The first step in having confidence in any interpersonal situation is realizing the 2 Key Reasons why people tend to NOT have confidence. They are:

1. Because you are trying to GET SOMETHING FROM THE OTHER PERSON, and/or

2. Because you are trying to IMPRESS THE OTHER PERSON.

Think about it.

Do you lack confidence around a child?

No.

Because you’re not trying to impress a child and you’re not trying to get something from a child.

What about a store clerk?

Again the answer is no. In fact, a store clerk is often trying to get something from you, and that gives you a SENSE OF POWER. You’re the decision maker in that situation. You’re the one who the store clerk is trying to impress.

So where do most people lack confidence?

The most common answers are around: (1) social groups, (2) new romantic partners, and (3) superiors at work.

In these 3 situations, it’s very common to want to impress or get something from the other person.

And then what commonly happens?

Well, you interact with people in those situations, hoping to impress them or get what you want) and then you DON’T get what you want and/or you DON’T impress them.

Bummer.

It seems very counter-intuitive. You wanted a certain outcome and you got EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OUTCOME.

Here is an extremely important idea that you should commit to memory if you want to start improving your confidence in any situation:

“The Need For Anything, Gets In The Way of Everything.”

As soon as you “Need” something from someone else (even something as simple as getting them to like you), it’s human nature to immediately be reluctant to give it to you.

Neediness is not attractive.

It’s not attractive to romantic partners, peer groups or the boss at work who’s deciding if you should get that promotion.

So what should you do?

It’s easy to say: “don’t be needy.” Or “don’t want anything from them.”

But that’s not a very satisfying answer.

It’s also really hard to implement “in the moment” when you’re face to face with the other person.

Trying to simply “not perform a behavior” is hard.

However, what is much simpler is “replacing the behavior with something else.”

Then, at a minimum, you have something “to do” instead of something “to not do.”

Make sense?

So here’s the replacement behavior: From now on, everybody you interact with either (1) wants something from you or (2) wants to impress you.

Now you’re in the position of power.

Now you’re “the buyer” so to speak.

They need to impress you.

Now let’s be very clear:

“This is an exercise in THINKING and ATTITUDE”

It’s not an exercise is changing anything you say (i.e. your actual words).

You say the same things you would normally say. In fact, you may even go one step further and actually say things you would have previously held back when you were trying to impress them (a terrific side benefit of doing this).

However, even if you say the exact same things, here is the difference in communication:

You are aware that most communication is nonverbal (i.e. body language, tone of voice, eye contact, etc.). The actual words are often far less important.

So when you’re “thinking and attitude” is “this person wants something from me” and “this person is trying to impress me” and “this person needs to sell me,” then all of your nonverbal communication will reflect that.

What the other person will see across from them will be an aura of confidence and non-neediness resonating from your eyes, voice, body language, attitude, demeanor, and so on.

“The Need For Nothing, Will Get You Everything.”

So immediately start practicing the belief that everybody is trying to impress you, and you will literally start to feel the confidence flowing out of you. It won’t work perfectly every time at the beginning. But as they say, practice makes perfect.