Why Authenticity Makes You Confident

well a lot of people out here want to know how to get more confident and there's a good reason why okay confident people they are more well respected they're seen as more attractive and generally better prospects in both work and relationships and who wouldn't want all that the problem is that if someone gives you the classic advice like look it's simple you just got to be more confident that's really unhelpful that's very unhelpful and the reason why is because confidence really is not a choice it's more like a mental state it's something that happens to

us how then do we receive confidence people give a lot of answers the one I'm going to focus on here is that you can start by being more authentic in your social interactions and that turns out to be something that you can control I've known for quite some time that authenticity is very deeply connected with confidence people that are being confident are more likely to also be authentic whereas people that are people pleasing or being fake they're not very likely to be confident I would know recovering people pleaser I would know this acting authentically unlike

confidence is a choice and for reasons I'm going to explain making this simple choice will make you more likely to receive confidence let's get started first let's start with some definitions self-confidence is a belief in one's favorable acceptance by others or a belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities the key word here is belief okay self-confidence is believing in yourself confidence it can seem a lot of times like this mysterious personality trait that some select people just seem to have and oh my God how are they so confident it's really not that at all

confidence is not related to any of the Big Five personality traits nor the Myers Briggs types it's really more like a mental state it's a belief that comes and goes depending on situation and it's very often built up by evidence so what is authenticity there's how you truly feel and what you truly think and you know what that is and then completely separate from all that is how you act authenticity is really about bringing these two things into alignment into harmony where your tone your facial expressions your body language what you say is congruent with

how you actually feel and think it's just simply being real with people and saying what you really think as opposed to trying to control your behavior so much to match a certain expectation or a desired outcome you're acting in a way that's faithful to what's true for you you're owning it even if it's embarrassing even if it goes against expectations you own that an example another example of authenticity is General disagreement assuming you disagree just saying I'm not sure I agree with that I don't agree like I didn't like that movie no or you know

a lot of people like to Game of Thrones it's not my cup of tea really or you know I live in a city where there's a lot of political people I really don't care I'm open I'm sympathetic to people's issues you know I'm willing to be convinced but it's not something that I'm going to spend my time thinking about that's authentic for me so excessive people pleasing or even manipulation these are all forms of essentially of lying it's weird to think about people pleasing that way but it is it's being fake in a sense now

when I say to be authentic this is not an excuse to send an angry email because that was authentic to me at the time you need to First be emotionally regulated and understand that you don't want to send any kind of communication in a heightened emotional state I've learned this the hard way not to send angry emails or texts or anything that's even too like elated and happy you are going to CR hard later when you see that oh man I wasn't feeling like that another big component of authenticity is being vulnerable being open about

your weaknesses and your failures and that takes courage but the thing is that it often leads to deeper and more meaningful connections with people the difficult thing about authenticity is that not everyone is going to like you when you're being authentic authenticity is inherently polarizing you're going to potentially piss some people off they may not not like the real you you're going to push some people away but you will attract the people that are meant to be with you what's really interesting about authenticity is that this ability to polarize and potentially push some people away

is also what makes it so attractive because it demonstrates a willingness to push people away which signals that you must have something that you can afford to potentially piss some people off so the idea is like authenticity signals to people that you don't need people so desperately and that's really attractive like what does this person have are they famous are they powerful what do they have that's that they can talk like that you know they can be that real well if authenticity is so attractive then why aren't we doing it all the time why is

authenticity so hard and the answer is that authenticity is very often at odds with our need to be accepted a handwavy evolutionary argument is that in the past if you weren't accepted by your tribe or whatever you were risking being cast out and that's a death sentence we can't live you couldn't live independently independently like we do now so it's really hardwired into us as humans to need social acceptance people may tell you that oh I don't care about what anyone thinks yeah you do you do maybe not as much but you definitely do because

you have to I care about what y'all think I care about what my family and friends think I care about what some people I saw the other day I don't even know them I care what they thought that's why there's this constant tension where the more you people please they tend to be less authentic the more authentic you become the more you're risking not being accepted and a lot of us have gone too much to this side where it's almost like a survival you know strategy where we're too concerned with trying to make sure that

we're accepted and not allowing us ourselves to be authentic more and that's causing severe mental problems authenticity can sometimes be dangerous if you're living in oppressive political regime maybe authenticity is not the way to go because you could be executed I don't know but going back to my main thesis here confidence very much like like happiness is not a choice it has to be received but authenticity on the other hand is a choice and my idea here is that by choosing that consistently you will make yourself more confident both in the short term of like

this interaction and in the long term as you as you develop and I've seen some amazing Transformations with people you can you can learn this authenticity is not a personality trait either let's unpack the reasons why authenticity might lead to confidence confidence is really often based on evidence right when you're learning to drive a car you're not very confident you don't have a lot of evidence that you won't crash but as you gain more evidence behind the wheel more experience you start to build up confidence oh yeah I can do this now when you're authentic

with people and you get a good response like yeah dude respect you know you said what you really thought and you got a good response that helps you build up this evidence that the real you will be accepted oh I said what I what I actually thought and they didn't reject me you know it's okay whereas if you are being people if you are being people pleasing you're not showing the real you you don't have that opportunity to have that evidence you don't have the even an opportunity to see any evidence that they might accept

the real you when people respond positively to your authentic self it has a way of boosting your self-esteem which then boosts your confidence reason two this is very profound authenticity is fundamentally an act of self-respect of honoring yourself and what's true for you see authentic actions they signal to both yourself and to others that you have value that your opinion matters that is worthy of being said in contrast the more that you people please the more that you're sacrificing your own needs and betraying yourself really this starts to erode your self-esteem if you don't think

highly of yourself s how can you be confident then right I use the example of you wouldn't share a bad book or or a bad uh movie with your friends it wouldn't make any sense in the same way if I suck why would I introduce myself to you why would I bring something bad to you people you know reason number three authenticity really is a state of openness with the world you're exposing yourself to the world of how you really think and feel and that means that you can no longer hide there's something about not

being able to hide that kind of forces you to embrace who you are this is me now like and really be confident in that authenticity is kind of like holding a boom box or wearing a really loud piece of clothing and going out you know you're going to draw more attention people are going to be like what is this person what's this person doing there like wow you can no longer hide in that situation you have to step into the role of someone who would be wearing that try this seriously it works if you go

out you will find that you have to let go of carrying what people think real quick and that's a big part of confidence and the fourth reason authenticity has a way of putting you back in control of your own life when you can rest assured that your boundaries will never be violated because you're going to authentically express your needs that makes you much more Fearless going into social interactions so for example I'm going to go to this party later this is not not real I'm saying hypothetically I'm going to go to this party but I'm

only going to stay for 2 hours because then I got to get up early the next day and I don't care if they want me to stay or whatever I'm going to say well it's time for me to go folks bye nice party goodbye you know you you will be so much more confident going into social interactions when you know ahead of time that you will assert your boundaries and your needs authentically we're going to end by talking about how to be more authentic in practice authenticity is really about consistently embodying your state and your

values if someone's talking to maybe they're talking to like I'm talking to you right now you're hearing lots of things right now that you probably want to say like hear those things and then really practice letting more of the truth out taking a little bit more risk let's say even if you might think it's weird or whatever in every interaction you make this a habit where you practice letting out a little bit more of what you actually think and gradually will start poking more and more holes in this barrier that's holding everything in authenticity is

not a personality trait it can be developed over time I was at the beach one time and I I was just playing with the sand like a child right I put my hand down in the sand and I started drizzling some sand over the handprint to erode it and I thought that was really cool and I was like I'm going to go tell this person about this authentically that was what was cool for me at the time even though I thought it was also a bit weird and kooky to say and I showed them this

and they burst out laughing they thought it was hilarious try that more often you'll be surprised how people react people generally really really appreciate authenticity another thing is to do an authenticity assessment so ask yourself after every interaction did I express myself or did I censor myself and the answer to that question will determine the success of the interaction if you want to call it uh and you'll find that you do it to varying degrees with different people and even later on after the interaction you can ask how could I have expressed myself more authentically

what would have been the more authentic thing to say another goal is to try to be as relaxed as possible with these new people as you are with your closest friends is hard that's that's also a process of Letting Go these ideas were just things that came up in my research you know I don't there's probably many more reasons why authenticity could lead to confidence please leave in the comments any ideas that you had no matter how small or how critical it is because that has an opportunity to both teach me and to teach other

people thank you so much for listening I'll see you all next time peace out