The Definitive Guide to Developing Masculine Confidence

If you were to ask different people from around the globe the key intangible that makes a successful individual, you’d get a bunch of different answers.

Some people would say “willingness”. Some people would say “faith”. Some people would even say “an ability to make money”.

But if you look at the root of all of these, they all boil down to confidence.

And in this case, it’s “masculine confidence”.

Your ability to develop your confidence as a man will be the thing that holds you back or the thing that pushes you forward.

And today, in this article, we’re going to be taking a look into:

• What exactly masculine confidence is
• The nuances of it
• Rewriting the “invisible scripts” that keep you stuck
• How to become more confident

Let’s jump in

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What is Masculine Confidence?

When you think of the words “masculine confidence”, what comes to mind?

If you answered something along the lines of “strength”, “power”, or “assertiveness”, you’d be more or less right.

When we’re referring to confidence in terms of masculinity, it is the ability to project one’s presence and will into the external world in a way that broadcasts respect, mental grounding, and competence.

This is a step above regular “self-confidence” because self-confidence is the internal static state, while masculine confidence is the external expression of that internal state.

For example:

The man with masculine confidence doesn’t wait around for a woman to approach him, he gets over his approach anxiety and expresses his romantic intentions.

Likewise with something such as work. The man who suddenly finds himself unemployed does not wait for recruiters to reach out to him. He is active. He is sending out applications. He is following up with individuals. He is building a network.

Masculine confidence is dynamic and active, it is taking that pre-existing self-confidence and displaying it to the world.

It is masculine energy in motion.

The Mindset of a Confident Man

Being a confident man is an entire paradigm, it is a mindset, one that many guys aren’t used to.

At its bedrock is unapologetic assertiveness of who is he and what he stands for.

This is in contrast to much of the soppy, sappy, nice guy programming that many guys have by default.

Here’s a few basic tenets that a make a confident man and why that’s the case.

1. There is a distinct presence of visionary thinking

The confident man knows where he’s going or where he wants to go in life and will go through whatever he needs to go through in order to get there.

If he doesn’t know, he is will scope out a plan and means of executing that plan.

2. He is (incredibly) action-oriented

The confident man is action-oriented. He is not passive. He will put the wheels in motion towards doing what he wants to do in life. He will not wait around for conditions to be favorable, he will create the conditions if need be.

3. He is dedicated to self-improvement

Continuous personal progression is the name of the game for male self-confidence and the confident man understands this. He is always seeking to improve in various areas of his life and become the best man he can be for himself, his community, and the world at large.

4. He has low levels of general neuroticism

In the “Big Five” model of personality, “neuroticism” is one of the dimensions through which personality is expressed. Neuroticism is a general overview of how someone experiences negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, shame, etc.

In general, men tend to be less neurotic than women partially due to the influence of testosterone on general male physiology and psychology.

How does this relate to confidence?

The lower someone is in neuroticism, the more they can express their most authentic self. People who are very confident usually have low neuroticism as well.

5. He builds his life on values and principles

One of the main reasons why many people don’t have confidence? Simple. They build their psychological foundation on things that are not stable.

These include trends, validation from other people (we’ll hit on this soon), the “news” of the day, and so on. All of these are transient, meaning they will eventually change at some point.

If you construct a worldview on things that are constantly fluctuating, you won’t be able to create anything lasting because that foundation itself is fluctuating.

The man who has true confidence builds his life on things that are true most of the time in almost all situations. This is something I go in-depth about in Cornerstone.

Rewriting “Invisible Scripts” and Overcoming Paradigms

As a natural “thing”, every man should be confident and secure in himself because everyone deserves the right to a positive self-image.

However, this is not the case – mainly due to the volumes of programming that many of men have been indoctrinated with.

Here’s a few of the paradigms and programs that get in the way of developing true confidence and what you can do to break free from them.

Validation From Others/People Pleaser Paradigm

If you want true self-confidence, you’re not going to find it in the opinions of other people. That’s precisely why it’s called “self” confidence. Regardless, many people still look to others for approval so that they can feel positive about themselves.

This programming is a relic of a bygone era, when you were dependent on the opinions and approval of others to survive. (mainly your parents).

That’s not the case for you anymore, so it’s something that needs to go bye bye.

To learn more about how to unhook yourself from external validation, check out How to Stop Seeking External Validation With 6 Powerful Strategies.

The “Others Know Better Than You” Paradigm

I call this paradigm “others know better than you”. It’s a worldview that also stems from childhood.

This is when you were told to “sit down and shut up because other people know better than you”, either overtly or subtly. In adolescence and adulthood, this shows itself in deferring to other people, kowtowing to them, and just believing they are somehow “better” than you (which may not even be the case because most people aren’t into purposeful self-improvement). This is popularly known as “imposter syndrome“.

If you want to get over this one, you need to start developing your own reference experiences and blueprint for life. This means actually going out into the world into a variety of situations and gaining lessons and emotional content from them.

This can sort of seem like a chicken and egg scenario when you don’t have confidence to begin with, but this is where you have to ask yourself:

“Am I going to continue living this way or do I choose to buck this trend?”

The “Over-Apologetic” Paradigm

This is yet again another mindset that may have been fostered during childhood. This is the belief that if you do something that is offensive to someone in some way, you must apologize.

While apologies are necessary in specific cases (like purposefully hurting someone’s feelings), doing so repeatedly makes you seem like a doormat.

Eventually, you get to the point where you apologize for everything. You apologize for wanting more money in your career, you apologize for finding certain women attractive, you apologize for having specific views, etc.

Someone who has true confidence does not apologize for what he is. By developing masculine confidence, you will pretty much smash this one to dust.

The “Toolset” to Build Confidence

If you want to know how to project confidence as a man and how to build true confidence, there’s several ways to do it. Here’s a few of the ways I’ve found helpful and how to advance from here.

Develop Assertiveness

Self-confident people are assertive. End of story.

Again, if you were taught that asserting yourself is somehow wrong or “impolite”, then you’ll need to get over this.

Lots of “nice guys” struggle with asserting themselves, so this is a prime area to start if you want to develop true confidence.

If you want more tips on asserting yourself, check out A Line in the Sand: How to Be Assertive.

Develop Inner Game

The concept of “inner game” originates from self-image psychology. Inner game is a shorthand expression for how well someone’s psychology expresses itself in a confident manner in the real world.

If you want true masculine confidence, developing inner game is a non-negotiable.

For more information on inner game, check out Inner Game Fundamentals: 5 Tenets to Self-Confidence.

Stop Being a Loser

Everyone knows what a “loser” is.

Some people define it as someone who takes drugs, others define it as someone who has nothing going for them, others still define it as someone who partakes in criminal activity.

While I wouldn’t define someone’s existence wholly and solely off of an activity they do, it’s pretty obvious that someone who is a “loser” is someone most people wouldn’t want to be associated with.

In actuality, a whole suite of behaviors and mindsets make up that of a “loser” and this suite needs to dismantled if you want to experience true confidence.

To learn about what this suite of behaviors is, check out How to Stop Being a Loser: 8 Ways to Break Out of Perpetual Misery.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

When it comes to building high levels of confidence, it’s about the actions you take over time. Those actions will flow from the specific mindsets and paradigms you believe in.

Many of these mindsets are not helpful when it comes to building confidence, that’s why you have to identify them, make efforts to stop engaging in them, and then develop assertiveness, high levels of inner game, and stop doing things that make you feel bad about yourself.

When you do that, you will be able to develop true masculine confidence.

Have you been working on your confidence? How has it been going for you? Sound off in the comments.