never have the confidence to do what i want to do

LegacyUser

i realise this is such a pathetic problem, but its something that has affected my whole life because it stops me doing things i want to do. I dont know if its shyness or what, but i never have the confidence to do things. Like for example, id love to play tennis, id love to join a book club, id love to join a photography class etc..but i know i never will. I just wouldnt have the confidence (although why i need confidence to do these things i dont know) to go there on my own and join in. If i had someone to go with id be ok, but i have interests that my friends dont really have.

It affected me during college too. I was always too nervous to go class on my own so i would skip a lot of classes and as a result didnt get a very good result. I tell people i hated the course and thats why i didnt go in because im too embarrassed to admit the real truth. Why should i be nervous to just walk into a classroom?

And now this issue is rearing its head again. Ive been out of work for a while and even though i used to dread interviews and the whole 'looking for a job' process i was able to force myself to do it. Now ive been out of it so long, ive lost my confidence (sorry, that word again but its the only one i can think of to describe my feelings). I see jobs that id like to do, but i start thinking that maybe i wouldnt be good enough, or id make a fool of myself etc so i dont apply for it. Ill prob end up working some dead end job because its the only one i feel i can do.

ugh why do i feel like this. How do i become more confident and start to enjoy my life more.

Doc

Pretend you are a confident person. See yourself as an actor and it as a role you are playing.

This can be particularly effective with people you don’t know.

Think to yourself what would a confident person do in this situation and make yourself do it. Pretend that it is just a movie or play and you have been asked by a director to just adlib as a confident person.

Eventually as you see the benefits of being confident and realise that you have lost nothing by acting that way it will stop just being a role you are playing and just be you.

The consequences of being confident and forward towards people and in what you want far outweigh the negatives that you envisage in your head and probably will never happen.

Don’t allow yourself to over analyze situations and just act on what you want to do.

The longer an unconfident person spends thinking about if they should do something the less likely they are to do it.

You are a far better person then you are giving yourself credit for so step up and take the things you want and deserve to get! :cool:

dan_d

OP...I'm quite a shy, unconfident person. I always think "oh I'll never be able to do that".

However there have been a couple of things in my life that I wanted to do so much, and they scared the living daylights out of me..one being my course in college, another being as stupid as auditioning for a choir.

I thought to myself "if I don't go and do this, I'll spend the rest of time looking at people who are doing it and thinking "I should be in that too".I'll regret it for years afterwards."

Worked pretty well for me. It's so hard, but I find just doing and not thinking helps. And when you do it once or twice, it becomes less hard the second time.