confidence Archives - Inner Confidence

Dealing with discomfort

What I’m about to say is sad, but not very controversial: most people would experience mild discontent with their situation than face the discomfort that’s necessary for improving their lives.

People just don’t want to tolerate discomfort, even if they have a guarantee it’s temporary.

Getting into shape is a prime example. Unhealthy people tend to know that getting into shape requires eating healthy, and physical exercise. The failure to act isn’t caused by a lack of information. It stems from an unwillingness to feel uncomfortable. Eating healthy is uncomfortable. Working out causes physical pain. Both of these are a struggle, and only when you choose to accept that the process is not going to be comfortable can you get into shape.

Most people make decisions based on how comfortable they think they’ll feel in given situations. This is why most people aren’t satisfied with their lives. Comfort is a terrible metric for pursuing a life of fulfillment.

Making excuses

Originally I intended to write about how you need to stop making excuses, but that’s not even it. The better advice is to stop letting the excuses you make prevent you from taking action.

Making excuses is normal. It’s a function of the human problem-solving mind.

What’s key is taking action despite those excuses. Don’t let excuses keep you in your comfort zone. People often think they need to be confident before they can face rejection or discomfort, but that’s backwards. First you do the thing outside your comfort zone, then you gain the confidence.

Especially when we’re talking about forcing yourself out of your comfort zone to improve your dating life, there is NO reason to hide any part of who you are from the world. You’re not doing anything wrong or shameful and you’re not violating the rights of others. You can make the decision to be completely honest and open with everyone. Vulnerability is tough, but it’s empowering. It’s how we grow. And if others are not upportive of your decision to improve your life, then the only thing they deserve from you is distance.

Get specific about your discomfort

When I advise that you should be willing to be uncomfortable, it might make sense but it’s still an abstract concept. To make it actionable, it’s helpful to put yourself in a difficult situation then ask yourself: “what sensations am I experiencing right now?”

When I feel anxious about approaching a girl, the main thing I feel is a racing heartbeat. Sometimes my throat gets dry and my hands get sweaty. It’s so much easier to approach if I can ask myself “Are you willing to feel a racing heart and sweaty palms for a couple minutes in order to get better talking to girls?” That’s an easy yes. When you can get very specific about what being uncomfortable means to you, it’s way easier to face than a big abstract concept like “approach anxiety.”

Emotional avoidance is an important idea to think about. When we do not want to feel our emotions, we try to push them away. It works in the short term, but emotions are like water in a pipe. You can block the pipe, but the pressure only increases until it eventually bursts.

Clean emotions versus dirty emotions

A great concept from the intersection of mindfulness and psychology is that of clean emotions and dirty emotions. Clean emotions are the feelings that come up for us naturally. Dirty emotions are what we get when you try to fight those clean emotions. The concept borrows from the Buddhist concept that while suffering is optional, pain is an inevitable part of life. In short, as turn our pain into suffering by resisting it, we turn clean emotions into dirty emotions.

For example, if I experience a rough breakup with my girlfriend, it’s natural and normal for me to feel sad. When we experience loss, we grieve the loss with a healthy sense of sadness, a clean emotion. However, if I were to fight that sadness by getting angry I feel sad, or worry about it and cause myself anxiety, that’s turning it into an unhealthy dirty emotion. One definition that distinguishes between sadness and depression is that when we fight feelings of sadness we become depressed. Depression is sadness plus avoidance.

An example from dating: it’s normal to feel fear when you’re approaching an attractive woman, but when you tell yourself that you shouldn’t feel that fear, it multiplies it.

Instead of classifying emotions as positive or negative, try classifying them as clean or dirty. Every emotion can be useful, even the painful ones. If you use your emotional intelligence then they can provide you with information about how you’re responding in your situation.

Research has shown that the people who are the most successful are those who have a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative emotions. Seeking psychological flexibility and wholeness is always better than blind positivity. Attempting to be happy and positive 100% of the time is a recipe for delusion and failure. Remember the ratio: 80% should be your goal.

Along the same lines, a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology has shown that emodiversity, or a life in which one experiences a balance of different emotions, is associated with better mental and physical health.

Get better; don’t be good

Top performers and athletes from all kinds of endeavors or sports tend to have one psychological factor in common: a growth mindset.

A growth mindset is built on the goal to “get better.” The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, which centers on the thought “be good.” When facing a difficult task, beginners often want to “do good,” coming at it with the mindset of worrying about how well they’ll perform.

There’s a great quote from Carlos Gracie Sr., one of the primary developers of modern Brazilian jiu-jitsu: “There is no losing in jiu-jitsu. You either win or you learn.”

Your challenge is to approach with the goal of “getting better.” Forget “being good,” because everything you do provides feedback. Every approach you make puts you one step closer to becoming a social beast. Every time you experience discomfort, you make it a little bit easier for the next time you’re in that situation.

The satisfaction, inspiration, and motivation that comes with going after your goals is an order of magnitude more valuable than actually achieving them.

What’s the point?

Connection and companionship are what bring purpose and meaning to our lives. If there’s anything in this world that’s worth experiencing some temporary discomfort for, it’s learning how to create genuine connections.

Embarass Yourself to Overcome Social Anxiety

by Tyler W 2 Comments

One of my favorite Inner Confidence exercises is our social freedom exercises. We do things like lie down in a crowded public area, pretend to text on our phones in a crosswalk until the light turns green and we get honked at, and go to Chipotle and ask for free guacamole. Pictured left is Leverage Program moderator, doing a social freedom exercise during this year’s EuroTrip in Budapest. The point of these exercises is to embarrass yourself in public and learn to deal with whatever reaction you get.

There’s actual psychology behind it: the original cognitive-behavioral therapist Albert Ellis invented the concept in 1968 and called them shame-attacking exercises. They’re an amazingly effective way to overcome social anxiety, and for guys who want to give less of a fuck.

Most people overestimate the costs associated with making a social mistake. They think that if they appear incompetent, crazy, or obnoxious, the results will be drastic and they won’t be able to handle it.

Social freedom exercises prove that most guys’ thoughts about this are wrong. When you do the exercises, you’ll usually find that a lot of people don’t even notice or care. If you lie down in a public place, rather than being shamed, most people won’t even notice you, or at the most they’ll walk around you.

We’re all the star of our own movies, and we don’t really care what’s happening in other people’s movies. People don’t care about you as much as you think they do. They’re probably busy looking at their phones anyway.

Having intentionally awkward conversations, like asking random strangers where the nearest STD clinic is, isn’t as painful as most guys expect it to be. In fact, a lot of times these conversations are hilarious and guys walk away laughing at their newfound social freedom and lack of concern about rejection.

Knowingly violating social norms is a powerful way to overcome your fears.

It’s amazing what you get just by asking. While the point of these exercises is to increase your social freedom, some of them teach another lesson. Most people don’t ask for what they really want. They walk on eggshells, trying to avoid inconveniencing or offending others, when in reality, other people are more than happy to help out.

This morning at Coffee Bean, I asked for a discount on my coffee. The barista gave me a polite no. It didn’t work out that time, but at least I asked.

Later in the day, I took an Uber ride with what must have the world’s most mediocre driver. He decided that taking the freeway would be too efficient, so he randomly exited and doubled the length of the trip. After the ride, instead of just saying “oh well, that’s life,” I asked Uber to give me a credit for my time. It wasn’t like he was completely terrible, but hey, why not ask?

Asking paid off!

There are countless examples that arise in daily life where most people don’t ask for things they can probably get:

If you miss a credit card payment and incur a late fee, you can usually get it removed by calling and asking
If you call your cable company, you can often negotiate a lower rate by having them match a competitor’s price
If you always ask for discounts at stores and restaurants in a funny way, you’ll sometimes get them
If you’re friendly with the airline desk agent, you can get free upgrades when there’s space on the place

What other examples can you think of for developing social freedom and getting free stuff? Post in the comments below.

5 of the Most Effective Tips for Improving Your Vocal Tonality

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

Some guys are born with a naturally powerful voice that turns women on. Most guys aren’t as fortunate. Some guys have naturally picked up good habits from their peers, friends, and families. Most guys don’t put in this kind of effort, but they should. Even professionals like sportscasters have spent hundreds of hours working on their own and with coaches to sound more confident.

1. Open your mouth wider
Do you mumble? Open your mouth wider.

Do you speak too quickly? Open your mouth wider.

Do you speak too softly? Open your mouth wider.

This could go on and on, and there’s a good reason for this piece of advice: a huge amount of vocal tonality issues disappear when you simply open your mouth wider. It’s one of the first tips singers learn, and it’s as close to a magic pill as you can get when you’re working on your voice.

2. Breathe from your diaphragm
Even though it’s the only skill we’ve been using since birth, most people actually breathe incorrectly. Take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, and exhale.

Did you shoulders rise and fall? If they did, that means you’re breathing wrong. Correct breathing happens from the diaphragm, not the chest. When you breathe, the only thing that should be moving is your stomach because that means you’re properly breathing from your diaphragm.

When you breathe properly, you speak with more power and conviction, and come across as more seductive without even thinking about it.

3. Stop ending your sentences with an upward inflection
Don’t do this (unless you’re a Kardashian).

4. Record yourself
Most guys never do this because it’s awkward, uncomfortable, and even downright painful to hear their own voices. But this is another situation where just taking the simplest step will already put you ahead of most steps. Do something that’s uncomfortable and listen to your own speech.

Read a paragraph out loud while recording it on your iPhone. Once you get over the discomfort of hearing your own voice, the insights you’ll gain from listening critically will lead to rapid improvements in your voice.

5. Learn to relax your larynx
Guys with weak or feminine sounding voices often carry too much tension in their larynx (the muscle that we think of as the Adam’s Apple). Diaphragmatic breathing can help significantly, but it’s even more important to do exercises that specifically target the larynx. Search Youtube for tutorials, and practice these at least once a day. You’ll be shocked at how quickly your voice improves.

Most of the social skills you need to learn to improve your life are difficult. Vocal tonality is an exception. It just takes 10 minutes a day of following these simple tips to experience real results.

What’s Better Than Motivation?

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

I’ve found from working with hundreds of clients that motivation is NOT what drives behavior change. Trying to change too many habits at once more often than not leads to failure, discouragement, and not trying again.

Habits are more important than discipline or willpower.

Our society teaches us to view life improvement in a way that is very black and white. We love all or nothing thinking: either I’m going to stick perfectly to my new diet, or it’s not worth trying. People see anything short of radical life change in every domain as a failure, when in reality, we improve our lives by making tiny changes consistently. Why is the dieter who decides to add one vegetable per meal more likely in the long run to end up healthy than the one who decides they’re never eating a single gram of carbohydrates for the rest of their life? Why is the person who decides to start with one pushup a day tends to do better over time than the one that commits to 6 Crossfit workouts per week? Because for success, momentum is more important than motivation.

What often looks like luck is the result of hard work and daily habits constructed over a long period of time. You don’t get lucky; you accumulate small victories and constantly iterate from there. And this is really important, because how effective you are in life translates to how effective you are with women.

Expertise comes from practice, not from talent.

Your plans should focus on the process more so than the outcome. Making an approach is what you have control over; getting a number is not. Keep everything under your control and you’re significantly more likely to succeed. So instead of having an approach only count if you get a number, make it only count if you ask for a number.

Starting small is key when you’re improving your social life, and this is why our advice when you’re learning isn’t to go out and try to change everything about yourself, it’s to meet more people and have more fun. Setting the goal of meeting people and having fun is the best way to ensure that you focus on your process rather than the outcome.

The Hardest Weight To Lose

by Carly Leave a Comment

As a health and fitness coach, I’ve seen tons of people both lose and gain weight. While people come to me for first for health advice, it usually evolves into life advice, because we develop deeper relationships with the people who help us. In so many situations, the advice follows similar patterns, and the best advice I could ever give is to be honest.

Be honest with your family, friends, coworkers, social media followers, and acquaintances. But overall, be honest with yourself. Being honest with others can only happen when you’re honest with yourself.

Most people are too scared to be honest with themselves. Let’s face it, the truth about yourself can be downright scary. It takes courage, and it’s a level of courage that most people don’t really expect of us because our society accepts less than honest behavior.

Most people shape their lives around avoiding painful realities. The alcoholic won’t admit he has a problem. The introvert avoids meeting girls because he fools himself into thinking he prefers video games. The overweight client deludes herself into thinking she doesn’t care about her health and body image.

As typical humans, it’s painful to admit when we’ve gone against our morals or values. We don’t want people to know the truth, and would rather present a perfect image of ourselves as infallible.

But who actually gets the most respect, and who creates the deepest relationships? It’s those who stick up for themselves and say “This is what I did. This is why I did it. I know that it was wrong but I want to come clean and this is the lesson I’ve learned.” They’re far more healthy and successful than those who flat out lie, and lie, and lie, and lie again.

No lie goes without repercussions, even if they’re only internal psychological repercussions. So ask yourself: is it worth it? Is it worth the immediate gratification knowing that what you did will eventually be revealed in the long run, knowing you hurt the person you lied to, and not knowing how many other people it could hurt along the way.

Lies are like the snowball effect: they start small, but you’ll have to tell another lie to cover up the first lie, then another to cover up that, and so on and so forth.

If lying has been your only way through life so far, it won’t be easy. Start with honesty today.

Dont tell one single lie, and if you do, correct yourself immediately. You may not even be aware of how many times you fib throughout the day because it’s such second nature.

Start today, and you won’t regret tomorrow. Every day you’ll feel lighter, and shed a little bit more weight off your shoulders. And you’ll find that the key to a healthy relationship is brutal honesty, no matter what.

On that note, I have to be honest about something. I’m actually not a health and fitness coach. I just thought it would be a way to establish my credibility and prove my point. Now that I’ve come clean about it, I feel a lot better about this article. I’m glad that one’s off my chest, and I hope you can learn from my example.

When You’re Objective, You Take More Risks

by Tyler W 2 Comments

One of the most effective actions you can take to improve your life is developing your ability to think objectively.

Most people think emotionally. Yes, this includes men, who often assume they are rational and impervious to the effects of emotions on their thinking. Men tend to have blind spots in this area just as much as women.

People usually look at their situation, whatever it may be, come up with one possible outcome, and only focus on that outcome happening. Emotions drive the estimate of the outcome occurring.

This human tendency is the reason why the mainstream news media focuses on catchy soundbites rather than objective statistics. Our brains just aren’t wired to naturally think in terms of statistics, and instead we latch on to the stories that are the most memorable.

Case in point: take all the recent media coverage of terrorist attacks, and their appeal to everyone’s innate fear of terrorism. Despite the fact that the odds of dying in a terrorist attack are 1 in 20 MILLION, it’s a natural human tendency to be TERRIBLE at estimating the real risk of low-probability events.

Ok, so what if I’m more scared of terrorism than I should be? Not a big deal right? Well, take a look at how this type of thinking carries over to other areas of your life. Most people don’t think probabilistically in any areas of their life. They look at the world through the lenses of their emotions, never challenging their deeply held beliefs about how the world functions. People overestimate their ability to predict the future, especially about the events in their own life.

This can screw you over in countless ways. In the Leverage Program, we coach guys to stop overestimating the risks associated with actions that can improve their lives, like approaching more girls, quitting a job to become an entrepreneur, or developing a more assertive communication skills. And we also teach people how they tend to underestimate some of the more dangerous risks that people overlook, like texting while driving and eating processed carbohydrates.

Remember how I said people make most of their decisions emotionally? That’s the reason it’s important to be objective about your emotional states.

So a guy who is afraid to approach girls focuses only on the outcome of it going badly, without estimating the likelihood that he will actually get rejected.

Most guys who are bad with women start out from a place of neediness. He needs attention from a woman. He needs to not be rejected. He needs to KNOW an approach will go well before he commits to it.

These are gut-level emotional reactions, and they’re difficult to overcome. But having that kind of emotional response doesn’t have to harm you. As long as you recognize that it’s just a thought and that it’s not actually helping you, you can begin to realize that your subjective emotional experiences are not always indicative of reality.

The more you put yourself in these challenging situations and come out the other side unscathed, the more that snap emotional reaction will lessen. But in the meantime, it’s crucial to remember that this inner dialogue is not helping you, and that if you fuse with those thoughts, they’re only going to prevent you from reaching your goals and improving your relationships.

Thinking probabilistically removes the reckless emotion from your decision-making habits. When you know that you went into a decision making the right call based on all the information you had available at the time, there’s no rational way to second guess yourself afterwards. You don’t regret things you’ve done that went wrong if you came to that decision probabilistically. But you do regret them when you let your emotions decide for you.

This also improves your life by getting you more of the things you want and value. Thinking probabilistically helps you take the right kinds of risk: the ones that have a huge upside of improving your life. Let’s face it, a lot of the things we want are risky. Become more assertive and confident. Making valuable male friendships. Building your career. Telling women how you really feel without being needy.

Socially agile people can be cooperative in difficult situations, use anger effectively when someone blocks them from reaching a goal, or boldly state unpopular opinions in group settings. These are all risk moves.

Do this: Take more risks. Play to win. Be objective. Remember that your thoughts are just thoughts.

Dating With Social Anxiety

by Tyler W 1 Comment

I’ve said before that I don’t care about approach anxiety. But when does anxiety become a real problem?

When social anxiety becomes a problem, it’s because it turns into more than just a feeling of anxiety in social situations (like approach anxiety). If that’s all it was, then you could just tough out the uncomfortable feeling and force yourself be social, like what most people do when they have to speak in public.

The reason that social anxiety is a bigger problem is because it changes your actions and behaviors: you stop chasing your goals in order to avoid feeling anxious.

What is is specifically about social anxiety that causes problems? The primary factor is that it makes you avoid the possibility of being judged, and you feel anxious and avoidant in situations where you might be judged or rejected. So in social situations, instead of being assertive and showing your personality, you play it safe and don’t do anything that might risk someone disliking you.

People who don’t have social anxiety don’t see social situations as a chance to be rejected; they see these situations as a chance to express their personalities. They aren’t thinking about managing the impressions they’re making on others; they’re thinking about how to have fun and show their personalities.

Anxiety becomes a problem when it leads to avoidance. Despite what many guys think, feeling nervous when approaching a girl isn’t a problem. Guys who think they have to get over their approach anxiety before improving their dating lives are wrong. Approach anxiety isn’t a problem if you are actually approaching regularly. Approach avoidance is a problem. Let’s look at another example: imagine someone with a fear of snakes: that alone isn’t really a problem. But if they stay inside for the rest of their life because of the ridiculously low chance that they might see a snake outside, that’s where it becomes a problem. It’s not the fear that’s bad, it’s the avoidance.

Anxiety goes away when you face a situation enough: if you are afraid of spiders, being around them enough will get rid of that fear. If you are afraid of heights, going skydiving will reduce the fear. This is the one of the most firmly established principles in psychology and therapy. It’s also the only way to build lasting confidence.

Social anxiety is the same in some ways, and different in others. It’s not enough to just put yourself in social situations more; you have to risk rejection (and actually be rejected) more. But just like with spiders and heights, the more you put yourself in situations where you can be rejected, the less anxious you feel.

Albert Ellis, the founder of modern cognitive-behavioral therapy (the most effective modern therapy), developed some of the best exercises for reducing social anxiety. He called them “shame attacking exercises”, and there are countless examples you can find by a quick Google search. The idea is to purposefully put yourself in situations where you will be judged. Some examples are to attempt to pay for an item at a store when you don’t have your wallet, to go to a drug store and loudly ask for extra small condoms, or sing loudly to yourself in public.

These are entertaining ways to get used to the feeling of being evaluated, judged, or rejected, and they change the way you feel about challenging social situations. By dealing with being judged over and over, you realize that it isn’t actually that bad, and it’s something you can handle. The fear and avoidance lessen the more you do it, and over time this translates to other areas of your life.

What general ideas can you also apply to reducing your anxiety? Say more high risk/high reward things. Take bigger chances to express your personality. Don’t agree with people if you don’t actually mean it. Approach more girls and get rejected more. Discuss edgier topics. Doing all these things are more uncomfortable in the short term, but in the long term, counteract the thinking and avoidance behavior that makes social anxiety so powerful.

As with any important life change, thinking about it isn’t important. Taking action is the only scientifically proven method to reduce social anxiety. Be willing to get rejected and judged more, and social anxiety will stop holding you back.

“Bring It” Podcast Interview w/ Robbie Kramer

by Robbie Leave a Comment

A lot of my content is centered around dating and relationships but this episode is very geared towards career advice, setting up a remote working situation to avoid the 9 to 5 and get out of the rat race, and some other cool points on choosing business partners.

I was interview by a very inspiring young dude named YL Savitskiy on his podcast, Bring It.

Topics Include:

On building a remote lifestyle [2:10]
How to developing personality traits [7:58]
On balancing fun and doing business [14:22]
On overcoming rejection [18:11]
On the basics of networking [23:13]
Robbie’s opinion on interpersonal chemistry [26:28]
On choosing business partners [31:42]

Check it out here on iTunes.

The Keys To Fixing Your Body Language

by Tyler W 1 Comment

Body language is one of the most important ways you communicate. Women and successful men perceive what your body language shows about you in less than a second. Since it’s processed on the subconscious level, your body language will make or break the interaction before you ever open your mouth.

Unfortunately, guys who didn’t grow up with a masculine, athletic, macho, infrastructure in their lives never absorbed the confident body language that turns women on, so they’re at a disadvantage on the dating market. Being aware of your own unconfident body language is a crucial step, but it’s only the first step.

Fixing your body language is a challenge that you have to approach from multiple angles.

Focused Versus Holistic

There are two ways to go about improving your body language: focused and holistic. Everyone should be doing both. Focused improvement is when you take a microscope to your specific behaviors and work on improving each one. This could be evaluating the way you place your feet when you walk, how you position your shoulders, correcting your forward head tilt, etc.

Equally important is holistic improvement. The best examples I can come up with are learning martial arts, seeing a chiropractor, and mobility work like foam rolling. Yesterday I had a Muay Thai workout with a trainer then saw a massage therapist and a chiropractor. Both of these improved my posture and body language to the point where others noticed and commented on it. These methods are also helpful because they don’t require you to be as self-conscious about every little moment you make, which can be crippling if you’re out at a bar and overly focused on your posture instead of the people you’re interacting with.

Because the patterns we’ve experienced all our lives shape how we stand and move, it’s an area of your dating life that can benefit the most from live coaching. Someone who has experienced thousands of reps talking to women is better qualified to critique what you are doing wrong and tell you how to fix it. In the meantime, here are some exercises so you can get started on your own:

Observe the body language of confident men
This is a simple activity that can net you huge results. Go to a public place like a mall or a street with heavy foot traffic. For the first 10 minutes, give every guy a mental rating of his confidence on a scale of 1-10. Don’t overthink it; just go with your gut instinct.

For the next 10 minutes, pay attention to the confident guys and observe specific behaviors they’re exhibiting. How are their shoulders? How is their gate? Bringing a notebook or phone and writing down notes will help but isn’t necessary. By observing what confident guys do and how they behave, you’ll start to embody these traits yourself.

Shoulder dislocators
The most common body language problem that I’ve seen with guys is slumping the shoulders. This is especially problematic for guys who sit at a desk all day, and it occurs as a result of muscle imbalances. Fortunately, there’s an easy fix most people don’t know about. Get a PVC pipe and do this exercise daily for 2 minutes:

Slow down
Most guys who struggle with women move too quickly. They have jerky, fidgety movements that women subconsciously perceive as anxiety. It doesn’t even matter if you are feeling anxious or not: if you are moving too quickly or fidgeting, you will come across as unconfident. There are no exceptions to this rule. This is a very simple fix and just requires practice and conscious awareness of how fast you’re moving. One trick I’ve heard before is to imagine that you are underwater, and move at that speed and fluidity.

Chew gum
This may sound like a gimmick, but there have been actual scientific studies demonstrating that people chewing gum are perceived as more confident and laid back. Chewing gum helps you cut back on fidgeting: if you are chewing gum, other body movements are less likely to occur.

Kettlebell swings
Any weightlifting routine will help your body language, but if I had to pick just one exercise that provides the most benefit, it’s the kettlebell swing. It has the added benefit of strengthening your core and toning your glutes (the biggest things women care about), not to mention they’re just fun to do. See this video below for proper form:

Fake it till you make it
See this life-changing talk by Amy Cuddy below:

There’s no quick fix for body language. Anyone who does an hour of kickboxing every day, an hour of yoga, and weekly chiropractor visits would STILL take months to develop perfect body language. But it’s a simple process that you can drastically improve with as little as 10 minutes a day if you spend them on the right exercises.

The Quickest Way To Move Past Social Fear

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

When you’re feeling fear or anxiety, the most important action to take isn’t one that reduces anxiety. It’s the action that reduces your avoidance, and makes you face whatever it is you’re anxious about.

The next time you’re in a situation where you’re feeling a negative emotion, especially fear, takes these three steps. Over time, they will train the subconscious part of your brain to do it automatically, and they take less than a minute.

1. Think of the best possible outcome

This helps you determine what actions you need to take to reach that outcome. It helps you see what part of it is in your control, and what part might just come down to random chance.

Play to win. Being confident means that you expect things to go well in situations that are ambiguous. Visualize what the best possible scenario is, and do everything you need to do to make it a reality.

If you’re going after what you want in life, then forget everything else. That’s your right as a human. Forget what other people think. Forget the self-doubt in your head. The only thing that matters is that you’re taking the actions you care about. You don’t have to be anything else. You don’t have to please anyone. You don’t have to fit anyone else’s image of how they think you should be. Everything else is noise. Tune it out.

You have the right to do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of. You can approach girls, you can go to the gym and grunt, you can even wear a dress and sing on a bus if you want to. You don’t need approval to do anything. If someone judges you for doing the things you value in life, then forget them because you don’t need their approval.

2. Think of the worst possible outcome

Using a technique invented by Stoic philosophers, you should practice taking any situation to the logical extreme of the worst case scenario. This can be done either as a thought exercise or in writing. With any social fear, the worst case scenario is usually something you can handle. 99% of the time, your worst possible outcome results in a little bit of social discomfort, with the option to recover from it. It’s never life-threatening.

They laugh it off, they think you’re weird, whatever. You can handle it. They’re likely to forget it, but even if they don’t you can handle it. So if they think you’re weird, that’s something you can live with. I fail to see how this could end in catastrophe.

Here’s an example that comes up often in the Leverage Program: hitting on a girl in the day. What’s the absolute worst thing that can happen? The girl rejects you. It’s painful for a few seconds/minutes, but you laugh it off, she forgets you, and you both go back to your life as usual. Or other people see you and laugh, and you die. Oh wait, that won’t happen.

The absolute worst in any of these situations is a few minutes of social discomfort.

What if you get rejected by a girl then see her again in the future? You guessed it, a Leverage member has done that multiple times on the streets of Manhattan and it didn’t kill him. Maybe the police tell you to stop approaching girls, actually that’s happened multiple times to guys in the group at the Grove in LA, and they left and lived through it.

Even if you lost all your friends and became homeless, you could probably recover from it. And the worst possible outcome of approaching a girl is her not liking you, which is something any man can handle. Usually you’ll find that the worst possible outcome is something you could actually handle.

The anticipation of failure is always worse than actual failure.

3. Think of the most likely outcome

This helps you shape your behavior and decide how to move forward. Any situation in your life has multiple possible outcomes, with different chances of them happening. Instead of assuming that one of them will automatically happen, look at everything that’s possible and estimate the odds of each of them.

Have a plan for things going well and aim for that to happen. At the same time, know that if you don’t succeed, you can handle it. This is what true confidence is. Confidence is not a blind delusion that everything will go well; that’s just not how the world works. Confidence is knowing that you can to do what it takes to succeed, and when the inevitable setbacks occur, you can crush them and continue to move forward with the things you care about in life.