Stop doing these eleven things if you want more confidence today

My best teacher in life was deep despair.

My anxiety showed me the light.

My insecurity pointed me further along.

My lessons come from pain.

That’s why I look back on my troubles with a kind of acceptance and grace.

Here are 11 things I learned to reduce or chop to enjoy the true sense of confidence I always had — often hidden:

1. Resisting reality.

This is a hard one because it almost feels built into us as humans.

We see something we don’t like, judge it, and resist it. Judging something as not good is good.

Otherwise, we can’t do what’s right. But to continue resisting reality only blocks your ability to do anything about anything.

And that’s why your confidence can’t emerge.

2. Spending too much time off purpose.

Take breaks, refresh. Yes.

But stop pissing around off purpose for more than a few hours each day. This happens when you forget your primary purpose. And that’s ok, you need to find it again.

Purpose can be as simple as:

What am I committed to creating within the next 90 days that the world NEEDS? That’s a fantastic purpose. Decide.

Now do more that moves you along, and stop allowing yourself to be distracted away from this purpose.

3. Complaining.

Sporadic moans are ok because they can be cathartic.

The difference is when you get into the habit of continually moaning throughout the day.

All this does is emphasise the reality that life is crappy.

4. Filling your body with garbage.

I know. It’s tough.

Junk is so tasty, so quick, and so easy.

But what helped me say no more often, so that my body wasn’t thrown into disarray, was realising that it was possible to feel AS good from resisting temptation as it was from succumbing TO temptation.

This applies to all bad habits that diminish your self-respect.

Don’t go there.

5. Self-censoring.

We hold ourselves back from truly expressing ourselves because we don’t want to offend others, and — ultimately — we don’t like to invite criticism.

We do this because we feel we have a SELF that needs protecting.

Bullshit of the millennia.

You don’t. Only skin, organs and bones.

You’re nothing.

And everything.

(At the level of universal stardust).

Being ok with making mistakes will take the pressure off you and allow you to relax into your most confident self. That’s what we all need.

And worrying about looking bad fucks that up royally.

What to do?

Operate from calm. You must calm down.

That’s when the real YOU wisdom comes through. That’s when you’ll be delivered with the right stuff from the right place.

The place of love.

6. Comparing yourself to others.

We’re all on our own path, with our own fantastically unique array of issues to contend with.

Marshall isn’t you. Neither is Miranda.

They have different minds, different environments, different mentors, different trajectories entirely. All you can now do, given this truth, is be inspired by them.

Or simply get your ass back to work and make it work for you.

7. Spreading yourself thin.

Confidence is about knowing you can contribute in a way few can.

That’s purpose.

And purpose stems from two things: knowing what you’re naturally good at and knowing what to focus on mastering.

This means doing more with less.

Yes, do many things to experiment and gather skills, but there’s a time to narrow down and decide.

8. Buying into self-critical thoughts.

People who struggle with insecurity aren’t responding to their environment.

They are living the reality of their painful thoughts.

No one knows you, so what others say and think can’t possibly be relevant.

Beyond that, you have your thoughts, and thoughts are illusions. You have a choice:

Believe them, or live.

9. Being a whiny little bitch

Don’t take this the wrong way.

I’m using language I know will draw your attention — because this is important.

It needs to be jarring.

So sue me.

You simply must stop positioning yourself as the poor widdle victim.

You’re not a freaking seven year old.

Grow up.

It’s for your own good.

You know you needed to hear that.

Suddenly you realise it’s all you.

You’re responsible. For everything.

Not the government or some faceless fucker in a suit.

It’s you.

But here is where real confidence is born.

10. Seeking external approval.

I get it.

It feels super nice when someone comes along and says:

‘Hey man, I just wanted to say you’re doing a great job; I’m inspired.’

Good.

Do more to attract more such comments.

But here’s the issue.

When your personal happiness RELIES on approval from others like this.

Now you’re stuck. Because as soon as someone comes along with a harsh comment, you have no foundation. You’re a leaf in the wind.

Require zero approval from anyone.

11. Seeking life balance.

Sorry, but life balance only exists as a theory in a book somewhere.

Life is chaos.

And the best things in life come from directing lots of imbalanced focus into something specific at the temporary expense of a handful of other things.

Then you return to that other neglected thing and realise how much you missed it. That’s life.

Confidence comes from creating remarkable things, which — in turn — need an out-of-balance level of attention.

Want to be the envy of your local area?

Then locate your nuts. They are there.

I was never particularly confident until my late twenties. Things changed noticeably for me then. I learned ‘confidence’ is more to do with finding your natural self-respect than anything else.

When I learned to move past my insecure thoughts and carve a healthy and confident self-identity, real, genuine satisfaction poured into my life. It was weird, but made sense.

Learn the 25 little daily habits I use that reinforce a powerful identity of self-respect in achievable daily steps.

My book shows you how (comes with 3 awesome bonuses):

Get the Art of Self Respect book bundle here.

“One of the best self-help books I’ve read in a long time. Alex exposes, in a clear and concise manner, the behaviors we should study, practice, and adopt to develop better self-respect. This, in turn, leads to earning respect from others.” - Jean Pierre

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