Imagine you’re in a room with absolutely zero light… it’s pitch dark. How much light would it take to destroy the perfect dark?
Any amount of light would immediately change the entire appearance of a dark room. Even one single match would bring about HUGE change to a room. You can’t bring more “darkness” into a room to bring it back to its perfect dark state. Your only option is to remove the distraction of the light.
What does this have to do with confidence?
Well… what if confidence isn’t real?
What if confidence is simply our description for a lack of insecurities? Remove your insecurities, your worries, and your limiting beliefs and all you’re left with is a pure natural state of calm confidence.
There is an Buddhist concept that describes the mind as a mirror. They believed that this mirror reflected everything around us, but over time dust would accumulate on the mirror which would distort what was reflected. This is why many of them thought it important to always be “polishing the mirror” as an attempt to keep their minds free of vexing thoughts or negative beliefs.
I’m even going to go one step further: I’ve come to believe that we’re born innately confident. Not some “level” of confident, just simply confident; free of shame, ego, and fear.
As newborns we’re naturally confident because we haven’t yet learned pain, fear, negative consequences, or had time to become socially domesticated with insecurities. I believe that at our CORE we’re all perfectly confident.
We don’t grow up “developing confidence.” This is ridiculous. That’s like saying we grow up “learning to be alive” or “learning to grow hair.” No!
I believe we’re all intrinsically confident, shameless, and perfect.
But if we’re innately born confident, then why do so many of us suffer from a “lack of confidence?”
My answer? We don’t.
How can we lack something that’s not real?
None of us actually “lack confidence.” This is the fucked up thing. This is a misconception society has led us to believe. We all have the same level of confidence because there are NO LEVELS of it. We are ALL confident.
The problem isn’t with your levels of confidence; your problems are with your levels of insecurities. We all have dust on our mirrors…. and a few foot prints too.
The problem with insecurities is that they tend to have such a loud voice in our physical and emotional bodies that they destroy the perfect darkness and calm of our natural state of confidence. If a perfectly dark room is destroyed by the blaze of one single match then our perfectly calm natural state of confidence can be destroyed by the blaze of one single insecurity.
If you think about our natural state of calm as being perfect confidence then you can imagine how much damage a single insecurity might bring. If we in a nice quiet room enjoying the peace, and one guy comes in the room and starts talking it’s going to be very difficult to not notice him. Even if your eyes are closed and he’s only whispering he’s likely to grab our attention.
Now fill your “peace of mind” room with a hundred voices of insecurities all talking at once, each one fighting for your attention. Imagine how difficult it would be to hear and use your inner calm and peace.
Imagine what it would be like to date without insecurities?!
This leads me to think that it’s a mistake to come to a conclusion that says “I just need to develop my confidence” because then you’re basically agreeing to the idea that you have less confidence than you once did. You’re basically buying into the idea that confidence is something you can have and in certain quantities. This allows you to believe you can lose your confidence, or be without it.
Wrong. Confidence isn’t a muscle you can build, it’s not something you’re missing, and it’s not something someone else can give you or take from you. You always have it, it’s always there, and it’s never going away. The real problem is that we’re all full of insecurities that are preventing us from appreciating the power of our intrinsic state of calm and confidence.
I’m telling you that we all already have a pure perfect confidence, but that we’re not connecting with it because we’re being distracted by our monkey minds.
Our job as men is to realize this truth while learning to remove the voices that are destroying our calm. Our goal isn’t to build confidence, because we already have it. Our goal is to remove the negative disempowering voices that distract us, and regain the control of our attention despite these voices.
Remember the old saying “You get more of what you focus on?”
What you think about gains your attention. What gains your attention gains influence over you. It’s time to be aware how you’re allowing yourself to be influenced. Go out and date beautiful women!
Remember when you bought your first car? I’m hoping it was a Honda Accord. Then for the next month all you noticed on the streets were other Honda Accords? This isn’t because everyone in your town is a slave to your preferences, it’s because your mind was on your new car, and your attention was suddenly attuned to everything Honda Accord.
I just went through this same process because while writing my own book I’ve grown a beard. I happen to hate the idea of wearing a beard, just like I hate mustachios. And so to keep myself on track, by writing more and more each night, I decided not to shave. This helped me to grow the most magnificent beard ever. I had two assumptions: the first was that women would avoid me because my beard was unkempt with nasty white hairs and secondly I thought I’d stand out more because nobody wears beards except the homeless.
Two things have happened. The first thing I’ve noticed is that I can still attract women using the same skills sets as when I didn’t have the beard. I truly didn’t expect this. My first night in the clubs with this ridiculous thing I ended up kissing two different girls (who are best friends.) The second thing was that all I see now are beards, on every other guy. Either this is a huge coincidence, or my attention has been drawn to beards simply because it’s on my mind.
If you focus is upon having more confidence (which isn’t real) then you’re wasting time and energy on an impossible outcome.
Always express BOLD confidence!
Instead I’m proposing these suggestions:
1) Stop resisting your insecurities (this empowers them), but don’t identify with them either (doing so integrates them into your identity.)
2) Insecurities are like dirt on your mirror. If you’re filtering your reality through dirt then all you’re gonna see in life is dirt. Address the insecurity and remove it. This is polishing your mirror.
3) Identify with your intrinsic endless confidence, and appreciate it.
As soon as we stop trying to “build our confidence” or “grow a pair” maybe we can start to notice the calm quiet wisdom of our own minds that is often overshadowed by the dramatic screaming of our insecurities.
~ Robby
Robert Belland gives further advice at his Dating Advice Blog.