Gerry Cueto

Confidence is a state of being certain that a particular way of doing things is the best for the given circumstance.

I like to use my intuition to figure this out. I run by a bunch of scenarios in my head and I won’t stop until I get a big intuitive boom, then I act from that thought which clicked in my head. One of the common problems I see is that people overanalyze situations, but when you start following your intuition, many areas in your life become easier.

Confidence can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some people will fail just because they didn’t even try while others will succeed by simply acting.

Self-confidence doesn’t mean you’re loud and reckless. If you keep reading this article you will see the difference between true confidence and fake ego pumping.

Think ahead

There is no such thing as 100% security, but there are things you can do to elevate your intelligence on security. There are preventive measures you can take. Realistic security tells us we’re not 100% safe, but we can increase security by thinking outside of the box. You have to be ready when crisis comes and have a plan.

There are other kinds of security too, not just physical security. One of the biggest struggles most people face is psychological security. Once you start thinking rationally about any kind of security and get rid of superstitious notions like “it’s okay because a supernatural spirit will protect me,” you can actually start to solve your irrational fears rationally.

There is no magic pill

Attack whatever fears you have individually and directly. People have this misconception that if they can do a fire walk or an equally over the top stunt then that cures all fears. I’ve heard people say things like, “The fear of my job is miniscule compared to the fire walk!” Wrong. You can attack the biggest fear on the planet, but you will not cure other fears in your life you think are smaller. If you fire walk, you’ve only acquired the courage to keep fire walking, not the courage to deal with your co-workers. People want a quick fix, and they’ll go through whatever radical extremes to get it.

Human emotions are extremely irrational. A human will attach certain emotions to a stimulus or person. Let’s say a guy likes a sales clerk, but he’s afraid to ask her out on a date. Downgrading the goal to smile at 20 girls, won’t solve his fear. He needs to figure out the worst case scenarios of asking the clerk out and come up with solutions for each.

Start thinking critically about your irrational fears

Irrational fears are useless because they don’t threaten your life or your check book; all they might be doing is threatening your pride. It’s amazing that we even have fear of success, fear that people might be asking for our money and for hookups if we get rich and famous and not knowing what to do about it.

Why is losing a job such a big fear? I’ve had friends who’ve been laid off and they’ve been able to find a way to make money while unemployed. They might have had an internet business going or been living off their savings or family. I don’t know what the big fear is when you have something to cover you or can plan just incase a layoff does happen. Fear is lack of intelligence, lack of planning. If my friend would have thought about that before he had gotten laid off, he wouldn’t have been so upset. Another thing that could be causing fear for most people is that people tend to attach themselves to their job.

As a person with a lot of former irrational fears, irrational fears aren’t cured by convincing yourself that you really aren’t afraid of anything. It’s a step by step process. When you’re trying to solve irrational fears, you need to know exactly what it is you fear. Within that you might realize that what you thought you feared wasn’t the actual trigger for the fear. It’s an evolutionary process. It takes a while to solve your fears and become known as a courageous individual.

Get a sheet of paper

Find out what you’re afraid of. Let’s say you’re afraid to get laid off. Write down on your paper why. List your reasons for instance:

1. I love my job
2. I don’t know how I’m going to get income
3. Etc

For each reason keep writing solutions until you find one that counters the original reason completely. You might be an hour or more on one fear trying to figure out solutions, but don’t stop there. Keep doing this over and over till you’re aching to do something about it. It’s not about repeating generic positive affirmations; it’s about literally attacking the fear with the right affirmation for each negative rationalization.

What you’re doing is focusing your mind on something more important than the fear and it turn solving the fear. It might not solve it 100% right now. You might come to the actual stimulus and find more rationalizations for why you fear it. The wheel keeps going. Go back and write them down, and keep using the same pattern until you’ve thought about it so much and acquired intuitive solutions that the fear is gone for good. Fear isn’t something you’re going to totally destroy overnight. Some people are like John Wayne. They’re motivated by fear and do it anyway. Weigh different techniques out and see what works best for you.

The worst fear I feel is actually writing down the scenarios on paper. This is pretty awesome because afterwards in the real situation I don’t feel that extreme fear anymore. Sometimes you’re not able or don’t have time to write down and rationalize your fears away. Sometimes you have to grab your balls and go in and do whatever it is. Don’t limit the methods you’re going to use to attack your fears.

When doing the courage sheet, you might even be afraid to apply the rational solution. Do the whole process over again till you’ve destroyed the wheel of fear. Even if you don’t know how you’re going to be the world’s next greatest motivational speaker, you can get a small idea that gets your feet moving forward. Maybe you might start preparing some motivational speeches for youtube and grow an online fan base until somebody asks to book you. Don’t deny that you’ll ever reach the goal. Keep moving your feet forward.

Focus on building true confidence

Confidence isn’t caused by listening to the right song or album. All that does is give you a short adrenaline boost, and you’ll probably lose your confidence right away when you think about the original fear-causing stimulus. When you’re actually confident, you don’t really need to “pump” yourself up. When you drive a car, do you really need to have a song pumping you up just to get you to drive? No. You have enough courage to drive from experience. Once you have reconditioned your mind to not feel fear anymore, you don’t really need to get pumped up with music or have a cheerleader team behind you when you’re going to do whatever it is you were previously afraid to do. Confidence is a matter of intellect. It’s not just a feeling.

Reward yourself intermittently when you take small steps in building courage. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Remember it’s a gradual process. You didn’t become afraid by being totally courageous one day and overnight you became afraid.

Think rationally

I remember when I was full of irrational fears. I’d meet a confident person and tremble. I was like, “crap! I’ll never been like him. What did he do to get that?” I would be scared of not taking his advice or feel good if I was already taking it. Now I can take their advice and disagree with them when I think they’re wrong or agree with them when they’re right as an intellectual, and elaborate on what they’re saying. Raising your consciousness by thinking critically gives you confidence and authority in these situations.

Rise up and be heard

I hear a bunch of peer groups saying that they’re being oppressed. I’m not talking about brutal, violent oppression. I’m talking about people who can’t take being made fun of or ridiculed. The truth is that if they take hater comments personally, they’re oppressing themselves. If you have a sheep mentality and don’t think at all for yourself of course you’re going to feel oppressed. This is true no matter what race, religion, and gender you’re in. Think of something so great that your oppressors will have no choice but to respect you. Don’t let yourself be knocked down. It’s not about starting demonstrations, protests, violence, or a cheerleading team. It’s about coming up with rational solutions to solve your oppression in a mature, peaceful way. You can acquire social skills, hypothesize certain scenarios, and come up with solutions creatively.

Get educated

Some fears can be solved by simply learning new information. I was a little afraid to set up this blog because I had no clue how to do it and I thought I’d have to pay a lot of money to get someone to do it, but then I watched a youtube video, and I realized setting up the blog was extremely simple. There wasn’t even much code to edit early on, only enough to get it to connect to MySQL.

Some people start careers on their weaknesses. For instance, this guy, Mystery, was horrible with talking to women, but then he decided one day that he was going to figure out how to talk to them and start relationships with them by getting out of his house and trying different things. He then invented a method that worked for him which he called the Mystery Method. Now he teaches it to men all over the world. Overcoming a weakness can be a more interesting selling point to people and a more fulfilling career to you than your natural external strengths and talents.

I got into personal development because it was a weakness in my life. I would pretty much go with the flow and had no control of my life. I was extremely gullible as a child, if a neighborhood friend said to eat a lizard because it was cool, I’d do it, but my natural talent was music. I can compose and produce tracks really well. I tried to do a career with music but it wasn’t satisfying for me. Producing music doesn’t fulfill me, but I find personal development more interesting because it’s a strength I built and continue to do so. I can show people what I’ve done with it. I’ve lived and experienced a lot more as a result of being proactive and applying personal development. Even though I’m still young and have more development to go, I’ve digested enough material to share with you.

Most of your innate talents and strengths are hardwired into your brain and are genetically predisposed.

Innate talents vs. external talents

Maybe I and Mystery had the basic talent to overcome our weaknesses. For instance I’m good at music, but what makes me good at music? The most basic substance of my musicality is being creative. I’ve used that basic core to solve my problems in personal development by thinking out of the box.

What was Mystery’s external talent? It was magic. What innate talent must be present in order to perform magic? Performance.

Think of the verb. If you create music, you’re creative. If you perform magic, you’re a performer. What Mystery did to solve his problems with women was going out and performing his routines and stories to them. Don’t focus on the noun of what you do well; focus on the verb to find your core strength. You can use your innate talents to change all areas of your life if you want.