Written by Illia Solano
Confidence. Confidence. Confidence. What a word, am I right?
For many, I think, confidence is something that someone has and makes them stand out. Like they know what is going on in the world and don’t have a doubt about anything.
But I have a little secret.
No one is really confident.
I believe confidence is achieved by pretending to think you know stuff. Take it from me, an overly anxious and not talkative person at all. I think I’ve gotten the hang of it.
This is a guide to achieving a sense of confidence.
Step 1: Eye contact is key
Direct your two eyeballs to the person that you are talking to. It is crucial that you let the other person know that you are actively engaging in the conversation. With steady eye contact, the other person will be like, “This eye contact is telling me that this person is really confident. Nice.”
Take for example that scene from Jurassic World where Owen is trying to calm the velociraptors down. If you haven’t watched this scene or don’t remember here is the gist. The velociraptors were mad for some reason but Owen was trapped in with them. So what did he do? He kept eye contact with each dinosaur while he de-escalated the situation. One of the dinosaurs was probably like, “This guy is really looking at me and knows what he’s doing, I feel seen.”
Eye contact for the win.
Step 2: There is no winning with overthinking
As an avid overthinker of how things will and can go wrong, I pride myself in assessing the smallest of situations that do not need to be assessed. Does it get tiring? Yes. Should I stop? I guess so.
But seriously, we don’t really acknowledge this but overthinking can seriously make people second-guess what they are going to do. I know that I end up doing worse on something when I let my thoughts get the best of me. I worry about what others will say or think of me. That is why we people should stop thinking about what’s the worst thing that can happen.
We have to realize that most of the time, other people don’t care about what we wore that day or what we said during our presentation. I’ve come to realize that people are always more concerned with themselves. Selfish but true.
Think back on something embarrassing you did. You probably have a lot of those memories. I know from experience.
Now think of something embarrassing that happened to another person.
Now embarrassing things of multiple people.
You can’t really remember, right? A few but not more than your own.
When we let go of these negative thoughts and try to control our thoughts then it becomes much easier to not think bad about oneself. This leads to getting that power back, not caring so much about others’ opinions, and just being you 100% of the time.
Basically, be a Derek from The Good Place when it comes to opening up. Not a Chide, though he is pretty cool.
Step 3: Pretend
If I have learned anything is that no one is straight-up confident. I’m not, but some people think I am.
My secret and everyone else’s?
Just pretend you are.
Talk like you know what you are talking about. Even though it might just be a pile of nonsense. If another person feels like you know what you are talking about, then they will feel like you are confident.
You might not personally feel confident, but you are conveying an image that seems confident.
Take for example Michael Scott from The Office. Michael could best be described as the manager at Dunder-Mifflin who really didn’t know much about… stuff. But he seems like he does, it makes him seem confident. Like when he said, “How the turntables have turned,” in one of the episodes. He knew that wasn’t right but didn’t back down from him saying that. Michael Scott is the epitome of overconfidence with nothing holding him back.
I am not completely saying that you should just flat out lie and pretend to be someone you’re not. No. Just pretend you are confident and that in turn will make you confident. I feel that even just doing some power poses increases my confidence as well.
Well…That’s all from me. The guide to being confident without being confident.
