You will hear me say this over and over but it’s worth repeating, YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS. Identifying with your mind and listening to your thoughts will cause a large amount of anxiety, depression and an overall lack of confidence.
Most people believe that they are their thoughts but this is far from the truth. Spend an hour, day, even a week just observing your thoughts. After a week you will notice two things:
1. The mind is mostly fear based and thus not very useful
2. The voice continues without your conscious effort-it runs on it’s own.
When you actually listen to your thoughts and identify with them many neurotic and unhealthy beliefs will start to form. Your mind tells you that you have been wronged by someone and anger ensues. Your thoughts wish harm upon that person and now you feel guilty for thinking that.
Guilt, anger, shame, doubt and INSECURITY are all products of the mind and prevent you from being more confident. How many times have you been around women only to have your mind blow it for you? I’m guessing plenty because it has happened to me more times than I care to remember.
If your interaction is going well with women then your mind will get overly paranoid about screwing it up. “You’re doing good, now don’t mess this up. Oh God, she didn’t laugh at my joke now she’s no longer attracted to me, Damn it.” Or if the interaction isn’t going well you will have the same type of thoughts. No matter what you do you just can’t win when you listen to your mind.
For the most part emotions stem from your mind, how it reacts and it’s beliefs. How calm or how nervous you are at any given time depends on how much you listen to the thoughts your mind produces. The more you listen to your mind the more nervous you will become because your mind is extremely negative and overly paranoid. If you learn to get out of your mind your emotions will become a gentle pool instead of a typhoon crashing down on a small village.
People love to drink because it allows them to escape and enter a state of non thinking. In this state their minds are no longer producing fears that cause them to ruin most of their interactions with women. With their mind on the sidelines people are no longer inhibited and can do what they truly want to do.
Learning to enter a state of non thinking while being sober is the best gift that you can give to yourself. More on how to escape your insecure thoughts and develop more confidence will e explained in part three of this series on How to Be More Confident.
In addition that article I recommend picking up Eckhart Tolle’s book ‘The Power of Now.’ This book has been a great help to my success with women. It has been at the core of my own personal self development.
Echkart Tolle: The Power of Now
The biggest obstacle to confidence that the mind creates is self loathing. While it’s important to ignore that little voice that causes so much damage you need to also be consciously creating good beliefs about yourself.
I don’t suggest creating outrageous beliefs that are not even close to being based on reality. An example of this is the affirmation “All women want me and are attracted to me”-that will never be true no matter how hard you try.
Good Beliefs to Instill
The problem with affirmations is that the mind will constantly try and convince you of the opposite. You will say something positive and the mind will argue the negative. Try your hardest but the mind will not relent on it’s position:
Me: “I’m awesome”
Mind: “No you’re not”
Me: “Women love me”
Mind: “Really? You’re wrong about that buddy, women hate you. What about that girl last week who looked at you in disgust when you asked her how she was doing? Forgot about that didn’t you, loser”
Trying to convince yourself of affirmations that aren’t based on reality can be very time consuming and ultimately futile. A better approach to gaining confidence through developing beliefs is to go with affirmations that are based in truth. Here are two affirmations that are based in truth and will get you very far:
“I am enough”
“I love and accept myself the way I am”
I am enough means that you are complete just the way you are. Women, money, fame won’t make you feel more complete and content because you possess those things already inside of yourself. You can lose everything, family, friends, jobs and you will still survive because you are enough already.
“I am enough” is the opposite of neediness. You won’t need anything else because you are enough and complete already-everything else is just an added bonus. Whenever you are needy you are losing sight of the fact that you are enough.
You were born feeling like you were enough but have learned how to be insecure, self conscious and feeling like you aren’t enough over time. Take any baby or toddler and you will see how well they hold the affirmation “I am enough.” They don’t try and get people to like them. They don’t try to be accepted by others because they accept themselves the way they are. They are only concerned with getting their diapers changed and finding a breast to suck on.
Start to pay attention to the times that you are insecure, needy and self conscious. Whenever those moments occur take a deep breath and repeat the affirmation “I am enough” over and over. Notice how those feelings subside if not disappear altogether.
“I love and accept myself the way I am” means to accept yourself, warts and all. In order to accept yourself the way you are you must first be honest. If you refuse to acknowledge the darker and not so nice parts of yourself then you will never learn to love yourself unconditionally.
In order to learn how to love yourself check out my post on the subject here: How to Love Yourself
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Stumble It!
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Great post!
I have been learning this recently myslef. Very very ture and scary at first. But stillness is a great thing within all of us and well worth the effort to do it and push beyond the fear of the mind.
I like this I am enough affirmation. Makes me feel good.
Thanks Alex
This was a great article to read. I have been so focused on other aspects of my life, that my mind’s “frustrated little voice” has been peeping in all over again. Lol its like all the inner game work for the last few years sorta went out the drain.
But reading this article reminded me where I was at.
Hey man great read!
Thanks for reminding me that I am not my mind!