These 3-Part System Puts All Self-Confidence Hacks into Trash
Image: Unsplash by Olu Eletu
I was that person with super low self-esteem, never dare to look into the eyes of the girl I like, and never able to speak professionally with strangers.
I’ve to admit it that one of the biggest reason I was there is my weight. I was overweight, look terrible. Most people will simply ignore me when they passed by. (If I did grab their attention, that’s probably because of my size).
But the confidence hack I’m going to tell you is not about getting into your best shape, stay healthy, and smile often. They are indeed very important tips for you to feel better, but you and I both know they never last.
Alex Remembers Names
And here come my friends - Alex. He’s not overweight, and he has that genetics we all crave for. But I’m not going to talk much about his size and his weight.
Besides being overweight, I have a terrible memory of people’s names. I usually forget your name instantaneously when you introduce yourself to me at an event. Yes, instantaneously. I know it’s a terrible problem, especially when I’m attending some professional meetings or events.
Therefore, before people even introduce themselves to me, I told them I’m bad at remembering names in the first place. It’s weird (but I did my best to make it kind of like a personality). At least, I’m being honest in the first place.
Alex is different. He can remember every single person’s name who he met at an event. Seriously, I can’t believe that. How is that possible?
When I ask him how he did it, his answer - I did nothing, I’m just good at remembering names.
I marked myself as a person who is terrible at remembering names, while Alex defines himself good at remembering names.
Priorities, Self-judgment, Identity
There’re tons of people who are overweight but still feeling confident about themselves. It’s all because of these THREE things:
- Priorities
- Self-judgement/Self-awareness
- Identity
1. Priorities
Priority is one of the elements that made up your self-confidence. And that’s exactly what put some self-confidence hacks into the trash. Because sometimes, you just don’t care about that. If someone is feeling upset because of their income, it’s kind of useless to tell them to start working out.
Understand yourself instead. Know your priorities, find out what is important for you. What about yourself that you care the most? Your shape? Your finance? Your job? Your spouse? Cookiecutter self-confidence hacks never work, you can’t solve that until you find out what your priorities are.
2. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the next part. There are two questions you should ask yourself here:
- How do you think about yourself?
- How do you think about how others think about you?
Most people say you should ignore the second question. I totally agreed with that. But it’s impossible sometimes for you and me to ignore someone else’s opinions, especially if they are a person who you care about deeply and are making a judgment about something you care about very much.
Rather than dismissing them and their question completely, try being aware of their opinion. Regardless, Before you let self-loathing emotions drag your self-confidence down just because someone made some poor judgment about you, refer back to the first question:
Ignoring others’ judgment only works when you have a strong self-awareness.
3. Identity
Here comes the last element - your identity. This is exactly what helps Alex to remember every person’s name in the room, while I forgot every person’s name instantly. Simply because of the identity we gave to ourselves. Identity is the core of our behaviors, then our actions and finally our appearance. And I personally think self-confidence is something which lies in our behaviors and appearance.
That’s not much tricks and hacks on how to build your identity, maybe that’s because I’m not aware of them yet, but you can achieve authentic confidence by understanding your priorities and building up your self-awareness.