Confidence: Righting the Ship

I've been at this thing 11 months. I've made lots of progress, but I'm still too far from where I need to be. My efforts have been enormous, but something has been missing. Lately, it has seemed as if I could just figure out this one key thing, I could finally finish what I started.

Today, I believe I have finally found that missing piece to the puzzle. I came to it after a few rough days.

A few rough days, you ask?

I was elated when I wrote a week ago, but as is often the case, I hit some bumps in the road soon afterwards. I thought I'd finally gotten myself a second date, but the girl cancelled on me only a few hours before I was supposed to pick her up on Sunday. Then I texted "Jill" from the last post - the one who just couldn't wait to e-mail me after our Starbucks date - and she stopped responding after I proposed another date.

So of course, all that got me down. I sat at work thinking how bipolar this blog has been:

Elation.

Depression.

Joy.

Sadness....

I was going to write about how terrible it was that things kept turning out wrong even when they seemed perfect. I was going to lament! But instead, I revisited some web material that I'd discovered a few weeks ago. It was so fascinating and so relevant that I'd actually linked to it in the last post, but ended up deleting it. I've always been steadfast about not posting links to potentially helpful material until I've actually tried it out and used it successfully. I figure there are thousands of sites about shyness that have advice that sounds good, but ends up not helping, so I want to filter it out for you.

But this time, I've found something I truly believe in. Something that I was able to validate by mentally reviewing the vast experiences I've had over the last 11 months.

It's confidence.

Yes, confidence.

If you're unsurprised by this revelation, I don't blame you. I've mentioned confidence many times, and I've even written two blog entries entitled with that very word. Heck....if you look in a dictionary, you'll find that "Lacking self-confidence" is one of the first definitions of the word shyness.

With that said, I haven't placed merely enough importance on the subject. But now, I have come to the conclusion that confidence is the key. It's been right in front of us this whole time.

Confidence: Freedom from doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities.

Confidence is a tremendous resource. Here are some important things I realized:

Confidence is the cure for anxiety. My "mission" is often painful because of the feelings of anxiety I have in the days and hours leading up to a social activity. It's now clear that the cause of the anxiety is actually a lack of confidence. Given the definition above, can you think of a single time in your life that you were completely confident, and yet felt anxious? Nervous? Worried?

Confidence improves performance. When it comes to social activities (or anything else, for that matter), confidence improves our performance: Lack of confidence causes anxiety; anxiety causes nervousness, and nervousness prevents us from being ourselves, leading to social failures like the many I've documented in this blog.

And thus, if I could only be confident, all of my experiences would 1) be much more pleasant, without the accompanying anxiety, and 2) would be much more successful, since I could be myself.

The gravity of these realizations prompted me to mentally review my many experiences since starting the mission. They easily confirmed my suspicion - I had, in fact, not been confident most of the time. Here are some recent examples.

• Driving home from work yesterday, I started thinking about the unanswered text I'd sent to "Jill." I started thinking how even when things seemed perfect, they still ended up going poorly. I thought about how many failed dates I've been on the past 11 months, and I started to ask myself: why couldn't this failure go on for yet another year? What if it did? These were not confident thoughts.
  

• On eHarmony, I'm communicating with a very attractive young woman who included experience with sex on her list of "Must Haves," and who chose a question asking about my past relationships. Since I obviously have no relationship experience, while she probably has a great deal, my anxiety was so great that I began to feel it surge, like the fight-or-flight reaction, just viewing her profile. My mind automatically filled with negative thoughts. I even considered closing the match, being too afraid to even try meeting her. I briefly thought about how poorly it could go. I wondered if I would be attractive enough for her. I thought about how I'm not good at telling stories, and wondered how she could find me funny. I could go on and on, but clearly, these were not confident thoughts.

• On eHarmony, I'm also communicating with a very sweet, innocent-type girl. She's the opposite of the above person. She's seeking someone who's traditional and reserved sexually, and said that she wants to meet someone she can just get to know first. I looked at her picture last night, and automatically thought how beautiful and sweet she was. But then, I immediately started thinking and feeling as if being so genuinely interested in her would somehow jinx things, preventing them from going well. I started telling myself not to get my hopes up. Before even meeting her, I was already telling myself that it would be okay even if it went badly, because I would be able to meet many more girls after her. I could go on, but clearly, these were not confident thoughts.

From these typical examples, it's easy to see that my lack of confidence involves thought. But which came first? Did the lack of confidence cause the negative thinking? Or did the negative thoughts result in my lacking confidence?

I've figured out that there is a sort of feedback loop between the two. Sometimes, a situation or thought immediately triggers a feeling of anxiety in my body, without any conscious thought on my part. I figure it's a result of my past negative experiences with the social stuff - some sort of conditioning. Next, since I have the feeling of anxiety associated with such negative experiences, I begin to think that there are problems, even though no problem actually exists. And since I start to think that there are problems - usually major ones - I naturally begin to feel more anxious. The vicious cycle is complete. Other times, the cycle starts out with the negative thought, but the situation is obviously no better.

The end result? Actually having a problem - anxiety and nervousness - that prevents me from being myself, resulting in failure.

Now, before this entry becomes any more Zen-like and abstract, I want to give some examples of the few times during the mission where I was confident, so that we can all see how big of a difference it makes:

• I've made one new friend in the past 11 months. Since I wasn't romantically interested in her, whether or not she liked me was no big deal starting out. I didn't place much importance on it, so I had no basis for the negative thoughts or anxiety that usually kick- start the Vicious Cycle. Without that cycle, I feel confident every time I'm with her. With that confidence, I'm completely myself around her, and can dance, sing, even cheer wildly in public, and do whatever else I want to do.
  

• I had one friend before I started the mission. Since we've been friends for so long, there's no possibility of rejection, and thus no basis for the negative thoughts or anxiety that usually kick-start the Vicious Cycle. Even when I'm feeling anxious thinking about an upcoming date, I'm immediately relaxed, comfortable, and myself when I speak to him.

• Once, with a girl from eHarmony I'd been e-mailing, I tried an experiment. I decided to be confident (in fact, somewhat arrogant) in every e-mail or text message I sent her before we met. When the time to finally meet her came near, I decided to try to continue to take on that very same persona once we were together, in the flesh. When we met, I projected my voice during my initial few sentences, making it sound confident. I felt more confident and more relaxed as the conversation went on. I had no trouble thinking of things to say, and teased her repeatedly. There was no inhibition.

• Date #16 was the start of something. My date called me to ask for help finding the Starbucks a few minutes before we were supposed to meet up. Without giving myself a chance to first think, I answered the phone, projected my voice, and felt confident. Once I saw her in the flesh, this continued. She had a bit of a foreign accent, and was very shy with me during our conversation. Since I didn't feel worried that my speech would come across as somehow inferior to hers, my confidence increased. Since she was the one acting nervous with me, the risk of rejection seemed not to exist, so I felt more confident. The feeling never went away - she might have been my first girlfriend, except that I had to end it after 4 dates.
  

To review: there is more than enough evidence in the blog to convince us that we'll be much more successful if we're confident, and much less so if we're not. All that remains is to figure out how to be confident.

In my last post, I said that it seemed the only way to achieve confidence is to actually have some successes on which to base that confidence. I now realize that I was only half right about that. It definitely helps to have that basis for feeling confident, but prior successes actually aren't necessary (!). I'm starting to discover techniques that I combine to be even more confident.

This is where Steve Pavlina comes in. I discovered his site some time ago, but only in the past week I have begun to look at some of the articles. There is some truly amazing stuff there. Stuff beyond the scope of this post, and way beyond even the scope of this blog. Stuff that might amaze you, and could dramatically change your life in ways you never conceived. I encourage you to check it out with an open mind, but right now, I just want you to listen to his simple podcast about building confidence.

Steve gives four techniques. I'll summarize the ones that I'm going to try, because I found them to be true in reviewing my experiences with the mission.

#1: Visualization
Steve says that there is a "visualization recipe" for feeling confident, and a different visualization recipe for feeling self-doubt. The recipe for feeling self-doubt is to imagine yourself doing well, but also to imagine yourself doing poorly. In other words, you feed your brain mixed messages, and as a result, you simply lack confidence as a natural side-effect.

As simple as this is, it's a very big deal. I certainly have worked on imagining dates and other social activities going well, but I also allowed myself to see the same upcoming events going poorly. For example, before any first date, I have almost always tried to reassure myself that if it didn't work out, it would be fine because it was early on in the mission, or because I'd meet another girl, or something like that. I thought this would take off the pressure, but in fact, I was doing myself a disservice. I cannot allow myself to have thoughts like that - let alone intentionally create them - because recognizing the possibility of failure along with the possibility of success is the visualization recipe for feeling self-doubt. No matter what, I need to only allow myself to think about positive outcomes. Steve says it takes self-discipline and a "mental diet" to restrict yourself to positive thoughts. When thinking about things going well, it should also help to replace uncertain words like "hopefully," "probably," and "maybe" with confident words like "absolutely" and "definitely."

"She's definitely going to love me!"

#2: Speak Confidently
The idea here is that by speaking confidently (i.e., forcing your voice to sound confident even if you're not necessarily feeling confident), you can actually start to feel the way you sound. It's basically working in reverse, and it works. Looking through the old posts, you'll find that many of my successful dates had something in common. After most of them, I made some comment in the post about my voice sounding confident. On numerous successful dates and phone calls, I intentionally projected my voice when I spoke my first words. Hearing myself sound so good made me feel reassured, and feelings of confidence arose and grew as the meeting or phone call went on. Simple, but it works. (I wish you could hear what I'm talking about, but there is an incredible difference between times when my voice sounds bad the way I complain about, and the times it sounds confident. It's like I'm a different person.)

#3: Move Confidently
None of my experiences come to mind to back this up, so maybe I haven't personally had an issue with it. Just like #2, but walk and move confidently. Stand up tall, take deep breaths, and smile.

#4: Use external stimuli to trigger feelings of confidence
For example, listening to music that pumps you up emotionally. I've experienced this, but I'm just going to focus on techniques #1 and #2 for now.

None of this is going to be easy. It's going to take an enormous amount of practice, but since it's mostly mental, building confidence is something I can work on every moment of every day. I believe it will help me to finally right the ship so that in 2009, I will be able to say that I figured out how to beat shyness, and managed to do it. And of course, I'll keep working on figuring out the other pieces to the puzzle as well.

One implication of my new positive thinking regimen is that this blog isn't going to be as bipolar anymore. There won't be any more heartbroken posts where I lament the difficulty of all this. "Jill" came back to life, made a date with me, and then broke it a few hours before we were supposed to hang out - just like the other girl I mentioned! So, there was really no trifecta at all. It turned out to be something more like a monofecta, but I'm not depressed this time, and I've already moved on. I'm communicating with perhaps the most promising group of women ever right now, so expect lots of date entries. But fear not! Things are going so great that I actually have lots of other stuff to write about as well. On Sunday I'm meeting a very sweet girl who found me on hotornot.com - it'll be the first meeting from that site, and it will be good (I'm pretty sure we're meeting up as friends - not a date!). And I'll be writing about the acting class every week, because it is amazing.