"How to become confident" — debunked
Spencer has posted a two-part video about “how to become confident”.
Immediately, the title struck me as an oxymoron.
So this post is an attempt at a an alternative, more balanced viewpoint. I’ll be quoting her and then commenting as necessary.
Here are the videos for reference:
This is how to become confident […]
Nope — wrong. Confidence cannot be taught, because it’s the inevitable result of being authentic. It means you are a (reasonably) integrated person that knows who you are, where you are, and where you’re going. Anyone claiming they can “teach you” how to be confident is either trying to sell you something (literally or metaphorically), or is so insecure themselves, that they are pretending they can teach you so they can convince themselves they are, in fact confident to begin with.
Confidence has nothing to do with what you look like.
Wrong again. You don’t exist in a vacuum. We’re inherently social creatures and unless you’re a sociopath, you’ll care how other people perceive you. That’s normal and healthy. Of course, it can become pathological, but there’s nothing wrong with assessing yourself as part of your surrounding social hierarchy. Therefore, if most people would judge you negatively based on your physical appearance, you’d obviously care. Which is exactly why you put effort into how you present yourself to others.
Being confident is an energy; it is a mindset.
Not too sure what’s meant by “energy” here, but it’s definitely not a mindset. As outlined above it’s the result of being authentic. Confidence cannot be brought about directly. It has to be supported by a deeply-rooted security in who you are as a person. It’s not just a feeling or “way of thinking”.
It can’t come from male validation or maybe the guy you like tells you you’re beautiful […]
Part of the definition of being attracted to someone is that you’re gonna care what they think about you. Obviously. Spencer has a boyfriend — would she not want him to find her attractive? Confidence is inherently externalized. The fact that Spencer feels the need to pretend that’s not true is yet another manifestation of her chronic need to overcompensate her insecurities. She can’t allow herself to be vulnerable — as evidenced in her next sentence: ”[…] if somebody can build you up, they can sure as hell break you down”.
You need to pretend to be the most confident version of yourself until you literally trick yourself into being the most confident version.
I actually have some sympathy for this idea. It’s not correct, but it’s close.
Confidence is not something you can work on directly. If you’re fragmented, you’re not whole. You’re not “a person”. You’re a loose collection of partial selves that anarchically manifest themselves occasionally. That can’t be a basis for confidence.
Once you understand that, you’ll understand that you cannot “make yourself more confident”. Who is “yourself”? Confidence has to be earned by putting yourself together properly.
So as soon as you’re pretending anything, you’re immediately lessening yourself. You’re engaging in (self-)deception. You’re acting. That’s not going to make you more wholesome (as in “being whole”).
What Spencer is alluding to here is the idea that sometimes, you might need to “act out” being something before you can genuinely become it. That’s true. But it’s a slippery slope, because as soon as your goal for doing this is increased confidence, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The goal should be increased personal integration.
Stop caring so much what other people think about you
Again, this is a tricky statement. As described above, caring what others think about you is normal (which is why you do it, by the way — there’s nothing wrong with you). However, it can become pathological. Examples include social anxiety or narcissism.
Spencer said an interesting thing however: “Do you like you?”
The crucial question here is “who is you?”
Once again, it comes down to whether you’re a reasonably integrated, wholesome person. Because then, you’ll realize that that question doesn’t make sense. There’ll be no difference between “you” and “what you like”. They’ll be one and the same. Only if you’re disintegrated/fragmented, would you ask such a question, since it assumes you’re splitting yourself in two: the observer and the observee.
I could comment on the rest of part 2, but everything she says has pretty much been addressed already.