27 January 2016

Inner Confidence, Part IV: Odds and Ends

by u/champagnehouse

Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

-Zen saying

And…truth be told, that’s just about it.

You have the principles necessary to achieve a different sort of confidence than people are used to: real faith. Real expectation that what you want in life is not only going to come into your life, but is already coming into your life.

If you’re doing affirmations and visualizations the right way, you should feel like your problem has vanished within one or two days. It happens that quickly. You might not have the immediate symptoms of success yet (say, maybe no woman has asked you out yet), but if you’re persistent in affirmation and visualization, you should immediately feel as good as though success has already happened. Any problems you previously had with worry and confidence should be gone within 1-2 days. If they’re not, re-read the series and readjust.

That isn’t to say, however, that you know everything there is to know about affirmation and visualization. I certainly don’t. There are a lot of odds and ends to inner confidence that play an important part of who you’ll become, and it’s important to remember them. And there are ways to make your path to success and confidence even more efficient if you’re willing to try them.

The most important: taking consistent action.

Action: Put Yourself in the Position to Succeed

Showing up is 80% of life.

-Woody Allen

Thought and action are not so separate as you might think. I like to think of action as the “thought” of the physical world, and thought as the “action” of the mental world.

In other words, your thoughts and actions need to be in alignment toward your goals. You need to start, as Woody Allen put it, showing up.

Yes, I do believe that something bordering on magical happens when you start visualizing and affirming your goals to yourself. Your goals seem drawn to you in inexplicable ways.

But I’m not advocating that you become a monk on a mountaintop, forever disconnected from the world.

If you want success to find you, you have to make yourself easy for success. You wouldn’t hope to win $100 million in the lottery and never buy a ticket, would you? Sure, you could hope that someone would come along and gift you a ticket so you never have to do anything…but it’s a lot easier to just go and buy a ticket.

If you want women to find you, you’re going to have to make yourself easy for them. That’s why one of the first pieces of advice I have for men is to find some social hobbies and go out at least 2-3 times per week.

Brent Smith and Jason Treu pointed out that taking action is where the rubber meets the road, where you find out just how far your inner confidence has really come along. If going outside and meeting women still makes you anxious, then you know that you need to do some adjusting with both your inner work and your outer work. If, however, the prospect sounds fun and you go out and women approach you…then you know that you’re on the right track.

Does this excuse you from any of the inner confidence work? Hell no. Your thoughts and your actions should be aligned. You should visualize yourself having success, you should affirm to yourself that you have success, and your actions should be about putting yourself in the right place.

Remember our work from Part I? You wrote down all sorts of details about the ideal kind of woman for you.

That means you also know where this kind of woman is likely to hang out, what kind of events they attend, etc. It’s time to put yourself in alignment with her and start attending those same events. Not to creep on women, mind you. But you’re not going to become the kind of person you want to attract unless your actions somewhat resemble their actions.

Your Brain is Always Watching

Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

-Winston Churchill

You know how “actions are the thoughts of the physical world, and thoughts are the actions of the mental world”?

It’s more true than you know.

Your subconscious mind is always active. It’s the “eternal mind.” It’s awake when you’re asleep. It’s listening to your visualizations and affirmations, yes, but it’s also listening to your other thoughts. It’s also watching what you do on a daily basis.

The subconscious mind is not “smart” the way you think it is. It works solely on faith. It simply believes whatever you feed it, for good or bad.

Everything that you do, your subconscious brain is watching, looking to form assumptions and beliefs based on what it sees. And it sees actions just as well as thoughts.

If you walk into a room and put your head down, your subsconsious thinks, “oh, this is a fearful situation. I’m not confident here. I’ll respond accordingly.”

If you walk into a room and smile, your subconscious thinks, “I’m in a good mood.” It will completely change how you interact with that room, whether you realize it or not.

If you slack off at work and at cheetos at your desk, your subconscious thinks, “oh, I don’t take this job very seriously.” It will actively work to keep you from getting that promotion because it doesn’t believe you should get it.

Everything - EVERYTHING - that you think and do, your subconscious is listening and obeying.

If it ever feels like the world is against you, it’s likely because you don’t see that this is the case, that everything you think and do on a daily basis - not just your visualizations and affirmations - is feeding your subconscious mind information that it uses. You might not be eternally vigilant, but you’d better believe that your subconscious mind is.

Manwhore of Manwhore.org says it this way: “In the way you do anything, you do everything.”

If you read /r/GetSuave, do an affirmation or two, say hi to one girl, and aren’t overwhelmed by mobs of hot women blowing up your phone, you might think “well…this is all well and good, but I’m not sure it works for me.”

Well, no shit. You get out of life what you put into it.

If you want better results, you’re going to have to watch all of your thoughts and actions and start questioning what you’re telling your subconscious mind. When you’re too afraid to talk to that “one girl” in your college class…when you’re too afraid to say “hello” to a beautiful woman in the street…these aren’t just results. These are actions. Actions that your subconscious mind is listening to and using to form opinions about you and the world.

Consider how confident an individual like Will Smith is.

Then ask yourself how a man like that approaches something as simple as the treadmill.

The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is, I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. Right? I will run…I will not be outworked. Period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things, you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, right, there’s two things: you’re getting off first, or I’m going to die.

Where does his confidence come from? It’s not from being handsome or rich or famous. It’s from that attitude, right there, and bringing that fire to everything he does.

Do you think Will Smith has trouble believing that he deserves money and success? Not with that attitude. He knows he deserves it. Because that’s how he approaches everything.

Focus Like a Laser Beam

If I had a dime every time I asked a guy, “well, what is it that you want?” and they weren’t able to give me an answer…

There’s a reason I started this series with “Know What You Want.” It’s the first step in creating laser-sharp focus onwhat you want.

Why is focus so important? Focus is the difference between a sunny day…and a magnifying glass starting a leaf on fire. Focus is the difference between traveling to the east coast…and traveling to the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. If you know what it is you want, you’ll not only make all of your thoughts and actions that much more efficient, but it will help you find the fastest possible route to its achievement.

Focus allows you to easily set the terms of your own success. Focus is the difference between advice like “go out and meet people” and “look up local charity events and introduce yourself to at least five people.” Focus makes your most vague desires actionable.

We know, for example, that willpower is limited. Much like a muscle, your willpower can get fatigued. You have a static amount of it every single day. So it’s no wonder that if you’re browsing /r/GetSuave with the idea that you’re going to work out two hours a day, talk to 10 women a day, buy new clothes, apply to ten jobs per day, and study for your exams for the remaining 28 hours a day, you’re going to spread yourself too thin.

Much as we hate to admit it to ourselves, our energy is finite. And when we just try to “will” our asses to the gym when we’re already exhausted, we run the risk of burning out.

Focus changes all that. Focus says, “I want this specific thing to happen. Now, how can I make it happen?*

And focus doesn’t just have to be specificity. Focus can be clarity. Scott Adams, in How to Fail At Almost Everything and Still Wing Big, advocates creating systems rather than goals. If you create a clear system that will put you in the position to have what you want, you’ll increase your odds of one day having it.

Focus isn’t just “I want to travel to the Lincoln Memorial.” Focus is also about strategy, sticking to a systematic plan of action that will take you to where you want to go. Focus says “I’ll use Google Maps to find the most efficient route, then I’ll set a goal of X miles per day until I get there.”

Focus means knowing what to do with yourself at the beginning of the day.

One of the best tips for productivity I ever learned was sitting down in the morning and writing down five things you want to achieve that day. You start with the most important and work your way down.

It’s simple, but devestatingly effective. Why? Because it gives you focus. It not only requires to sit down and specifically work out your focused goal, but it creates an action plan for its achievement. It says “Once I do this, I do that next.” It takes all of the willpower and guesswork and decision fatigue from your day and puts it on a little piece of paper.

To use focus to achieve your confidence goals, do exactly that. You’ll see the action steps at the end of this page.

Persistence

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

-Calvin Coolidge

If you give up after two days, you’re not doing it right.

Yes, I’ve told you that if you’re putting yourself in alignment with your goals properly, it will probably feel like your problems are solved almost immediately. You’ll be invigorated with a sense of purpose and faith that everything is going to be all right, and everything is going to turn out well for you.

But that doesn’t mean that if it’s not working, you should give up.

Instead, you should look to correct whatever it is that’s getting in your way. There’s a difference between adapting to circumstances and giving up entirely. Adapting says “this isn’t working, let me try something new.” Quitting says, “fuck it, I’m going to watch porn and jerk off and try this all again tomorrow.”

To quote Fight Club, this is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.

You don’t have the time to do anything but persist.

You think you do, but you don’t.

On your deathbed, you won’t regret all those times you tried and failed. You’ll regret all those times you never tried.

You won’t regret hard work. You’ll regret ever capitulating to circumstances.

You won’t regret plowing ahead. You’ll regret letting fear get the best of you.

You’ll be willing to trade all the days from this day to that to come back to being young and telling the world, “this is how I want it, and I’m going to have it.”

Don’t give up.

Never, never, never give up.

Change course, maybe.

But never give up.

Basic Rules and Critical Steps

Action steps:

Get out your notepad.
Refer to your original goals from Part I. Now, on a fresh sheet of paper, write out a list of five actions you can take to put yourself in the same “location” as the opportunities. If your goal is to attract women, it might include “speed dating events” and “saying hello to people at the beach.” Whatever you want. Don’t worry about results for now, or how difficult it will be. Just write down some do-able actions that you know you can take. Don’t worry if they seem too small to be effective. The goal is to start aligning your actions with your goals.
For focus, start implementing the habit of writing down three action steps for you to take that week. You can use suggestions from the previous step. Then don’t worry about the action you’re taking other than crossing items off that list. This eliminates decision fatigue and allows you to focus on feeling good and visualizations and affirmations. Make sure that your action steps are in lign with your goals.
The Key: Give yourself action steps that are systems, not goals. “Ask a woman out” is better than “get a date” because you can ask a woman out, fail, and still be in line with your system. It’s not about results at this point, it’s about action. Don’t say “get a new job,” say “apply to ten new jobs.” You’re focusing on showing up for success, and trusting the inner confidence and visualizations and affirmations to align the rest.
Listen to Calvin Coolidge.

Next step: start building your frame.