What to improve to be more confident as a man
Being confident in yourself is a really important part of your overall self-esteem and how the world and even you see yourself. There is always a lot of talk about women’s body positivity, ad campaigns for them to feel more comfortable about their imperfections, and this is great, but what about me?
The representation of women on the greater stage is they can be however they choose they are still beautiful, but the example of a man is always some shredded superhero. Sure, with a lot of hard work, a personal trainer, and some “vitamins” let’s call them, you can be in that shape too. But this feels a little unfair.
Not every man has the self confidence to just let comments fly over their head, but it’s acceptable to shame a man about his style, thoughts, ideas and it’s all fair game because the current topic is that men are just bad. Well I don’t allow for this to affect me as much any more, and it took a lot of hard work.
You want to be and feel more confident, but not be arrogant and have an ego about it. You are never going to get the whole world to treat you fairly, but you can build an iron clad confidence and focus on yourself and not let others opinions have a bearing on your life.
Is this easier said than done? For sure, but if you are asking yourself how to be more confident as a man, then it is going to take some hard work and dedication. You want to improve yourself overall in multiple areas, and before you know it you are walking with your head up, taking long strides feeling like you own your space in this world.
Regardless of your body type, size, color, culture or race, I would like to give you some of the things I worked on to become more confident as a man and hope I can help you see yourself as the King you are:
1 Focus on your strengths as a man
Every one of us have their own unique and special qualities, you should identify and lean in to these. Instead of focusing on what others say are your flaws, figure out your strengths and celebrate what makes you stand out.
Focusing on your strengths is a very important part in building your self confidence as a man. It helps you understand that you do not need to be good at everything, and the comfort and confidence of knowing what you are good at. So what does focusing on your strengths look like?
- Know your strengths: Make a list of your strengths, skills & positive qualities. This could be listening to others and comforting them, being a hard worker, being a talented painter, whatever it is you enjoy and are good at is a strength.
- Celebrate achievements: No matter how small, you need to celebrate your accomplishments. If you don’t celebrate the small things, you won’t appreciate the bigger achievements. Made your bed, meal prepped for the week, drank enough water, didn’t miss a day of exercise? These are all achievements you should pat yourself on the back for.
- Set realistic goals: To be able to celebrate an achievement, you first need a goal set that needs to be reached. Choose goals that are in line with your strengths, and make sure they are realistic as setting too big a goal can set you up for failure. Many small goals achieved lead to greater confidence.
- Practice gratitude: If you are not thankful for the things you have you will never feel confident. Always aim for more, get better, but be thankful for the things you have every day and you will value all new achievements much more.
- Ask for feedback: Ask people close to you, friends and family for feedback on what they feel your strengths are. You may learn of some qualities you have you were not aware of. You might even get some thoughts on your weaknesses giving you an idea of what you need to work on.
By focusing on and being aware of your strengths, you can build a much more robust self confidence as a man. By building each of these areas up over time, you will develop a much stronger sense of self-worth.
2 Dress well as a Man
How you dress is not always indicative of the kind of man you are, but I can tell you from experience that you do not feel the same in a tracksuit as you do in a tailor fitted suit. If you look good, you feel good. This is an age old rule and for good reason, it’s actually true.
Dressing well as a Man is not to impress others, but to make you feel good internally and others around you see this confidence in you and this is a much more powerful attraction. Dressing well will build your confidence in many ways:
- Appearance: When you dress well, you take more pride in your appearance, you stand up straighter, you walk differently, you carry yourself better overall. This internal positive feeling will translate into many other areas of your life and improve your self confidence as a man.
- Perception: Although it is not to impress others, the way you dress will affect the way others perceive you. If you go to a job interview dressed poorly as opposed to in a nice suit the perception the interviewer gets will be different. Dressing well makes others perceive you as more confident and successful, and this translates to you feeling more confident as a man.
- Comfort: If you wear clothes that don’t fit right and make you uncomfortable, you will act as such. If you wear clothes that are well fitting and comfortable, you will also be more relaxed in social situations which is perceived as confidence.
- Attention to detail: Dressing well means you pay attention to detail. Attention to detail makes you feel more organised and in control. If you can carry this over to other areas of your life you will get a massive boost in confidence.
- Self-expression: Dressing well can also be a form of self expression. Wearing clothes that reflect your personality and style make you feel more authentic and confident in yourself as a man.
Overall, dressing well as a man will give you a sense of pride, and if you feel proud of yourself this will only add to the amount of confidence you have.
3 Take care of your physical health
I wake up at 5.30 am everyday to work out, and I can tell you that this is a very hard thing to do every single day and it’s not always a joy, but that’s where discipline comes in. If you have discipline you never have to worry about wanting/not wanting to do. Discipline is making a promise to yourself to do something, and you can’t lie to yourself so it makes you accountable to follow through.
Looking after your physical health as a Man is extremely important. It’s very hard to feel confident as a man if you are out of shape, can’t find clothes that fit, always getting sick. You have to make your health a priority over almost everything else. You only have one body and it’s the only place you can live so take care of it.
You look good when you work out so you feel good, but exercising is also the best lesson you will ever get in delayed gratification. You don’t get a workout in and see the results the same day, in a week or even a month sometimes. It takes a lot of hard work before the compounding effect takes place and you see the results.
If you can get through the hard work and struggle needed to achieve a high level of fitness, this translates to every other aspect of your life. It teaches you that the best results come with hard work, and when you see the results you get an overwhelming feeling of achievement with the result being more confident in your body as a man.
Once this has become part of your daily life, everything else becomes easier. Typing up an article, finishing that project, meeting a deadline are all easy in comparison to swinging a kettlebell for half an hour or doing sprints up a hill.
In the words of Socrates ¨It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.¨ A strong body has always equaled a strong mind.
Now you don’t have to go and workout 7 days from the jump. Go for a walk, a jog, do bodyweight workouts, take up yoga. Whatever it is, just start to get your body moving and the difference it makes to the rest of your life is quite drastic.
4 Learn new skills
Learning new skills is imperative for progress. Want to feel more confident as a man? boost your self-esteem? then you have to be always learning something new. If the mind stagnates then everything else in your life will follow.
¨Stand guard at the gates of your mind every day¨
Should you have leisure time, of course, but you also need to learn useful skills continuously to keep up with developments in the world, and to keep your confidence up. You know the feeling of being in a conversation and not having anything to say on a topic that you are interested in.
You also have to be cautious of the sources you choose. If you are going to learn something, do a little research and learn from the best. There is no excuse nowadays with all the instructional and educational videos, podcasts, books, you have all the resources you need to be more confident as a man. Excuses sound best to those making them, so don’t be one of them, follow through.
- Identify the skills you want to learn: Focus on some skills you want to learn, skills that align with your strengths, interests and passions. Then improve on skills that will also improve your professional advancement.
- Practice regularly: You have all heard of the 10,000 hour rule, and if you haven’t then you really need to read this book. There is no skill you are going to pick up overnight, so diligence and practice is necessary once you have identified the skills you want to learn. Set a time frame, create a schedule and be disciplined enough to stick to it.
- It’s ok to fail: If you get frustrated when you fail, you need to change the way you look at failure. You only fail if you don’t put in enough effort, or if you don’t have the correct knowledge at the time. Try anything enough times and you will eventually run out of things that don’t work and find the one that does.
So one of the pillars of being more confident as a man is to continually pick up new skills increasing your worth. In turn, this makes you more confident because you know what you know and this increases your worth to you and to others.
5 Surround yourself with positive people
I heard something Les Brown once said, ¨OQP¨, Only Quality People. If you surround yourself with people not interested in improving you will end up in the same boat. Surround yourself with people that also want to improve and make their lives better. You cannot feel more confident as a man if those around you are pulling you down to their level.
You don’t want to hear ¨I’m too tired¨, ¨we’ll finish it tomorrow¨, ¨why do you care what others think?¨ and a hundred other comments I can think of. You want people who have the same goals, putting in the same amount if not more effort than you to push you to achieve your own goals.
Being more confident as a man also means you have to pull those around you that deserve it up with you. Being selfish with your improvements and not sharing them with others that deserve it is a negative and will not impact your self worth in a positive manner.
Stay away from negative people, vengeful people, and those that wish the best for you to your face but ridicule your efforts behind you. Families are usually the first to shoot your dreams down, so you have to learn to distance yourself from those not in the same mindset as you and build a strong circle.
If you want to get fit, you need friends that also want to get fit. You want to go on an IT course, you need friends that will follow through and sit there with you day after day until you both succeed. I’m sure you were all told ¨show me who your friends are, and I’ll show you who you are¨, well dad could not have been any more right.
6 Be a good communicator
You might just think this means talking, but the majority of your communication is perceived through your body language. So as well as developing your vocabulary through reading, you also need to learn to hold composure.
I wasn’t a great communicator growing up and would often resort to aggression to hide my ignorance. I never liked how it made me feel, and ever since you will rarely see me without a book in my hand or listening to a podcast.
To be a good communicator, you need to know a lot about a subject you discuss to be able to debate, have good general knowledge to function well in social settings and also develop personal skills continuously. This takes planning and dedication.
If you can hold people’s attention with interesting conversation, you are already interesting and confident in their eyes. Once you realise this and know you are having this effect, you will become much more confident as a man.
It won’t be easy to change some aspects of your communication as your have spent you whole life doing it a certain way, but improving some of the following areas of your communication will definitely help you improve:
- Active listening: To communicate well, you have to listen well. Pay real attention when people speak and actually assimilate the information and think before you respond.
- Positive body language: Putting across a positive image says a lot about how confident you are. Keep eye contact and stand up straight, avoid slouching and crossing your arms to not seem defensive.
- Clear and concise: Know what you speak. Never state something you don’t know to be a fact and can’t communicate concisely. Avoid filler words like ´um´ and ´err´ and have your comments structured in your mind before you speak.
- Empathy: You need to be able to empathise with the emotional state of the person speaking to you. Understand what the issue is, and measure your responses depending on the situation.
- Don’t interrupt: If you interrupt people you are seen as rude and argumentative. Give people the respect to get their whole opinion out. This gives you the time to listen and formulate your response.
- Confident and Assertive: Don’t ´think` when you are stating your opinion, you have to be sure of what you are saying. Make your points in an assertive way, but not aggressive, with the confidence that you have the knowledge to back it up.
If you want to be more confident as a man, communication skills are key. It takes time and practice, but the time is going to pass anyway, so do what you can to improve in these areas, read more, text less, call more people and have conversations.
7 Don’t compare yourself to others
I was a pretty big kid growing up, and I know it was me that ate unhealthy and made those decisions, but there were still times where I aspired to look a certain way and felt inadequate. If you compare yourself to others you give yourself an unachievable goal because you can never be anyone else.
I took up boxing when I was 17, had a couple of hiccups with the diet, but 20 years later and I don’t think I have ever missed more than 2 days without doing some type of workout.
As cliché as this sounds, you can only be the best version of yourself. Envision a version of yourself you want to be, and work hard as hell. A pretty simple formula, but it’s built brick by brick, so little improvements over time are what lead to the major gains.
Here are a few areas you could choose to focus on so you keep it all about you:
- Social media: The obvious one! don’t fall for the photoshopped pics and the fake natural fitness athletes. Unfollow or just delete the app, and look at yourself in the mirror every day until you are someone you would follow.
- Growth mindset: If you only concern yourself with your own improvement, you don’t have time to compare. Learn something new every day, do something new every day, and put yourself in an uncomfortable situation every day.
- Supportive people: Only associate with people that are on the same path as you. Avoid toxic environments and join the path of others wanting to improve as well.
- Your strengths: Be the best at something you are good at. Don’t try to be as good as anyone and focus on how you improve the things you are best at.
Being more confident as a man is to be able to sit on your own in a room for an hour at peace with your thoughts knowing you have control over your life, but also of your own strengths and weaknesses. Never aspire to be anyone, but take from them their best aspects and incorporate them to your own mindset.
These are some of the main points you can work on to improve your confidence overall. It won’t be done in a day, but it doesn’t take ten years either. The compounding effect of all the smaller changes can take hold pretty quick, and you will notice the changes in your life as long as you keep dedicated to being the best you.
FAQ’S
Are you born with confidence or can it be developed?
I can’t speak to the science of being born with it or not, but I know I never saw myself as confident and always aimed for lower paying jobs and bad relationships. But all the books I read, people I listened to, work I put in to improve my mindset changed and continues to change my life in a positive way.
What are some barriers to being more confident as a man?
Lack of self awareness is a big one. If you are not aware that you are the loud one always interrupting, never following through on anything you do then you better hope you have some good friends to check you.
Once you are aware, you will feel bad at first but don’t get into negative self-talk and feelings of being a failure. Failure means you can see the mistakes you made clearly, and it literally gives you a list of what you need to work to never fail in the same way ever again.
Own your mistakes and understand it’s a tough task to be a better you.
How can I deal with rejection and failure without it affecting my confidence?
Failure is mostly an indication that you never prepared correctly, or did not have the necessary knowledge or know how to get the resources needed to complete a plan. This is the best lesson life has to offer you. Make note of what went wrong, immediately fix it and one less thing to ever worry about.
Rejection hits your ego, and no one likes that. Here you need to empathise and understand why the other person may not want to deal with you or go on a date with you. If it’s something you can work on then do so, if not you just learn to respect the opinions of others.
Does being more physically fit make you more confident as a man?
This is an overwhelming yes for me. Not just because I feel charged up when I hit a big deadlift, but I can pick my kids up and hug them no matter how much they grow. Being stronger also makes my daily life easer from carrying shopping to changing a car tire.
You also have the aesthetic factor. I always say that looking good is a side effect of being fit because the mental benefits are so much more. Depending on your training, if you have the confidence of knowing you can protect yourself and those around you, this is a whole other level of confidence.
Overall though, keeping fit will definitely help you live a better life for as long as you live. Mental clarity, less chance of illness, feeling good in your own skin, your clothes. All big factors in feeling more confident as a man.
How can I build confidence in social situations?
I really struggled with this one, and I still have my moments where I need to go for a quick walk to recharge. Being confident in a crowd comes with the overall improvement. For me the most important one was and is knowledge.
I never stop learning, and in a group situation there are topics that come up you will likely know about. So if you know what you are talking about and you speak, as soon as you speak and people see you make sense, their respect for you and your confidence goes up simultaneously.
In Conclusion
Becoming more confident as a man is an ongoing process that will take effort, self awareness and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. Don’t expect to see big swings overnight, but celebrate the small changes and successes. Achieving small goals keeps you going but failing a bigger one can stop you in your tracks.
You don’t have to be perfect at everything to be confident, you just have to know you are constantly improving in each of them and your confidence grows in line with your improvements.
Dedication, perseverance and some hard work will give you all you need to develop an iron clad confidence to thrive and succeed as a man.