You are sitting at home on your comfortable couch, in your comfortable slippers, eating your comfort food and binge-watching your favourite shows. Life is safe, familiar, reassuring and pretty good really.
But something is missing.
You long for a companion to share your couch with … or even a bigger life with.
But the fear of rejection, embarrassment, social risk or commitment may be stopping you from getting up off that couch. Perhaps you have been burned before, maybe you are tired of the dating merry-go-round.
You might be tired of all the dating Apps and hook-up culture. Whatever your reasons, they are valid and legitimate, and you have every right to stay on your comfortable couch.
Unless you yearn for something more.
Confidence > One of the key elements to dating success
Dating can be hard.
It takes grit and resilience to endure the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the excitement and disappointment. At the very core of this resilience is your confidence. Your belief that you deserve to be happy, to enjoy a great relationship with your ideal, perfect partner. Your level of comfort in your own skin, your acknowledgment of your strengths and quirks and your self love.
From a self preservation perspective, it’s a good idea to build your confidence before you launch into your dating pursuit. This will build your emotional reserves so you have some ‘confidence capital’ in the bank.
When your confidence capital is in the positive, you have a foundation to support the ups and downs, and you will be more resilient and less like to give up when the going gets tough.
So, how can you build your confidence capital?
Step One: Fake it until you become it
Brain science research has shown that our brains don’t know the difference between real and fake confidence. So, we can actually trick our brains into believing we are more confident than we are and guess what … it become reality!
Start by developing your own confidence mantra. It needs to be realistic (your brain will see right through it if it’s too far fetched), positive and motivating for you.
Something like ‘I am a confident and passionate person’ or ‘I believe in my strengths’ would work well.
Find a way to see and think about your mantra every day, multiple times if possible. Some of my clients set reminders in their phones or computers, others create a screen saver on their devices or stick little notes around their homes.
Whatever works for you.
Step Two: Know your strengths
We all have strengths as well as weaknesses.
Our brains are hard-wired to focus on our weaknesses and to look for negative evidence in our environment (this goes back to the cave man days when we needed to be constantly scanning our environment for threats to our safety). So, as modern humans we need to do a little extra work to make sure our strengths remain top of mind.
Do you know your own top 5 strengths? (I bet if I asked you your top 5 weaknesses it would be easier to answer…)
Click here to complete a strengths test > this will give you a list of your 24 character strengths in order from your greatest to your weakest.
By knowing your top strengths and actively choosing to leverage them every day, your confidence will naturally develop.
We all feel good about ourselves when we are good at something, when we are engaged in things that we love and when we get great results.
By playing to your strengths, you will set up a positive cycle of enjoyment, achievement and confidence.
Step Three: Highlight your greatest asset
Everyone has ONE thing about themselves that they like.
It might be physical, intellectual, emotional, competency-based or even spiritual. It may be something you secretly celebrate but don’t usually share, or it may even be something you are not yet aware of yourself.
The third step in confidence building is to decide on your favourite thing about yourself and showcase it for the world to see. Here are some examples:
♥ If you love one of your body parts, find a way to highlight this in your wardrobe choices. Use colour, accessories or other accents to draw people’s eye to this part of your body (and away from the parts you don’t like so much). For ladies if you love your nails, polish them in a bright colour; if it’s your feet, select some fabulous shoes; if it’s your hair, take extra time in grooming it. For gents, if you’re proud of your biceps, select a tight shirt; if it’s your face structure, go get man-scaped; if it’s your hands, get a MANicure.
♥ Perhaps it’s your sense of humour that you love and appreciate about yourself. Develop a ‘play book’ of your funniest stories or jokes so they are easily accessible when you need them.
♥ Maybe you love your own sense of adventure. Reflect back through your life and recall the top 3 times you were adventurous and turn these memories into epic stories to share with others.
Get the picture?
So, fake it until you make it, know your strengths and highlight your greatest asset.
These three steps will take you from your couch to the dating table in no time (and build some sexy confidence along the way).
Happy Dating!
