What if I told you there is one key element affecting every aspect of your life? Something that shows up in your conversations, your approaches, and your body language. No matter how hard you might try, you can’t hide this. It keeps showing through, and it needs work. A lot of work.

And no, I’m not going to ask you to enter your email, buy my eBook, or check out my uDemy course in order to figure out what it is.

The element is your confidence, and to be more specific, it’s your not-so-great confidence. I’m going to use this piece to talk about your lack of confidence and how to fix it, but first I’m going to talk about why it’s so important.

(Quick note: if you’re an unshakeable rock of confidence, could approach the hottest girl in your pajamas, and haven’t felt fear in years, don’t bother reading on. This is only for normal people).

There’s a ton of information out there about pickup and seduction. I’ve seen Youtube channels, whole websites, and libraries of books about this stuff. There’s a spectrum from the extremely niche (“Get middle aged business women’s numbers with this weird trick!”) to the super broad (“How to daygame”). Throughout my journey into self development and seduction I’ve seen all across the board, but I see a lot of pretty specific technical pieces. Before anyone gets upset, I’m not hating on those at all. They’re invaluable. With that said, I’ve had far too many people ask me for advice on specifics like the wording of a text, when they don’t have the confidence to approach girls normally. Jumping to the specifics before the basics are down is a common, but large mistake. This may sound cliche, but without a solid foundation, you cannot build a house. Confidence is your foundation.

You can set up your Tinder profile, watch seduction videos, and read blog posts, but you need something beyond the knowledge: you need to execute, and here’s a secret: executing takes confidence! Improving this aspect of your life with create massive returns all over. Imagine banishing approach anxiety forever. Pretty awesome, right?

Now I’ve convinced you of the importance of confidence, I’ll explain how to manufacture it.

A couple years back, I spent a few days at a conference. There was a little room with a buffet for the speakers and officials to hang out and get some food. The first day, I was walking around looking for a buddy, and I wanted to peek into that room and see if he was there. I had a distinct feeling of fear and anxiety, thinking that even looking in there might get me in trouble — I wasn’t a speaker! The next day, I was spending some time with a good friend of mine who was in the organization, and was allowed to dine at the buffet. He had his laptop and some papers spread all over a table, and instead of packing up, he asked me to run over to the buffet and grab him some food. I agreed, walked over to the buffet, and without a second thought I served myself some food and walked back.

The lesson there is pretty obvious. Confidence changes your behavior on a fundamental level and allows you to align your actions with your intentions more successfully (with great power comes great responsibility — having good intentions is equally important!). I was allowed to be there, I believed I was allowed to be there, and I acted differently because of it. No one questioned me. This was easy, of course, because I had an external source who authorized me to be there. I’m sure you’ve all seen the difference confidence makes in situations, so now the obvious question is: how can you manufacture it? When nothing is going your way and there’s no one telling you you’re on track, how do you continue pushing on in the face of adversity? Let’s walk through some points.

Reality Check

Ask yourself: “What’s the worst thing that can happen here?”. Take a moment, and rationally work through the situation’s WORST outcome (be reasonable here, don’t take into account meteors hitting the building or anything ridiculous). I used to do this a lot in college, before big tests and such. “I fail the exam. I fail the class. I have to retake the class. I graduate late. It takes me an extra few months to get a job. And that’s okay”. Always finish these mental evaluations with “and that’s okay”. This is a nice reminder that failure won’t be the end of the world. The fear and anxiety can easily get blown way out of proportion by your imagination. In the vast majority of cases, fear is completely useless. It does nothing but paralyze and hinder you. Using rational thought to fully investigate your fear can lessen or even banish it.

I want to be clear here, and say that I am not advocating apathy in the face of trouble. Throwing up your hands and not caring about the outcome is something different, and not at all healthy. Don’t just turn off your emotions entirely — but make sure you’re not overstressing, which is incredibly common.

Bonus: I used to have a note saved in Evernote titled “read when stressed”. It was a quick mental pep talk I would give myself during times of anxiety, and I found it helped a lot. I’ll include it at the end of this piece, I hope it will help you too.

Force Action

When you attempt and succeed, you create momentum and a mental track record. You trust yourself. When you attempt and fail, you learn how to not do something. You see what didn’t work, and you improve towards success. Succeeding builds you up, and failing toughens you up. Both are crucial ingredients for confidence, so ignore the outcome and focus on forcing yourself to take action. There’s a lot of stuff out there on this already so I won’t go into too much depth, but simply jumping in without over thinking has massive benefits. Accept nothing will ever be perfect, and execute. Pick up the phone. Send the text. Say hi to the girl. This is INCREDIBLY easier said than done, so start small! Pick something a little out of your comfort zone and do it. What you choose is totally based off of your ability — don’t make it too easy, but don’t make it so hard you’ll chicken out in the moment. Once this is done, set a slightly more intimidating goal. Build momentum as you slowly build confidence and prove to yourself that everything will be alright.

Again, a caveat: I’m not supporting rash, poorly thought out actions. Put thought into action — the correct amount of thought. Don’t get caught in analysis paralysis: learn to recognize it, and get out.

Invest in Yourself

I’m sure some of you have heard the term “return on investment” (ROI). It’s a term that refers to financial investments, but it applies to many others areas. Your body is an incredibly valuable asset that you need in good condition, so it’s clear that the ‘investing’ in your body by keeping it healthy and in working order has a very high return — hence, high ROI.

It’s also hard to be confident when you’re not taking care of yourself. Think about the ROI of eating healthy food vs. eating junk food. Or the ROI of spending an hour at the gym every day. It’s important to work on both the physical and the mental capacities of your body — work out, eat well, get fresh air, read good books, don’t expose yourself to negative media for hours at a time, don’t compare yourself endlessly to others, etc. Even if you’re not in the best shape, that’s okay — it’s not nearly so much where you are as that you’re going somewhere. The capability of constant improvement (no matter how small) to manufacture confidence cannot be understated. If you’re wondering why you’re not confident while watching your 4th hour of TV and eating junk food, you’ve got some pretty great ways to start!

Let’s recap:

Confidence is the key to everything. With it, anything is possible. Without it, you’re nearly nothing.

Banish fear through rational thought (don’t worry, fear is pretty useless).

Smash through analysis paralysis and take action!

Constantly improve yourself.

That’s it. Three killer ways to focus on creating confidence and create results in your life. If you’ve got any other awesome tricks, let me know!

If this provided value for you and you'd like to see more, I collect my writings at www.foundationalseduction.com — you can also choose to be emailed when I write new stuff. Some people say my stuff is helpful. Maybe they're lying. I hope not! :P

Oh, and one more thing — can’t forget that anxiety-banishing pep talk I promised you!

“Anxiety is an expression of fear. Fear is useless. Fear is a holdover from centuries ago, when there was real danger. Currently, the only danger is missing out. Nothing will hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. In almost every sense, you are invincible. You are awesome. You are leaving your comfort zone, and you are ready for anything. Your life is what you make it, and you're making it better. You are in the pursuit of greatness, and as much as your body loves comfort, you know better. The only thing necessary for the triumph of others is for you to do nothing. Apathy is death, and you have died far too many times. This is your life, and it is what you make it. Make it incredible.”

Obviously, it’s super over the top, but that’s the point! I don’t recommend reading it out loud, people might think you’re a bit weird, but it just might give you the confidence boost to achieve the next level of success.