that makes me think it's the end of the world, I remember this.

There was one time where I thought I got dumped by the greatest girl in the world and that I'd never experiance something like that again. Looking back now, I realize she was probably the least attractive out of all my girlfriends, and that she wasn't even that great. Looking back, I see that I was feeling miserable over nothing. Whenever I have a girl problem, I remember this.

There was a time when I got a fake number and felt like the world's greatest reject. Then, about a week and a half later, I met an amazing girl, and had a great relationship. Looking back, I realize that getting that fake number was a blessing, not a curse, and that I was better off with it. Everytime I get a flaky girl, or one that isn't into me and I feel rejected, I remember this.

And so on...

You look into the past, you remember the last time you felt like this, and you remember how you thought it was the end of the world. Then you realize "I've been here before, I've been through it, I've overcome it, and I'll do it again."

Once you can think like this, you will have a constant state of confidence. I believe it was Gio who posted a tip that said "nothing I can't handle" is a phrase that girls eat up (edit - here it is http://www.sosuave.net/forum/showth...&threadid=16003). While it's a good tip (yet another reason why you a$$holes need to read the bible), I think that phrase is MORE then just a line to hook girls. It's a great way of looking at life and your problems. When you remember your past problems and realize that your current problems will become just that, "past", you realize that there isn't anything you can't handle.

And that's confidence.

 

[Hellboy]

This is a fascinating subject and one which I have been studying for a while, on this site and in other areas such as psychology and even religion.

I now firmly believe that true confidence does come from within. Spider's comments are very true but I think there's a lot more to it than that. The true sense of confidence comes from having an accurate and appropriate self-image. This should be one that is based on your skills, abilities and ambitions rather than on outside influences. It's all about your perception of yourself and how you interpret outside factors.

The biggest thing to look out for when responding emotionally to outside factors is whether you are responding to the fact, or to your opinion of the fact. Or even worse, forming a conclusion based on the opinion.

FACT: She didn't agree to come out on a date.
OPINION: She isn't attracted to me.
CONCLUSION: Nobody will be attracted to me.

Let's face it, there are other reasons why she might not give you her phone number. Maybe she has a boyfriend, maybe she is gay, maybe you intimidate her. Maybe she just wants to make you work a little harder. But if you allow it to dent your self image with the above opinion, then you may draw a FALSE conclusion that affects your self-image and thus your future interactions with women. This is called overgeneralisation

The second way that I believe confidence comes from within is this. When you go out on a date, you may concentrate too much on what you're gonna say. Maybe memorise lines. Hell, I bet some people map out the entire conversation for the night, only to stumble when the convo goes outside the scope of the rehersal. The problem here is that you are trying to use your conscious mind to do something that the subconscious was meant to do.

Next time you go out on a date, I want you to practise something beforehand. Do not allow yourself to 'plan ahead' what you are going to say. Every time you start thinking of words to say, push them out of your head and instead just picture yourself getting on, having a laugh, flirting, getting close, enjoying each others company. Try to visualise it as vividly as possible. Feel how confident you are talking to her.

The reason this works is twofold. Firstly, your subconscious can't entirely distinguish between real and imagined events, if they are imagined vividly enough. This makes the visualisation almost like practise. Secondly, when you walk into that date with NO preconceptions about what you are going to say, combined with a mental readiness formed from your visualisations, then you subconscious will take over and say what you need to say, when you need to say it. And it will do it spontaneously.

This works. Try it out.

 

[earthshyne]

Originally posted by spider_007
Realizing that you CAN DO ABSOLUTLY ANYTHING, if you try hard enough. And biggest of all, YOU ARE A MAN, MEN MADE THIS WORLD, the society, the laws......

This is SO wrong on SO many levels it's hard to know where to even start.

First of all, the myth of omnipotence does not apply to faulty human beings. To further the idea that one can do anything if they only try hard enough is like telling the cancer patient that if she thinks positive happy thoughts the cancer will go away. Well, sorry to interject a little reality here, but it just ain't so. Try as I may, I have absolutely no facility for learning another language. It's not because I'm a failure in that regard, it's more because of the way my brain is wired. Conversely, my brother cannot carry a tune to save his life. That doesn't make him a failure, it just means he doesn't have a facility for music.

Alas, "men made the world, the society, the laws" is not exactly a glorious achievement. Read the newspaper lately?

IMO... confidence comes from understanding, and accepting, your true nature. It's not about pretending to be someone you are not, either better or worse (subjectively speaking) than you really are. It's about recognizing your strengths and your weaknesses - we all have both - and the deep understanding that being strong in some areas and weak in others makes you *gasp* human. With strength comes responsibility. With weakness comes humility. A well-rounded man needs both.

 

[RAFCbearfilm]

First off, Hell boy, EXCELLENT response.
Second point, Earthshyne. Man can do anything he wants to do if he APPLIES himself and looks for solutions. If you do not get the response or solution that you want in way that you want, you try a different way. If you have problems learning a language look at the method and recognize the way YOU learn best and apply that to learning a language.
You CAN do anything you want if you set your mind to it, you just may not always get the results you want. You SUCCEED at things you have an aptitude for. This current reality wasn't created by people that quit or because they knew what they were doing, it is through trial and error and through trial and error we continue to progress.
The only thing I would add about true confidence is that it is something that is created and learned within us, some earlier than others adn some never develop it.
You do obtain confidence through self-image, that you do knwo waht you are doing and when you make mistakes, you learn, you self correct and continue on a better person than you were before the mistake.

 

[spider_007]

Originally posted by earthshyne
This is SO wrong on SO many levels it's hard to know where to even start.

First of all, the myth of omnipotence does not apply to faulty human beings.

I can't do a lot of thing eather, including sing.

There are people who are missing a leg and are unning in marathons. Im not saying that a retard can become a brain surgin, all im saying that you got to try.

You never know haw much you can go untill you push your self to the limit. I worked in a machine shop for a boss who pushed everybody to their braking point. I didn't realize untill then haw far I can go. But anyways, what ever rings your chain.

Originally posted by earthshyne
Alas, "men made the world, the society, the laws" is not exactly a glorious achievement. Read the newspaper lately?[/B]

Your right there too. You (women) can do better????? sorry didn't realize.
It's like comparing a bum to a hard working person. I'm proud of the things Men achived in the past. They bilt castels, bridges, piramids, fought wars, put their lives on the line for others.....
They are the enbodyment of what a TRUE MAN is soposed to be.
Unlike, the puzzy azz man of the new milenium.

 

[earthshyne]

Originally posted by RAFCbearfilm
If you have problems learning a language look at the method and recognize the way YOU learn best and apply that to learning a language.

OK, I can't disagree with that.

This current reality wasn't created by people that quit or because they knew what they were doing, it is through trial and error and through trial and error we continue to progress.

I agree. I think you and I are saying the same thing in different forms. I suppose maybe the rocks in the way lay in the manner in which we define success. And that's pretty subjective, too, so it seems to me that we agree on more than we disagree on.

You (women) can do better?????

No, not for a minute. While there may be those who praise wimmen for their intuitive strengths and the way they incorporate emotions into their decision-making process, one doesn't have to look much farther than, say, Maggie Thatcher, or Kim Campbell, or Katherine Harris, or Anne Coulter, or Catherine the Great or Elena Ceausescu or many, many others to blow that logic out of the water.

(BTW... I'm all man... been that way since I was born... got the chromosomes to prove it )

 

[Hellboy]

Originally posted by earthshyne
Try as I may, I have absolutely no facility for learning another language. It's not because I'm a failure in that regard, it's more because of the way my brain is wired. Conversely, my brother cannot carry a tune to save his life. That doesn't make him a failure, it just means he doesn't have a facility for music.

I totally disagree.

If a certain ability doesn't fit into your idea of what you are capable of, then your subconscious won't do the work required to achieve it. It doesn't matter how hard you 'try'. If you firmly believe that you can't do something, you'll find it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Jariel]

I would sum this up the answer to this question with the following quote:

"No matter how forceful this [our external enemy and problems] is, it cannot destroy the supreme source of my happiness, which is my calmness of mind. This is something an external enemy cannot destroy" - the Dalai Lama


Basically, if you can maintain confidence, happiness and peace with yourself, then it doesn't matter what happens around you or who rejects you. This is what inner confidence is - a state of mind that relies on your own faith in yourself.

 

[Rogerman]

Originally posted by earthshyne
This is SO wrong on SO many levels it's hard to know where to even start.

First of all, the myth of omnipotence does not apply to faulty human beings. To further the idea that one can do anything if they only try hard enough is like telling the cancer patient that if she thinks positive happy thoughts the cancer will go away. Well, sorry to interject a little reality here, but it just ain't so. Try as I may, I have absolutely no facility for learning another language. It's not because I'm a failure in that regard, it's more because of the way my brain is wired. Conversely, my brother cannot carry a tune to save his life. That doesn't make him a failure, it just means he doesn't have a facility for music.

Alas, "men made the world, the society, the laws" is not exactly a glorious achievement. Read the newspaper lately?

IMO... confidence comes from understanding, and accepting, your true nature. It's not about pretending to be someone you are not, either better or worse (subjectively speaking) than you really are. It's about recognizing your strengths and your weaknesses - we all have both - and the deep understanding that being strong in some areas and weak in others makes you *gasp* human. With strength comes responsibility. With weakness comes humility. A well-rounded man needs both.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom
to know the difference."

 

[coder]

There is no Failure

Hellboy is correct that confidence comes from self image. Self image comes from the subconscious mind’s conclusions based on data which comes from the conscious minds interpretation of events. This is why attitude is so important. For example, I knew a guy in college that would sometime use the “hey, you wanna fvck?” approach. I never had the balls to do this, but he would walk into a bar and say to every woman he saw “hey, you wanna fvck?” until one said yes. If he interpreted each no as a failure, his subconscious mind would have recorded about 9 failures for each success. From this he would have concluded that this technique would not work or that he was undesirable or something like that. Instead, he interpreted the entire experience as a win. This built a positive self image that gave him more confidence. That is why they tell you if you get a rejection to just think “HER loss” or NEXT or something like that. You shouldn’t interpret it as a failure. Who knows why she said no? Who cares? Most of us will interpret it as we are undesirable and build a negative self image, which is not the reality of the situation. It could be that we didn’t do a good job on the approach or said something stupid. It could also mean that SHE is neurotic or has a bf or any number of other things.

Think about the ideal man that you would like to be. Guess what the steps you need to take to get from who you are to become that man and start taking them. Every “failure” is an opportunity to reevaluate and learn to get there faster, not a road block. Avoid giving your subconscious opportunities to record failures from which it will form negative generalizations of who you are.

 

[medaille]

So from looking at all these posts, it appears that there are 2 general ways of thinking about this. The first being that confidence is all internal and that it is isolated from what happens around you as you interact with the world. The second way says that external things can influence your confidence and that you have no control over some things, so you just have to teach yourself that they're irelevant.

Just based on past experience, I know that they are both true. I know that in the past things have happened that have resulted in me having more confidence. I also know that as of right now, I'm very confident almost all the time and that a certain amount of confidence is completely isolated from my interactions with the world.

I think that confidence comes from both sources and that the confidence you have can be from both at the same time and of varying amounts of each.

I think that the confidence that comes from within is what we should be striving to achieve since it appears to have a much stronger, lasting effect and will enhance your life more.

I think that self-confidence comes from believing that you are capable of handling all that life can throw at you. I don't mean that failure doesn't occur, but that failure won't harm you ("you" being the you that is your soul and your essence and separated from your physical body). I think that the way to achieve self-confidence is best accomplished through self-enrichment that makes you better able to react and handle problems that occur in your life.

I would say that having a good knowledge of how the world works is essential to being able to react in a calm manner. If you don't understand what is happening then it's hard to act in a manner which produces the results you desire, and thus you really are in a position of weakness which doesn't really help achieve self-confidence. I know that kind of contradicts the idea of the inner permanent confidence, but once you achieve a certain ability to cope with uncertainty then it doesn't fade with failure. As far as interacting with people, realizing that most people are probably much worse off than you are is a concept that will occur to you at some point. I think that our culture really produces weak people and that if you are one of the strong people then you are at a real source of advantage over other people. Coming to sites like this one and reading some ebooks on the subject is a way of better preparing myself to be able to interpret what the other person is most likely feeling and what they actually are as well as what I can do to influence how they feel. This increase in being able to handle these situations directly influenced the amount of permanent confidence I have just based on how often I have to interact with other people and the fact that I'm better at it.

My confidence doesn't come from the results that I have, but the fact that I know I'm well enough prepared to deal with them appropriately.

One thing that would make anyone a better person is to try to increase your ability to emphasize with people or more specifically to try to get in their shoes and understand what they are thinking and feeling. Obviously you can't just "know" these things, but if you are better equipped to handle these sorts of things, then you can read their emotions based on their facial expressions better, or understand through learning what their life is like and what makes them act the way they do. Knowing how the culture works to program people is a great step in realizing what makes people act the way they do, and helps make the connection that what they do is limited to their knowledge and ability to interact with the world. They are limited by their knowledge, just like you and I are limited by our knowledges, meaning they are exactly the same as us even if we are better equipped currently then they are.

Having a good perspective helps isolate you from what happens in the present and it helps better define who you are and what you believe in.

If you were to blindly search for self-confidence, the best way would be to improve yourself and make yourself better able to cope with the world. Even if it doesn't help directly or quickly with women, it will improve your confidence as you WILL understand that what you are worth know is much more than what you were worth in the past and you will be more powerful and worth more in the future as you keep getting a more refined knowledge of yourself and the world.



I'm not sure if my point was really distilled well here as it is pretty stream of conscience, but I'm sure it is of worth and that someone could help clarify my thoughts based on their own experiences.

-Note- One of the downfalls of our society is that it creates selfish people who compete with each other instead of acting cooperatively for mutual benefit. I think that creates an atmosphere that makes it easy to stunt our confidence and knowledge of the world and inhibits our ability to interact with each other. One of the great things about this site is that it's entirely about a large collective of people getting together and helping to broaden everyone's knowledge of the world (with a goal of course, but the result is still that we are more capable).

 

[medaille]

with respect to the intial post.

I don't look at confidence as a wall used to keep negative thoughts out, or to isolate me from negative things that happen to me.

I think confidence is shown in the realization that the negative things that happen to you aren't a reflection of you. They might be a reflection of your current ability to interact with the world, or are limited by your current amount of knowledge, but they aren't your fault if you can't control them, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't control them in your future or that you won't increase your confidence level by being able to control them in the future.

I know that's abstracted quite a bit, so if it doesn't make any sense, I'll try to explain it in a different way and we'll see how my perception of what's happening correlates and diverges from everyone elses perception of what's happening. .

 

[A-Unit]

Left brained.

Confidence is a "left-brain" term used to combat all the weird voices, assumptions, nervous twitches, and so forth we experience in day-to-day interaction.


If you were never concerned with what other people thought, with what women thought, would you need confidence as shield to prevent the slings of another's fake onslaught??


Many times we need confidence INTERNALLY to make the move, but in reality there's no PHYSICAL barrier. BUT, were all the attacks of reality to be PHYSICAL we would need CONFIDENCE. However, most people create their own prison in which they confidence to OVERRIDE their own internal demons.


Any case you cite, whether its work related, dating related, money related, sports related and so forth, is merely psychological barriers. Pushing past a certain weight @ the gym. Approaching a certain girl @ the store or the beach. Hitting a new sales goal. To get past them, does it require ANYTHING more than your acceptance of doing it and believing you can??? This is why it is said to do goals on PHYSICAL paper, because if it exists physically, there's nothing but FORCE that can prevent you from doing it. And what FORCE would prevent you from...


-approaching a girl
-hitting a new sales goal
-lifting more weight @ the gym
-making sound investments


Nothing in this physical world inhibits any human being but their own mind. Many will read that, but few will get it. The only physical being that gets in your way, really, IS YOU.


THIS is why confidence comes from WITHIN, BEcause that's where it is needed. Toward a woman...you really battle yourself. She can't know what type of guy you are unless you get out of your own way. In sales, you can't possibly know how high you can go unless you actually devise a plan AND do it.


____________________________________


The basis for this...


Having recently watched a VERY informative and helpful golf video, some conclusions were drawn based on what the teacher stated. Essentially, he made the point that the golf swing was made complex when videos were introduced to analyze the swing, around the 1920's. Before that, pro-golfers merely focused on the best "techniques" to propel a golf ball toward the target. They never focused on a PERFECT swing. That merely focused on a few KEY skills that would effectively propel the ball. AND because they did these things well, videos were made on their swings. In turn, it was "thought" the swing was the key. Make a perfect swing, hit a perfect shot. Not true. Even I've made what appeared to be a perfect swing only to make an abysmal shot.


So the reality is, many of the fundamentals we operate on in life have only been made MORE complex at the expense of our own sanity. In investing, its a constant battle to BEAT the markets, Yet Jesse Livermore did so over 100 years ago with only a ticker tape, his guts, and rumors, following a defined plan. NOW, we have mutual funds, stock screeners, magazines, newspapers, programs managers, and most investors get 2% while the market does 12%, and some investments MORE!!


Are we getting it that...most life has DIGRESSED. Not to depress people, but to say the search by man FOR more has lead to in fact less. The search for more wealth has lead to less wealth, yet more hours @ work and inflation of ridiculous real estate prices.


This applies the world over that the mind, in all its wisdom has in fact complicated life, and more guys here FVCK up because of it. You see confidence was concocted as a means to explain away and fend off NEGATIVE thoughts and feelings. Only...if you never BELIEVED those things to begin with you wouldn't NEED confidence. BECAUSE...for confidence to exist so MUST FEAR. Yes!


For you to be confident, there must be something to fear. If you don't fear public speaking, do you need confidence? I can easily speak in public, particularly presenting or at funerals, and yet, there's things I maintain fear over. I'm not 100% confident, at least until this moment I wasn't. For until you understand the mind, the ego, the bs, how the world is just something in your way, you won't rise above it.


The road to cultivating confidence is endless. THERE will always exist some endeavor which will bring fear, or uncertainty. Men for eons have known this. Yet, they moved ahead. Think of early pioneers, inventing new ideas, new machines, drilling, digging, exploring, traversing, their times were harder, more rigid, more observed than ours, yet, we're supposedly advanced??? It couldn't be easier. THEY did the hard work!!!


________________________________________


Sure open your eyes. Explore confidence. But, so long as you do, you reinforce the world of fear which must exist for confidence to rule, to exist. Yes, be confident, in that you were born for a reason. You found this site. Yet keep an open mind. A rigid mind is not confident either. It clings to the notion of MUST KNOWING because it realizes it knowns nothing. It's falsely confident. A CONFIDENT person would realize they know nothing, can never know anything, truly, as its all perception anyways, and work with situations as they arise....


A-Unit