This is an advice I head on a TV show from a psychologist. It's not about dating specifically but about confidence in general. Although I think it can apply to dating since there are many parts that involve confidence in dating as well as insecurities that people may have. Whether it's insecurities of not being likeable enough, not being fun enough, not being funny, not knowing how to make a pleasant converastion, not being a pleasnt person in general, etc.
First of all, he spoke out against 'positive psychology'.
You can tell yourself "I'm confident, I'm confident, I'm confident, I'm confident, I'm confident", you won't be.
You can even tell yourself "Let's do something fun, I know I will go there and it will be fun" which may help a bit but it's not long-term sustainable.
So without further ado, here is the nature of confidence & fear. And the key thing is that - trying to control it or protect yourself from bad outcomes leads to less confidence and more fear.
Where does confidence comes from? Think of something that you're confident about, let's say for the sake of the argument: driving and cooking.
Now, think of something that you are not confident about. You have low confidence, that leads to fear such as OCD, and that leads to controlling things. OCD - as in, you try to control everything to avoid the source of your fear, to avoid having your fear made manifest. Let's say for the sake of the argument that your fears are: the way you look and giving a public speech.
So those things give you high fear. Then, in order to reduce the fear, what you do is you exert control. So you have low confidence -> fear -> control.
This is how you exert control over your fears:
The way you look -> wear a hat and many other accessories to cover your face.
Giving a public speech -> pre-writing the speech and repeating it in the mirror.
While proper preparation prevents poor performance, so pre-writing the speech and repeating it in the mirror is adviseable, what you are basically doing is exert control. Exert control over your enviroment to avoid the fear. So then because you exert control, what happens is that your fear goes down.
So you temporarily got rid of the fear because you exerted control. So you have controls over all of those things, and this (wear a hat and many other accessories to cover your face) results in getting a compliment about your looks or having a good public speech. Because you used a controller you got a good result.
Does that lead to increase in confidence? or decrease in confidence?
Decrease.
It should lead to an increase, because you did good, you excercised control over your fear by taking precautions and now you've had a compliment about your looks or a good public speech, so what happened? why didn't this actually lead to an increase in confidence? this is what we think it's going to happen. But, once you take control your fear and take precatuions about it and are successful with it, it will only make you more nervous that the next one won't be as good as the last one.
Kind of weird isn't it? Yes, you did good, but you prepared a lot for it. And now you are afraid that you will fail if you don't prepare a lot for it, again. It didn't lead to an increase in confidence but a decrease. Now you need even more preparation for that good result.
This is important to understand: we think that confidence comes from successes. But the truth is that somehow, this decreases your confidence. Especially if you've made preparations for it.
If we look at the whole nature of the confidence and fear, we find: low confidence -> fear -> control -> good result -> decrease in confidence.
This is why you're screwed, it's weird.
By the way. Confidence = worth. So if you want to check your confidence level, you might as well ask yourself: what are you worth? Self-worth = confidence.
What are you worth when you're a top doctor in a hospital? a lot. What are you worth when you lose that job? zero. And that's another issue altogether: your worth as a human being is not intristic, it's not interal. It's based on external factors, and as long as that's true in your belief system.
As long as your worth is determined by external things, that's the very definition of lack of confidence. Because confidence is about worth that comes from within.
First of all, he spoke out against 'positive psychology'.
You can tell yourself "I'm confident, I'm confident, I'm confident, I'm confident, I'm confident", you won't be.
You can even tell yourself "Let's do something fun, I know I will go there and it will be fun" which may help a bit but it's not long-term sustainable.
So without further ado, here is the nature of confidence & fear. And the key thing is that - trying to control it or protect yourself from bad outcomes leads to less confidence and more fear.
Where does confidence comes from? Think of something that you're confident about, let's say for the sake of the argument: driving and cooking.
Now, think of something that you are not confident about. You have low confidence, that leads to fear such as OCD, and that leads to controlling things. OCD - as in, you try to control everything to avoid the source of your fear, to avoid having your fear made manifest. Let's say for the sake of the argument that your fears are: the way you look and giving a public speech.
So those things give you high fear. Then, in order to reduce the fear, what you do is you exert control. So you have low confidence -> fear -> control.
This is how you exert control over your fears:
The way you look -> wear a hat and many other accessories to cover your face.
Giving a public speech -> pre-writing the speech and repeating it in the mirror.
While proper preparation prevents poor performance, so pre-writing the speech and repeating it in the mirror is adviseable, what you are basically doing is exert control. Exert control over your enviroment to avoid the fear. So then because you exert control, what happens is that your fear goes down.
So you temporarily got rid of the fear because you exerted control. So you have controls over all of those things, and this (wear a hat and many other accessories to cover your face) results in getting a compliment about your looks or having a good public speech. Because you used a controller you got a good result.
Does that lead to increase in confidence? or decrease in confidence?
Decrease.
It should lead to an increase, because you did good, you excercised control over your fear by taking precautions and now you've had a compliment about your looks or a good public speech, so what happened? why didn't this actually lead to an increase in confidence? this is what we think it's going to happen. But, once you take control your fear and take precatuions about it and are successful with it, it will only make you more nervous that the next one won't be as good as the last one.
Kind of weird isn't it? Yes, you did good, but you prepared a lot for it. And now you are afraid that you will fail if you don't prepare a lot for it, again. It didn't lead to an increase in confidence but a decrease. Now you need even more preparation for that good result.
This is important to understand: we think that confidence comes from successes. But the truth is that somehow, this decreases your confidence. Especially if you've made preparations for it.
If we look at the whole nature of the confidence and fear, we find: low confidence -> fear -> control -> good result -> decrease in confidence.
- And the decrease in confidence leads to even more to low confidence.
- And then fear increases.
- And when your fears increases, you control things more.
- And so your control increases. Your control or preparation for the events increases.
- And then you have another good result, and then your confidence decreases.
This is why you're screwed, it's weird.
By the way. Confidence = worth. So if you want to check your confidence level, you might as well ask yourself: what are you worth? Self-worth = confidence.
What are you worth when you're a top doctor in a hospital? a lot. What are you worth when you lose that job? zero. And that's another issue altogether: your worth as a human being is not intristic, it's not interal. It's based on external factors, and as long as that's true in your belief system.
As long as your worth is determined by external things, that's the very definition of lack of confidence. Because confidence is about worth that comes from within.