Hey champs my name is Nick and today we are going to talk about the things that silently destroy your confidence, make you mentally weaker and stop you from reaching the full potential of yourself.
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Every human being, you me and the ones around us is made of characteristics, right? This is the thing that divides us and make us come together. For example: the close friends around you are a mix of what you are. When you sit down with them you talk about something you usually have a common interest.
For my circle of friends that was fitness, nutrition, exercise, hardcore motivation, success, movies and even aliens. We found ourselves discussing about these themes of conversation and share our opinion about it.
Everything you live through the day, like the meeting with your friends, your boyfriend, girlfriend, colleagues, or the job you are currently working, create your character. But not all people are the same, because not all people live the same life. That was kinda obvious.
Now, the real power we have is the power of choice. We have this amazing ability to choose to go and do whatever we like (of course this has to be in the borders of normal human behavior).
Sometimes I think that we have SO MUCH opportunities now, that it becomes a problem.
Just by Googling “how many job types are there in the world” I found that the first link says we have over 12.000 job descriptions. We have 12.000 options to choose from, so I would say that not being interested in something is just an excuse.
And we are facing choices every single day. Whether to wake up at 6AM, 9AM or 11:30AM. Should we eat 3 times a day or 5 times a day? Should we eat 100g of chocolate or avoid chocolate and eat an apple? These types of choices carve us in all that we are.
Some people will make poor choice for years that will result in being overweight, divorced, or simply not satisfied with all that they are. When you take the wide picture of our life, of everything that we are, it all boils down to the choices we make, whether those choices create better human beings out of us, or simply wasting our time.
Now, majority of people will always go with the easy options, which are the poor choices. And this is natural. They would rather watch Netflix for 5 hours straight than do something productive. Majority would rather eat that chocolate than drool over it, and take an apple instead. This natural equilibrium divides the successful and unsuccessful, the fit and fat, the poor and rich, just like the confident and uncertain people.
Now, today we will talk about the things we CAN do to raise our confidence. And yes, this will skyrocket your success, fitness and confidence to the next level.
1. Talking bad about other people
We’ve all done it. If I tell you I didn’t do it, that would be a lie. And if I tell you I won’t do it again, that would be a lie too. But this time, I notice when I do it. I observe it, and find something very irritating, but necessary to spike my confidence.
When you talk about other people, you are really just talking about yourself.
If you are telling someone about how your boss is being a jerk, in reality, you’re probably talking about your lack of patience and understanding.
If you’re gossiping to one friend about another friend, what you’re really doing is telling the one friend that he or she can’t trust you to do the same to them.
Whenever you speak ill about something or someone, it exposes your true self. And this can never be wrong, that’s the trick. Your weaknesses are very loud when you speak ill about others, and we both know that is very bad for your confidence.
I don’t think this behavior can be stopped. Sometimes unconsciously we will fall into a conversation and talk ill about someone/something. After all we are all human, but when we do, we can do few things about it. First we should observe the conversation and see why we speak bad about others. And when we do, we should discover the shortcomings behind the things we say. This is the only way to get the good out of gossip, and additionally, boost our confidence by applying necessary change to fix it.
2. Letting other people make decisions for you
Our life is based on the knowledge other people gave is. We are formed and created by the opinion of others. By our parents, friends, teachers, colleagues, bosses etc…
However, there comes a point in time when we take our life in our own hands and steer the wheel. I think this is the real puberty, not when we get the first facial hair. This is the time when girls become women, and boys become men. And some people never get over this phase because when they are fully formed and should go on their own, they don’t bat an eye to self-develop and continue educating themselves.
I agree that constructive criticism is important. We can learn from the mistakes other people see we do, that we are unable to see, but that’s all there is.
If you become a doctor because your family wants to, you are going to be a terrible doctor. This applies to anything other people want you to be.
You are you own singular person. No one can make the decisions you do. Even if you make a mistake, the best lessons I’ve learned are through making mistakes and failing. Make your own mistakes, take your failures as your own, and you will start to shift your life for the better in an instant. You will become more assertive because mistakes and failures are necessary, not optional. On the long run, this will make you more confident and resilient.
3. Maintaining toxic friendships and relationships
This has more to do with confidence than most people realize.
Here comes my favorite quote: “you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” We must not take this lightly because if you surround yourself with the wrong people, they have the power to shatter your life and make you miserable. Confidence will be 100 miles away from you.
For a certain period, it’s okay to be alone. When you break the old pattern and distance yourself from toxic people it’s okay to be alone until the right people gravitate around you, and they will.
When I was 15 years old, I used to hang out with 16 people, every single day. My mother used to tell me: son, when you grow up IF you are lucky you’re going to have 2 close friends. At that time, I didn’t really understood that, but now I really DO. And this is because people change and they have different interests, hobbies, families and things they don’t really share in common with the same 16 people when they were young.
People and things change, and that is completely OK. The trick is not to be dragged by the people who don’t aspire to be better themselves, and try to pull you down with them. Don’t let your memories attach you to someone who’ll waste your time and drain the energy out of you.
Watch After: 5 Types Of Friends You Should Avoid Like The Plague
4. Living in the past
In simple terms, evolution wired our brains to remember bad things more to alert us when real danger comes in the future to keep us alive. Additionally, our brain focused on the negative so that we could clearly see the danger to fix it.
So, the past is not JUST the past, but it’s actual memory stored in the brain. It’s not as simple as “the past is the past just let it go.” It’s not something you let go of. It’s physical attachment stored in your brain as vital part of you. Your past has created you up to this point.
Just as vital, the past can be very toxic. It is where all the traumas, bad and also good events happened. The bad memories can really impact our future and present because our brain can re-activate them and make us physically feel them thus affecting our mood for the worse.
The way we overcome the past is by learning the crucial lesson out of it. For example: if you got in a car accident while you were driving drunk, the lesson is that you should NEVER drive under the influence of alcohol again.
This goes the same with small minor past mistakes we do. If I try to do a successful marketing campaign on Facebook, I will certainly make mistakes that will result in unsuccessful campaign. In time, I will learn from the past mistakes and make campaign successful. And when you think about it, I WANT to have those mistakes stored, because they will help me make a successful campaign.
It also works to instantly replace your bad memory with a positive one. For example if a bad memory recurs when your mother yelled at you in front of your friends, you have all the power to shift that thought with a positive one. You can think of the crazy summer night you had with your friends. This will give you dopamine and change your initial thought with a positive one.
Long story short, USE your bad memories and past mistakes to be better version of yourself. No one becomes an expert in anything based only on positive experiences.
5. And the last one: talking negatively to yourself
I just spoke about the R.A.S on my latest TikTok video. This stands for Reticular Activating System and it’s part of your brain responsible for the things you notice. Let me give you an example: if you buy a new car, you will start to notice that car everywhere. The car was there before that, but now you see it because you are genuinely interested in that car. The A.R.S is responsible for that.
If you focus on the worst of things, like what happened to you in the past, or why you are not happy because you did this and that, you will feed your R.A.S with more similar situations for you to focus on, whether they happened or they are about to happen.
If you speak negatively of yourself, you will have negative experiences now and in the future, because subconsciously you focus on the situations that can make it worse.
It’s not a flip of a finger to make everything run smooth and positive for you. You have to change your entire daily routine, the things you do and think through the day. Do you exercise regularly? Do you eat healthy? Do you take cold showers? Do you meditate? Do you have a journal? Do you write your plans on a schedule?
Real confidence comes with experience. You can be confident without experience, but sooner or later you have to take that cape off you and see that you still have a ton of things to learn. It’s better to know that you don’t know, than to act like you know and prove yourself and everybody wrong halfway through.
It takes courage to be confident because we have to face adversities that majority of people will never do. Most men want to chase girls but have never ever talked to a random woman in a bar. We all want success but never bat an eye to take the first step, because to build your success you need confidence in making the right steps, and to do that you need courage to make the wrong ones and learn from them.
