I sit here and think about every single way in which I developed a new relationship, learned something new, or just opened up doors to new opportunity.
It all comes back to confidence.
let’s change the perspective in which we look at the word confidence. Lets purely look at it as a skill. Something that can be improved up. This has me thinking back to my gamming days when I played “Runescape;” the hours I spent trying to grow my skill level in fishing, wood cutting, mining, etc. The game taught us that we had to put in the work to evolve and develop these skill sets that opened up more doors as we reached higher and higher levels.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. We aren’t all nature born confidence creatures. Lets look at it in the same way that I used to look at skill sets with Runescape:
What can we do to level up our confidence skill set?
Eye contact and posture: How often do you walk around in walmart, chipotle, and the gas station and all you see is people hunched over staring at the ground while they go on with their business? lets look at this from a primal standpoint: This would designate a submissive posture. A weaker posture that immediately displays lack of confidence, power, or ability compared to another animal. Maybe the motive from that indiviaul is to display the appearance that shows “hey, i don’t want to be approached, nor do I want to engage in any type of interaction.” Now, that is simply fine. But this whole post is about confidence and how we can become better at that skill.
Even as much as I practice the skill of upright posture, and good eye contact, it is still hard at times. There are days where I feel less confident. Days where I feel a part of me wanting to avoid people and simple needing alone time. THIS IS OKAY. The habits we have a majority of the time are going to dictate what results we are obtaining. I’ve noticed the times in which my confidence improves are the times where I push myself to practice eye contact and upright posture, EVEN WHEN I DONT FEEL LIKE DOING SO.
Key word: FEELING. How often are you letting present moment feelings dictate how you’re showing up to the table?
Plan of action: I will literally self talk myself before going into situations. I will sit in my car and go, “be yourself, be confident, and keep your damn head up.
Nothing remarkable ever happened to the person with their head down face deep into their cell phone. Well except maybe getting hit by a car or throwing yourself right into the face of danger because of the lack of awareness of what is right in front of you. But hye, that’s no big deal right.
It sounds so simple. But the question is: look at your past 7 days. How often did you keep your head up when walking in public? How often did you maintain eye contact when you had a conversation with someone?
The final piece to the equation to improve the confidence skill: Ask questions
If you haven’t figured this out by now, people LOVE to talk about themselves. People want to be heard. People want to be seen. Validation is important. When meeting someone new, practicing question asking and validation goes a long way. I’ve witnessed this heavily in my 10 years of business experience.
Keep it simple:
Head up. Eye contact. Ask questions.
Very manageable. it will get easier over time.
THE_HUMAN_EXPERIMENT1993 