How do you get confidence?

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I am wondering, how does one acquire this mysterious quality known as "confidence." I have heard much about it, but actually possessing it has eluded me, at least for decades. I see most other people have confidence, and I wonder why it escapes me.

I think the overriding problem first of all is that I am tremendously gun-shy after years and years of failure and humiliation when trying to venture out in to social arenas. As a boy, I initially had great confidence and would say or do whatever came to mind........ but as I came to adolescence, I realized initially that people thought I was a strange one when I spoke to them, and that they would disrespect me and think low of me the moment I turned away. At this time in my life (only at about age 13) I realized that people did not always mean what they said. I always had just assumed until then that people directly meant the words they spoke, and I had no heed whatsoever of body-language, suggestion, implications, 2-facedness, etc.............

I also had parents and other adult authority figures later on who would totally destroy me every time I made some social error. It was also my luck of the draw to have parents, teachers, and bosses who made their expectations and standards known through the use of suggestion and implications. Time and time again, I would fail to "deliver" the results the expected of me....... (I also had jobs where my role was something based on delivering a social performance)...... Then I would absolutely get reamed, and I had only the vaguest conception of why I was getting chewed out.

My parents for example would see me totally botch some social encounter they expected me to have. They would "imply" something about some other boy who wanted to befriend me or some clique I should approach, but I'd fail to take the hint and just continue to do "my own thing." It befuddled them. Many other times, they'd see me perform awkwardly in some conversation with my peers, and I'd get admonished severely since it was a matter of "prestige" to them to have a popular and highly-socialized son. I think when I was born, my parents had some overoptimistic expectations of the type of "Alpha" son I was to be, and when they saw how I was turning out, they slammed me down and were seriously disappointed.

I heard it over and over again how I was screwing up every aspect of my life, particularly the social facets. In my teenage years, as I gradually developed a rudimentary understanding of just how "wrong" all was with me and my skills, I became completely gun-shy. It got to the point where I was terrified and could barely open my mouth to do things like order fast-food or make a service call. I lost all my confidence even for the most simple encounters that most people take for granted. It was just time after time of being slammed and humiliated just ground me down and totally intimidated me to nothing.

A specific part of the problem was that I had a hard time picking up on anything that wasn't literal, like implications, suggestions, sarcastic tones, and ulterior motives. (tangent here) For this reason, I would struggle terribly in English class even though I'm proficient at writing. The problem was that I could not understand novels, short-stories, fiction, or creative writing because I could not "process" in a book or write in a story emotions and complex motives that characters were pursuing. In quizzes, I'd be asked such questions about a novel, but be unable to answer (this was before I was DXed) because I had zero comprehension of such "depth.'

I could understand things like concrete history books just fine, but I could not see past any but the most superficial qualities or motives of either real people in my life or fictional characters. I'd also always be admonished as well for failing English, since my writing in some things was so great, but they did not know how I struggled with comprehending fiction and the actions of characters. It made no sense to me.

Also, I did not understand at all "sarcastic" remarks made my way....... like if somebody said to me "thanks for nothing" when I failed to help them enough, I'd interpret it that they were actually thanking me........... this caused HUGE problems later on for me working the counter when most customers who had issues would let their feelings be known through such sarcasm, and I'd fail to get the message and help them appropriately.

Sorry for my tangent, but I think that constant embarassment and failure ruined me and totally destroyed my confidence.

I even try to be confident in my life, but people who know me say I "have no confidence" still. I think its because I always "drag" and walk about with a frown and my head down. I try to change this, but then I look like I'm "trying too hard." Its really a catch-22. Nothing i do is "natural" about my body language tbh. Its quite a bad situation actually.

I just don't understand confidence and I have no idea how I can get this quality. For some time, I tried to always "force" a smile and force happiness and conversation, but that didn't work for reasons I understand now. When I'm just "being me" I always have the appearance of unhappiness and just being intimidated by everything and my surroundings.

I don't know but maybe if I had confidence people wouldn't treat me like a braindead person who has no knowledge of anything at all.

Think positively
Spend time with people who build you up rather than tear you down
Do what you're good at and what makes you happy

Start small. "Confidence" is something you build up. My first major life accomplishment was my GED. The sense of pride/achievement even from something like that is amazing. Set attainable goals that YOU want to achieve and work on making them happen. Even volunteering at an event or working at a soup kitchen. DO things that make you happy.

I am sorry to hear that out of all the people in your life your parents were supportive in that way. You know what? f**k 'em. You are who you are, and just the fact you can put together a good post looking for help is more then many. See if you can find a local group of kids that may have similar interests (I don't know you but many "geekier" groups such as at game shops or libraries tend to be much more accepting. It is often much more socially acceptable to just walk up to a group like that and say hi. Who knows, you might make some friends.)

I was painfully shy from when I was 7yrs until I had my daughter. I decided I needed to get out and do stuff, so that she wouldn't be isolated. So, I started going to toddler groups and classes. Basically, I just faked the confidence. I would go up to people who looked like they were new or on their own and talk - Where do you stay?, How old is your child?, 'Are you going back to work after maternity leave?', etc. I was nervous, but I managed to pull it off and my 2 good friends are people I met at that time. I'm now quite adept at that sort of thing and you'd never guess that shyness had ever been a major issue in my life. I would say that, on a one to one or one to two basis, I am confident (or no less confident than average). But, if there are any more people there, I completely clam up and maybe say one or two words. I'm not 'cured', but I feel much more at ease.

My husband's best friend told me that I come across as a super confident person and he has known me since the time when I was really shy. He has a social anxiety disorder and had no idea that I was really very like him, on the inside. I don't suppose he noticed the change after the birth of my daughter, he just thought I had been confident from the day he first met me. That seems really weird to me. Feedback from an interview, back in the shy days, was that I was very confident, but didn't know enough. The truth was that I knew loads, but I was so nervous that I found I couldn't access my knowledge. On that occasion, it would have been preferable to look nervous, then they would have accepted that I couldn't think straight because of it - that was the case for the person who did get the job.

'Confidence' is three things: Your self-assessment of how well you're going to do a thing, how much that thing matters, and whether that success or failure is attributable to you. If I try and do something unimportant (like get a toy from one of those crane machines) and I fail, my self confidence remains unchanged, because it's more a matter of luck than skill and it wasn't that important, anyways. If it was something at work that I failed, that I should have known how to do, my confidence might be shaken, but it will go back to normal later.

People talk a LOT about confidence to us, like they just expect us to put on this 'confidence' thing like a sweater and wear it around, not knowing what it's like to walk the hallway in middle school every day and wonder who's going to scream in your face and knock your books out of your hand THIS time and which girl is going to say, "Mind your own business, geek!" because you accidentally made eye contact for too long. And these are our formative years.

Penguin, you feel like you're a loser, because your whole life you've been playing a game against your will and everyone knows the rules except you and the game doesn't end until you die. To become more confident, you need to get some more 'wins' under your belt. You need to become the person you want to be. You have to like who you are.

"Oh gee, is THAT all?" you said sarcastically. It's not easy, but nothing worthwhile is. Find something, ANYTHING in your life, and get better at it. Work at it until you're satisfied, and move to another thing. It can be as simple as doing 20 pushups a day and becoming just a little stronger than you were the day before. Having a better physical presence makes you appear MUCH more confident and, if nothing else, makes girls notice your arms in a positive way.

I think confidence is impossible when you haven't got a trait of confidence in you at all. If you have enough will power or courage to start being confident tomorrow, then you must have a bit of confidence in you somewhere to start off with. But for someone like me who is scared s**t of my own shadow and very timid and feel like people are out to get me and feel like everyone is looking at me and laughing at me and judging me in some sort of horrible way, there is no good light to see myself in. As someone with such little to no self-esteem, by experiencing looks and laughter from other people all the time has made me actually believe that I must be a target. I've even had 2 adults in their 30s calling me a ''nutter'' when I was only 14 just because I had a bit of a crush on a bloke and was a bit silly over him. I also had 2 teenagers laughing at me in the cinema when I was 17, when I was cuddling my boyfriend (even though they were cuddling eachother aswell). God, what is up with people??? Why are they laughing at me for doing normal things, when there really are true nutters out there who are worth laughing at?

Sometimes, to get confidence, you need a little back up from other people, at least.

I know this is not the "right" answer and definitely not something I would recommend to anyone but I learned to be more confident by getting stinking drunk. I am talking about 15 years ago when I was in college, and I don't drink anymore, so I didn't make it a habit. I'm just saying it taught me how to find a different point of reference. When I was drunk I felt like I could take on the world. I found it easier to say no to people and stand up for myself.

You can bootstrap it, start with small wins.

It can be very difficult, but confidence comes from one's own accomplishments and not looking to others for affirmation. The strongest people don't care what others think of them.

You need to forget how stupid what you are doing is and just realize "You know what, what's the worst thing that could happen?" then jump in before you can stop yourself. You need to not care what others think of you.

so how do you who have said not to care what people think do it?

I mean I would not mind being able to do that......but for whatever reason I can't figure out how.

Hi Pengu1n, for one thing you are very good at writing, at analysing and describing your situation and at presenting it in a way that is easy to follow and makes me want to read more. So that's one of your skills right there. I agree with some of the other players that you need a few easy wins, and that the most promising way to get these is to think about what you like to do, or what your special interests are, and build some activities and contacts around those.

Think book club, or hiking group, or whatever exists in the subjects that you are interested in. Make sure this involves some real life people and interactions, not just online stuff. I have a sense that it is feeling alone (amongst other things) that makes you think you can't achieve anything.

I'm not saying, go out there and be the life and soul of the party, I'm sayings small steps. Making meaningful contact with others will give you some confidence, and some perspective. I don't think it helps to be told, you shouldn't care what others think. In my experience some people don't care, and others do, and it is a personality trait that is hard to shift. It is ok to care somewhat about what others think but it should not rule your every moment.

It is a pity that your parents are part of the problem, and not the solution. So you have to try to ignore them if you can.

being good at stuff and not always doing things wrong is a good start but i think more important than that is hanging around people who are not ars3holes and who do their best to draw attention to your inadequacies and make you feel bad about your differences. i ditched most of the people who did this and started hanging out with a left wing crew who didn't impose rigid notions of beauty on me, who don't judge me for my minority status and who don't treat me like i'm an idiot and am incapable of doing anything- they have pushed me to do things i never thought i was capable of doing which links back to the first point. after that i felt much better and the only time i feel worthless and lack confidence is when i'm with people who are bullies(family) or are right wing(family). its easier to make peace with yourself if you are surrounded by a bunch of people that are good but finding people is kinda hard, especially if you are asocial. not caring what people think is how i used to do it. its harder but also effective. why should i care about people's opinions if i don't like or respect them? that was my rationale. and not stressing every time you fudge things up too. its not the end of the world if you make mistakes.

Hello Everybody...........

I've analyzed my problems a bit more over the past few days.............

I think truly that 80% of my problem is "the appearance of having no confidence" ........ rather then just not being confident. I think I actually am very confident now in my mid-20's if I am doing something reasonably inside my comfort zone, but I get fewer and fewer chances to practice as I get more isolated as an adult........ So I get more uncomfortable with my "delivery" and my technique in social situations.

The problem is that I'm just not genetically wired to project as a regular NT male....... its almost like I am another species or something. Its like I am a Penguin, but I get admonished for not being more Walrus-like.

Its like I'll never be able to just come over as normal or appropriate because my brain is not wired to do so. And if I try and masquerade, it just comes over as "fake" Its really a no win, unless I find some middle ground somewhere.