Dating Tips and Advice 18: The Hidden Key to Confidence
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Hidden Key to Confidence ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Confidence is one of those qualities that we tend to find very attractive in other people and which makes us attractive to others. In fact a lot of dating advice I have seen suggests that it is one of the most attractive qualities we can develop.
As regular readers know, I am greatly in favor of developing dating and relating skills by practicing them on people we already know - and are somewhat comfortable with.
For example, when I want to get better at giving compliments I practice on friends and relatives. That gives me better skills, which I can then use when I feel really attracted to someone. As an added bonus, it also gives me a better relationship with my friends and relatives!
If I get into the habit of complimenting people I know on, say, their dress sense (or whatever) then I will build up and strengthen those social muscles. That way my 'compliment muscles' will become well developed. They will then be far less likely to go weak on me when I want to give a killer compliment to someone whom I go all gah gah over.
Developing relationship skills such as skills in giving compliments can really help in developing confidence. However, there is a hidden key to confidence that is not discussed so much. It has to do with our level of self worth.
If we get low in self worth then we will tend to not take advantage of the skills and opportunities we have to relate to others. Lack of self worth tends to make us want to hide.
You may notice that lack of self worth looks a lot like fear. It shows itself in things like holding back, avoiding others, not going out, not connecting to other people, missed opportunities and so on.
Although lack of self worth looks like fear it is very different and needs to be handled very differently. If we assume that we are acting in a fearful way we may try and push or cajole ourselves out of it.
However, if it really low self worth that is the problem that will make it worse - for pushing ourselves is not likely to work and that just give us more reasons to be down on ourselves. Being hard on ourselves, because of the opportunities we missed out of low self worth, just leads to even lower self worth till it becomes a self-defeating loop.
It can get to the point where with one part of us constantly feeling low and the other part constantly trying to bully us into dong things we don't feel up to being able to handle. Low self worth is about lack of kindness towards ourselves it is not about lack of will power.
The only way I have found out of low self worth is to make a point of treating myself really well for a while. Of course, it is very nice if other people do it too. However, it works much better if I notice the times when my self worth gets low and deliberately do something about it.
What type of relationship would you have with someone who virtually never had a kind word to say to you? What kind of relationship would you have with someone who hardly ever did anything fun with you? Yet, that is the kind of relationship we may have drifted into having with ourselves and it makes our self worth drop really low.
When we do give ourselves treats they are often junky, or false, treats. Many of us learned as kids that the way to deal with being upset is to stuff something sweet in our mouths. You know how it goes. Parent is busy. Child gets upset. Parent gives child a sweet to quiet it down. Sometimes that is exactly what the kid really wants, but not always.
This sets us up to be in the habit of giving ourselves those kind of false treats. A false treat is something that bears no relation to what is needing treat-ment.
We grow up into adults who think that any time we are upset we need to stuff something into our mouths. We probably really need to let something out of our mouths rather than stuffing more in!
Sure eat chocolate if you want, that is not the issue. (But notice if you feel bad the next day if you overdo it - maybe headache, or dull feeling, or even feeling really sick. I call it a Chocolate Hangover!). The issue is to discover what being kind to yourself means to you. And, taking time to patiently find out - making the effort is in itself is an act of kindness to yourself.
If your self worth has got low maybe you could ask yourself what you really need. I suggest not settling for a knee-jerk answer of the 'I need a man/woman' kind. If that is really your answer then maybe ask yourself how you want them to relate to you - and then relate to yourself that way till you get the external relationship you want.
At times when our self worth gets low it is also good to notice whether we have become a bit overly self-critical and have heavy or negative opinions about ourselves. These usually take the form of 'I am too _____(whatever)'. If that is the case you may want to notice that self-blame and self-condemnation makes things worse, not better.
Self-condemnation is very different from remorse. If we have made a mistake and done something bad (or not doing something we feel we ought to be doing) remorse can lead us to making amends by taking some kind of action. Self-condemnation just goes round and round in a useless loop.
Feeling some remorse for how badly we have treated ourselves can be good if it helps us take positive steps instead. It can help motivate us to learn new ways to treat ourselves better.
Confidence is just about the number one quality to help us attract a partner. Confidence can grow more readily where there are the right conditions, in the form of self worth, to support it. The first steps in finding someone you really like is - to learn to really like yourself.
Liking yourself is the hidden key to confidence. C'mon you can do it. You aint so bad...
