Confidence is Attractive so How Do I Get Some

Confidence is an outward sign that you try respect and love yourself on the inside. We've all heard it a million times; you can't be successful in love until you learn to love yourself, or how you must be confident to attract others. But what we don't hear is how to accomplish this. Sure, it sounds great, but what now, how do I learn to love myself more or have more confidence? A lot of dating books focus on giving you a list of behaviors meant to mimick confidence and self-love, but that will never work because eventually your true self will shine through the cracks of the facade. Instead what daters need is information on how to self-love, because only then will you attract the right people. So how do you do it?

If you go to the bookstores these days you'll find what seems like a thousand books on various aspects of loving ourselves, being happy, developing self-confidence, etc., and guess what? They all say pretty much the exact same thing, one thing! Different groups of people might describe it differently, scientists, spriritual advisors, counselors, self-help gurus, motivational speakers, psychologists, etc.. They have different names for it (Psychologists call is CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), but it's so simple, and it's one thing. However, keep in mind that although it's simply in theory, putting it into place is work, you must practice, practice and practice. It's similar to losing weight, there's a million books and sources telling you how, but it boils down to eating less, eating healthy and exercise. Simple, right? But actually doing it takes work. Well learning to love ourselves is the same thing, the answer is simple, but making it happen takes work, it's like exercise for our brain, our brain won't change overnight but with practice, repetition and persistence, we're bound to achieve our goal. So what's the simple secret?

Scientists have discovered that "positive thinking" is not just good because it seems good, it actually has been shown to rewire our brain (for the better) and adjust the chemistry in the brain as well. Even more interesting, they have found that you don't really have to believe positive statements for them to work. If you keep repeating it (even if you honestly don't feel it at first), eventually your brain starts to believe it's truth. Positive thinking is more than just saying what a beautiful day it is. It's the thoughts we think about ourselves (I'm no good, that person thinks I'm weird, I'm so stupid sometimes), the thoughs we think about others (that persons an idiot, what a jerk, they're so selfish), the thoughts we think about the world (everyone is so evil, bad things are always happening, there's no hope for the world). Every book you read about happiness, self-love or self-improvement will boil down to exercising the process of making our thoughts consistently positive.

If you start consciously eliminating negative thoughts about yourself and replacing them with positive thoughts and you consistently continue to do so, you will start to develop confidence and self-love. At first it might sound ridiculous because most of us have no idea how many negative things we think about ourselves and how often we think it. No wonder so many of us don't have good confidence or self-love. Much of it came from situations in our childhoods where we didn't feel good enough, and then it's been further programmed deeply into our psyche through the insane amounts of commercial advertising that's aim is to convince us that we're not good enough until we buy whatever they're selling. We hear it all day long on the tv, radio, newspaper, magazines and then from others who've been programmed from these same sources. You'll be cool if you wear these clothes, if you have this car, if you have a cool job, if you take these diet pills and lose weight, if you buy this makeup to cover up your flaws, etc. Not only do we give ourself negative messages, media does it to so they can sell us something by convincing us were not good enough without it.

It might sound ridiculously simple, so I will give you a challenge to demonstrate the validity. Go to your local bookstore to the self-help section (which is usually a pretty large section) and open every book you can on subjects such as happiness, confidence, success, etc. and see if you can find one book that doesn't center around "positive thinking" and eliminating "negative thoughts". Whether it's written by the Dalai Llama, Deepak Chopra or David Burns, they'll all confirm that it's just that simple.

As you start thinking positively about yourself, others and life, you'll notice changes taking place along the way, just like you would if you were physically exercising and started noticing improvements along the way. As you start to love yourself, you'll start doing things you might have been afraid to do before, you'll feel the motivation to reach for higher accomplishments, to set new goals for yourself and find new ways to enjoy life because you're not afraid and your confident in yourself. As this happens, your attractiveness will start to increase to the opposite sex as well (although if you consciously use this is your motivation you'll be far less likely to succeed instead of focusing just on yourself and your own hapiness without other motives). The ironic thing is that as this happens, you will be happier and less obsessed with getting validation from the opposite sex. You won't worry about rejection or want love simply for love's sake. You'll begin loving yourself and realize that finding someone to enhance this love would be great, but you don't need just anyone to help you feel loved, you can do that for yourself.

I do highly recommend that you get a book to help you through this process, there are a lot of workbooks. Personally I benefitted from a book of affirmations (Louise Hayes), I would simply open the book to a page and read. Even if I hated it at first and felt cynical and annoyed, it always amazed me how quickly my outlook would change after reading for just a minute or two. After that I got some affirmation CD's and DVD's and exposed myself to it as much as I could until it became easier for me to create my own positive thinking pattern and eliminate my negative thoughts. They still creep in occasionally as I'm human, but my life has blossomed from putting this simple brain exercising to work. Other people might prefer a more scientific type reading resource such as David Burn's "Feeling Good" which was pretty much the first and foremost (to this day) authority on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which is the psychological term for creating positive thinking patterns and eliminating negative ones. There's lots of different styles, so flip through various books at the bookstore and see which one speaks to you. I do recommend having at least one book that has daily thoughts that is easy to encourage you if you only have 2 minutes to read it.