If I play the game a level higher than another person than I think through the tree of possibilities and pick the node with the highest payoff, whether or not the behavior in that node looks like something that a confident person would do. If I reduce my space of possible choices to those choices that signal confidence to myself I’m less flexible to adept myself to the situation.
The same goes for proving to yourself that you are intelligent, that you are a worthy human being, that you are normal, that you are rational, that you are contrarian or even that you exist.
If you spent energy on proving those things to yourself you are constraining the field of possibilities for your actions.
Your confidence example could also have the causality going the other way, where you don’t do things to prove to yourself that you’re confident because you’re already confident.
If you would tell me: “Look there an attractive woman and she looks over to you in a way that indicates she’s attracted to you, go and tell her she’s beautiful and ask her for a date.”, I couldn’t do it even if I agree with your reading of the situation.
My confidence has limits and there are behaviors that are outside of my sphere of actions.
I have a friend who I have seen telling a woman: “You’re too sexy, talking to you would just distract me, so get away from me.” and he meant it 100% and didn’t interact any further with her. Behavior like that is completely out of the sphere of my actions.
I can practice my dancing turns while waiting for public transportation without caring at all for whether someone who watches me will watch me as strange and I don’t do it to prove to myself that I can do it but simply because I want to practice my turns at a particular moment in time and have a few minutes to fill till the train comes.
A month ago I was in a situation where I felt inconfident and I just told myself. No need to fight it or pretend that it isn’t there or to hide it. Just allow it to express itself and move on.
If people see that I’m inconfident and that I’m vulnerable that’s okay.
If I play the game a level higher than another person than I think through the tree of possibilities and pick the node with the highest payoff, whether or not the behavior in that node looks like something that a confident person would do. If I reduce my space of possible choices to those choices that signal confidence to myself I’m less flexible to adept myself to the situation.
The same goes for proving to yourself that you are intelligent, that you are a worthy human being, that you are normal, that you are rational, that you are contrarian or even that you exist.
If you spent energy on proving those things to yourself you are constraining the field of possibilities for your actions.
If you would tell me: “Look there an attractive woman and she looks over to you in a way that indicates she’s attracted to you, go and tell her she’s beautiful and ask her for a date.”, I couldn’t do it even if I agree with your reading of the situation.
My confidence has limits and there are behaviors that are outside of my sphere of actions.
I have a friend who I have seen telling a woman: “You’re too sexy, talking to you would just distract me, so get away from me.” and he meant it 100% and didn’t interact any further with her. Behavior like that is completely out of the sphere of my actions.
I can practice my dancing turns while waiting for public transportation without caring at all for whether someone who watches me will watch me as strange and I don’t do it to prove to myself that I can do it but simply because I want to practice my turns at a particular moment in time and have a few minutes to fill till the train comes.
A month ago I was in a situation where I felt inconfident and I just told myself. No need to fight it or pretend that it isn’t there or to hide it. Just allow it to express itself and move on. If people see that I’m inconfident and that I’m vulnerable that’s okay.