So how do I shake this view of myself?

[Jokerlsk]

I've been having a really hard time lately with the label people put on me. I have always been viewed as a funny guy, and no one ever takes me seriously. Not even my friends. I have to actually make it clear with MY FRIENDS that I'm being serious. The thing is, is that all of my friends are the same way, but they don't get judged the way I do. I think it's because I use jokes and comedy as a barrier. I'm afraid of commitment. Does this really reflect through my personality? I'm trying hard guys. I've been doing a lot better in school, and I'm finally living up to my potential, or that's what my teachers say. I'm not going to lie, but I'm really smart. My gpa doesn't reflect it, but everyone who knows me understands that I am one of the smartest kids in my grade. It's just that I had an epiphany last year, and well, I don't want to be the "funny" kid anymore. I want to be the real me. I don't want to be boxed in because I'm afraid of who I really am. I don't want to be afraid of myself. So this year I haven't been as funny, and people even tell me this. My friends have told me this, but I honestly don't give a damn. I want to be taken seriously. These methods still don't work though. There is a senior that people constantly compare me too, and it gets really old. I don't want to be compared to someone I'm nothing alike. On the inside that is. My sister tells me I should take it as a compliment because the guy is "hot" according to her and every other girl, but it really isn't that simple. People say that I'm exactly like him. I look like him, we have the same kind of friends, and we're both "funny" guys. He gets girls though. I don't. I don't get taken seriously. I get the LJBF crap. What separates me from this guy? I want to be an individualist. I want to be my own damn man. I'm always viewed as the harmless, funny, nice guy. I'll give people that much. I am nice and funny, and I wouldn't hurt someone intentionally. I just hate this so much. I'm either too much of a jerk, or I'm too much of a nice guy. There's this girl in first period that I really like. I flirt with her a lot, but she probably views me the same way every one else does....... Is there anyway I can actually get rid of these views?

 

[SinJester]

Well the problem with people is that they like to put you in a nice cosy box and they don't like it when you act outside of it because it puts them out of their comfort zones. So instead of seeing you as serious they just frame it inside that little box they have for you. This also affects us in that when we are around people we try and live up to the little box they have to us, unless we are conciously directing outselves in a different way.

Over the years I've seen lots of people with that same complaint "I'm never taken seriously". I never really got that. Why would you want to be so serious anyway? I would just want to have fun. Is the problem really just about girls? I'm asking you because I don't know. I wouldn't worry about that other guy, it's probably a good thing if girls thing he is hot. It's in human nature to compare people.

You can change other peoples opinion of you by acting different, and you can act different by changing your imagine of yourself. Imagine the person you want to be and everday try to act a little more like that version of yourself. It seems simple but visulisation and affirmations really work.

 

[Jokerlsk]

Okay well wouldn't you want to be taken seriously with girls? Everything I say has a reply with something along the lines of "yeah right." Meaning that I can't think that way because that's not the way they view me.
Okay so what did you mean by the last line?
Act like someone I want to be until I become that person?

 

[Dedication]

Could you give me an example? I mean to funny would be funny. But maybe its somthing else thats the cause.

 

[Jokerlsk]

There's this thing that occurs when I'm near a girl that I like. I feel like I have to impress her and make her laugh. I'm so bad at this, but at least I try.
If I'm being honest. At my school you're either a jock, popular, a cool kid, Goth, or a nerd. It's just that I'm pretty much the leader of the nerds. I'm not a nerd myself, but I stick up for them because I'm friends with some of them. I'm the only alpha in that group of friends, and my other friends look down on me for standing up to them. I'm not a follower. I march to my own drum. I will not sit and watch one of my friends torture a kid he doesn't even know. It pisses me off, and I don't know why. Is it wrong to stick up for your friends? Even the ones that aren't as high up on the social ladder?

 

[SmellyOrc]

Is it wrong to stick up for your friends? Even the ones that aren't as high up on the social ladder?

Seriously, if you have to ask yourself that, something is wrong with YOU.

 

[FirstInstinct]

Never, EVER stray from your core belief system (unless you adapt [or make changes to your existing one] a new one which you absolutely, wholly, 100% unanimously believe in).

Start standing up for yourself and what you believe in. Speak out. Don't let yourself get pushed around for being different from the others - you are a Don Juan, you don't need to conform to society's image of what you should be, should believe in, and should do. Once you start voicing yourself with the utmost confidence - you need to 100% believe what you talk to others about, at all times - you will find people will start to gather around you in awe of your charisma.

Know that shaking your image off will be a gradual change that will require sacrifice and hard work on your part. I myself am still on the journey of changing my reputation and my own view of myself, and I seem to have hit a plateau. But we all gotta keep moving somehow. First you need to think about what is giving you the reputation you have now and how to change that, whether it be a personality change, a fashion change, etc. But before making a change, ask yourself this question:

"Am I making this change to genuinely reflect my inner Don Juan and my true personality, or simply to appease the masses?"

Think about how all the new trends in mainstream fashion are set. Are they set by a conformist who wears the same outfits everyone else does? No! They are set by a visionary, with a new revolutionary way of thinking. With utmost confidence in his new design, he presents his new clothing line to the world, shining with confidence and charisma. He need not care what other people think, for he is being true to himself and he knows that that is all that matters. Other people are stunned by his new wardrobe, and follow suit, amazed by his immovable charisma. This is how we progress. Somewhere, among the masses, lies one visionary, who thinks differently from the rest and decides to free himself from the monotonous shackles of conformity and the media's image of "the ideal man". This person, who is, again, confident in himself, presents an idea, which truly reflects his own personal beliefs and opinions and the world molds itself to accommodate his new way of thinking.

 

[Jokerlsk]

The thing is that I've always been a non-conformist. I've always strayed away from what others do. I've never isolated myself, but i always have made my decisions based on what I want to do. I'm a deep thinker, and I hate to admit this but I'm a great poet/song writer. That's what I'm best at. The thing is that no one knows the true me because I don't let people inside my head. I don't let people read me like a book. I've always stood up for what I believe. That's what my dad has always taught me to do. That's what I've always done. I just feel like no one knows the inner me. That no one knows who I really am. I'm just another person to people, and I want to be viewed as I really am.
I have charisma, and kids look up to me. They just aren't looking up to the real me.
I'm a good public speaker. I'm not afraid of generic stuff. I think I'm really afraid of getting to know someone on a personal level. I guess I'm afraid of rejection. It's just so ironic because people look up to me because I'm confident. I know how to fake confidence. Some of my friends want to be the way they think I really am. I want to cease my phobia. I don't want to be afraid of rejection anymore. I don't want to make a joke of myself anymore. I want to show the world who I really am. I just wish I knew how to do this.

 

[FirstInstinct]

The thing is that I've always been a non-conformist. I've always strayed away from what others do. I've never isolated myself, but i always have made my decisions based on what I want to do. I'm a deep thinker, and I hate to admit this but I'm a great poet/song writer. That's what I'm best at. The thing is that no one knows the true me because I don't let people inside my head. I don't let people read me like a book. I've always stood up for what I believe. That's what my dad has always taught me to do. That's what I've always done. I just feel like no one knows the inner me. That no one knows who I really am. I'm just another person to people, and I want to be viewed as I really am.
I have charisma, and kids look up to me. They just aren't looking up to the real me.
I'm a good public speaker. I'm not afraid of generic stuff. I think I'm really afraid of getting to know someone on a personal level. I guess I'm afraid of rejection. It's just so ironic because people look up to me because I'm confident. I know how to fake confidence. Some of my friends want to be the way they think I really am. I want to cease my phobia. I don't want to be afraid of rejection anymore. I don't want to make a joke of myself anymore. I want to show the world who I really am. I just wish I knew how to do this.

You'll notice I've bolded certain passages and italicized one other.

First off, the bold:

Do the bold passages not seem to bear some relation to one another? You don't let other people acknowledge and see the real you. This is the grand pitfall of modern society. People are afraid to voice themselves and their unique opinions regardless of how revolutionary their views may be. They are afraid of rejection (as you address later in the post), or criticism for not conforming to what the media has set forth as the ideal image. It's one thing to stray from the flock and think differently than others; but it's a much larger thing to have the balls and the courage to actually voice your opinion and let yourself be heard. You say you're a great poet/song writer. Why be ashamed of this? Why hate to say it? This is a good talent. As a writer, do you publish unique, stunning works that you never intend to release to the public? No! As a writer, your purpose is to convert thought to thing; to put pen to paper and let yourself be heard. This is just like real life. You need to let yourself be heard. Thinking is only half, or maybe even a third of the journey. The other fraction lies in putting those ideas into motion.

And on to the italicized passage, wherein lies your problem:

I think I'm really afraid of getting to know someone on a personal level. I guess I'm afraid of rejection.

Here is what you need to address. You can't be afraid of rejection. Pook and Mr. Fingers, both brilliant masterminds of this forum (who put their ideas into motion by sharing their knoweldge with us) have both said, that you need to fail to learn, that failure is a NECESSITY. You cannot avoid failure. Remember this. No matter how far you try to run from failure it'll catch up you you at some point and bite you in the ass. You need to acknowledge its existence as a necessary evil. Although we all don't like failure, we need it to learn. When we fail, our brain takes in the experience as feedback on what it should do and shouldn't do in the future. This is how we progress, make discoveries, and evolve. When we fail, we learn to succeed. Just like Aerosmith said in one of their songs:

"You got to lose to know how to win."

Mr. Fingers also says that failure is not necessarily a bad thing, which he illustrates with the following story:

An old man and his son worked a small farm, with only one horse to pull the plow. One day the horse ran away.
"How terrible," sympathized the neighbors. "What bad luck!"
"Who knows whether it is bad or good luck" replied the farmer.
A week later, the horse returned from the mountains, leading five wild mares into the barn.
"What wonderful luck!" said the neighbors.
"Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?" answered the old man.
The next day the son, trying to tame one of the horses, fell and broke his leg.
"How horrible. What bad luck!"
"Bad luck? Good luck?"
The army came to all the farms to take young men for war, but the farmer's son was of no use to them, so he was spared.
"Good? Bad?"

Once you have handled and silenced your fear of rejection and failure you need to now learn how to open yourself up to others. You need to live in the MOMENT - don't focus on the past and what went wrong, nor focus on the future and whether or not tomorrow that hot chick in your english will talk to you or not. Live in the NOW and connect with whoever or whatever surrounds you. Realize where you are exactly, who you are, who that hot chick you're talking to right now is. See the details on her face, the colour of her eyes, her smile, as you talk to her. Breathe deeply and open yourself up. I read an exercise which takes only a few seconds on another forum and it works WONDERS. Imagine a trench running down the centre of your body, from your forehead to your manhood. Breathe and force air into this trench, and split it open, allowing yourself to open up and not be afraid of anything. Accept the current moment, the current situation. Really visualize this trench and not just see, but FEEL, genuinely FEEL it. Once you have opened up, empathize and put yourself in her shoes, in her situation. For a fleeting moment, travel to her world and, like souvenirs from a trip to Europe, bring back, to your reality, all the emotions she is experiencing right NOW. Synchronize with her. Now that you have an idea of the situation she's in, you find it so much easier to converse until, lost in the moment, where you stop THINKING, you suddenly feel a CLICK and understand that you two have just connected on a deeper level.

Realize that the NOW is the ONLY thing that exists. We only understand that there is a past due to our brain being able to recall events that DID exist. Realize that you are not your past. Who you are, or rather, THINK you are is merely a result of all the events in your past that have shaped and defined this image that your brain calls "you". You can start change, in the blink of an eye, by realizing that you are not your past experiences and that a shoe is no more itself than the footprint it leaves behind (thank you squirrels for this brilliant quote).

I hope this helped; this is a conglomeration of a few of the core mindsets which have really helped me along this journey to becoming a Don Juan.

If you want you can read up on where I mainly pulled these concepts from:

Authentic Confidence by Mr. Fingers
Why "Be Yourself" is the best advice in the world... and why no one gets it by squirrels
Let yourself fail! by Pook

Credit to these three DJs for giving us all such great insight.

 

[Jokerlsk]

Thanks a lot man. This is really helpful
Do you have any tips as to where I can start with my fear of rejection.
I know I can't immediately conquer this, but I would like to know some methods on how to get rid of this

 

[FirstInstinct]

There is no way to combat rejection or fear without action.

All these philosophies, mind games, NLP, doesn't actually completely get rid of fear. In fact, NOTHING does. Fear always stays with us. Courage is not lack of fear, but rather acting regardless and charging fear head on. We have to learn to deal with it.

Go out there and open yourself up, show the world your true inner DJ. Don't be afraid, have confidence in your words 100%. If you fall short of that 100 by even 5%, your words will sound awkward and false and no one will take you seriously. Commit to this goal, commit to showing everyone else your inner DJ. Go talk to that hot girl you've been thinking about or w/e. Even a simple "hi" will work - just BELIEVE that you are worthy. She is just as human as you are and therefore just as capable of conversation with others. Don't ever, EVER doubt yourself during the conversation. Again, believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are worthy, and infact, that you are above her and that you are the prize. If you don't believe, you will start to close up, hiding your inner DJ, and you will find it harder to connect and empathize with another. The conversation will start to be riddled with awkward pauses. BELIEVE that you are the prize. When you see her again, I don't care what you're thinking - use the 3-second rule by Mystery. This keeps you from thinking whether she likes you or not or other stupid bull**** like that.

Get out there, and EXPECT results.

 

[Jokerlsk]

It's just that when I talk to a girl that I'm interested in, I tend to neg them ALOT. The girl I'm interested in atm likes it when I neg her, and she negs me back, but I feel like I take it too far sometimes. I don't ever offend her, and she calls me names back. It's all in good fun though.