The Date with Confidence Podcast - How To Be Confident In Yourself When You're Dating

Starting point is 00:00:00 You deserve your dream relationship. Full stop, the end, that's it. You deserve your dream relationship and in order to get that you need to put yourself out there. But putting yourself out there can feel pretty fucking terrifying. So in this episode of the Date With Confidence podcast I'm going to be sharing how to be confident in yourself when you are dating so that you can get that dream relationship that you deserve. Welcome to the Date With Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support and stories that will either fill you with hope or relief that your dating experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. With practical episodes that will provide you with easy to implement tips to help you feel confident AF on your next date, alongside lighthearted catch-ups where your host Rebecca, that's me by the way,

Starting point is 00:00:54 shares her own experience dating after four years of the single life, you are guaranteed to end each episode feeling less alone in your dating struggles, empowered to never settle again, and confident that the best is yet to come and if it all falls to shit there's a special first season dedicated to breakups you are welcome my friend subscribe review and share with your single friends now if you are currently struggling to believe that you can have your dream relationship or you're struggling to believe that your dream relationship exists go back to episode 30 after you've listened to this to the episode titled your dream relationship exists here's how to believe it and you can listen to the exercises

Starting point is 00:01:37 I do to help build belief in something that I am trying to manifest myself but for now as I said in this episode we're talking all about how to be confident when you're dating, because confidence is critical in all areas of our life. Confidence is really what helps us to get everything that we deserve in our life and more. When you lack confidence, it can be harder for you to put yourself out there,

Starting point is 00:01:59 to take action, to put yourself in front of opportunities that can lead to the ultimate goal for you but as I said I understand how terrifying putting yourself out there can be I understand how scary dating can be whether you have just come out of a relationship maybe it's been a long-term relationship and you're newly single and you want to put yourself back out on the market or whether you have just been single for a really long time and you haven't had a relationship for a long time because you needed some space to process the past ones whether you've never really dated before because all your energy

Starting point is 00:02:41 and attention has gone into your career for example no matter what state you are in at the moment no matter what phase of your life you're in at the moment I'm hoping that this is going to help you increase your confidence whilst you're dating now first of all before we dive into the importance of confidence what it looks like and how you can increase your confidence I want you to ask yourself this question. Now this is a question that I ask myself whenever I'm scared of something. Whenever there's something that I want to achieve or something that I'm striving for or something that I want to do in my life and I'm filled with fear because of it, I ask myself this question and this question helps me to manage slash overcome that fear this

Starting point is 00:03:31 is the question that I asked myself that enabled me to quit my nine-to-five and travel around the world solo after being too afraid to leave the house for a couple of years so it's a pretty powerful question ask yourself this what scares me more, putting myself out there and going on dates with strangers or reaching 90 years old, being on my own and never having experienced the loving relationship I dream of? Now, if you're not that fussed about getting to 90 years old and still being single and never having imagined never having had a loving relationship never been married never been engaged never lived with someone never had that intimate commitment with someone then maybe this episode isn't for you and just don't go out there dating just stay single for

Starting point is 00:04:19 the rest of your life but I imagine that if you are here dating is something that's important to you meeting someone new is important to you. Having a relationship is important to you. So I want you to use that fear of getting to 90 years old and never having had the relationship that you dream of. Use that fear to push you forward and use it to help you get out of your comfort zone and push yourself out there. Put yourself out there in front of people who could potentially become your life partner. So to begin with, I wanted to discuss why confidence is so important in dating to really reinforce the reasoning behind you increasing your confidence. Because sometimes

Starting point is 00:04:58 if we don't understand just why doing something is so important or why having confidence is so important, we can feel like we've got other things to do. We've got better things to be doing with our time than working on our confidence. So these are some of the reasons that confidence is important in dating. And first of all, it shows people the real you quickly so that they know what they're getting. There is nothing worse, having also been on the receiving end of this, there is nothing worse than getting to know someone who is trying to impress you or who is wearing a mask as they get to know you because they are not confident or comfortable in who they are themselves. When you are confident in your own skin, when you can own

Starting point is 00:05:48 who you are, you're happy to show people the real you from the off and when you can be your authentic self in people, it enables you to connect with people on a much deeper and more honest level which helps people to make their mind up about you and helps you to make your mind up about other people you don't want to be dating someone for three months wearing this mask and then all of a sudden it drops and then the person that you're seeing sees the real you and realizes that you're not actually for them whereas if you never wore the mask in the first place they'd get to know who you really are and they would know early on whether they wanted to be with you or not and if they didn't then they just weren't your person doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you it just means that they

Starting point is 00:06:33 were not your person and your person is still out there waiting to be found confidence also makes communication easier so it's so there is less likely to be misunderstandings. Now I'll use my own example in this. I recently started dating someone and there were a couple of times or there have been a couple of times during our conversations over message where he has said something and I've been unsure of how to interpret it. So I've interpreted it a certain way whilst also believing that that's not necessarily how he meant it. And during those moments, I was confidently able to go back to him and say, I'm not sure I understand the way that you meant that. Can you just clarify?

Starting point is 00:07:17 Or for example, he said something in a sentence the other day and I was up front with him and said, I don't like it when someone makes assumptions about me and I wasn't being rude but I was stating this is something that I don't appreciate so that it didn't continue during our discussions and I think that's really important if you can be honest about the way that somebody makes you feel with their tone of voice, with the messages they're sending, with the way that they speak to you, then they are going to understand your boundaries and they are going to know what is and what isn't acceptable to you. Now that's not to say that you can be rude to someone or dismissive of someone's feelings or you need to say to somebody I don't

Starting point is 00:08:08 like the way you do that or I don't like the fact that you said this there are ways that you can communicate in a confident way and it just makes and having that confidence in yourself just makes it easier for you to communicate those things so that you can open up a conversation around stuff and communication is so essential in relationships it is without a doubt the most important thing in any relationship whether it be a friendship relationship whether it be a familial relationship or whether it be an intimate partnership relationship communication is so so important and when you are confident in yourself you will more likely open up honestly to the person that you're talking to confidence also helps you to stand firm in your boundaries setting boundaries for yourself is

Starting point is 00:09:00 vital and i know that not enough of us do this and I'm speaking on behalf of myself here because I have always been a people pleaser up until the last couple of years my default setting is people pleaser and I would do whatever anyone else wanted me to to ensure that I was liked to ensure that I didn't upset anyone to ensure that I was prioritizing somebody else's feelings because I didn't want to be seen as selfish. I've always put other people first. Yet now, over the last couple of years, I've started to create boundaries for myself where there are certain things that are acceptable to me and there are certain things that are no longer acceptable to me in any way, shape or form.

Starting point is 00:09:38 And when you're in the dating arena, especially when you're meeting people and you have that connection with them or you feel like there's chemistry it can be easy for us to glaze over our boundaries it can be easy for us to say I don't think that boundary needs to be there anymore and it's one thing being fluid in your boundaries and choosing to adapt your boundaries from a place of empowerment and confidence and it's another thing allow allowing yourself to ignore a boundary because you want to impress the other person or because you're fearful that the other person will judge your boundaries two completely different states if you like two

Starting point is 00:10:27 completely different types of allowing your boundaries to not even be overstepped because the first example nobody's overstepping your boundaries you are choosing for those boundaries to be fluid that is your choice from an empowered place the other example is somebody overstepping your boundaries and you allowing them to do it because you don't have the confidence to stand strong in your boundaries and it is important for you that you do stand firm in those boundaries especially if they are things that are important to you we have an entire lesson on setting strong boundaries within the confidence course it's in module six and it is a really in-depth lesson

Starting point is 00:11:05 about what boundaries are the different types of boundaries you can set how to set boundaries lovingly and also how to respect other people's boundaries so for more information on that you can visit the show notes to learn about the confidence course there confidence is also important because you it means you are less likely to drop your standards for someone when again this comes back to my own personal life when I was younger there were certain standards and certain expectations I had for my partner yet I ignored all of those things because my self-esteem was so low that I was fearful if I didn't drop these standards they might leave me or they might go and find someone better than me which is essentially the same as leaving me but I lowered my standards

Starting point is 00:11:52 because of a connection that I felt in hindsight I can see that those connections weren't healthy and that was coming from a fearful place but now as I am a hell of a lot more confident in myself, I've been working on my confidence for the last 13 plus years. I'm a confidence coach, help other people increase their confidence. Now I am in this headspace and I've got to this point in my life. I refuse to drop my standards for someone. And that can be difficult sometimes. I'm not saying it's easy for you to stay, to stand strong in those standards, especially, so standards for me in dating are things like deal breakers, things that are an absolute no from me, because of the life that I want to lead, because of my

Starting point is 00:12:36 personal values, they are the things that are really important to me, and when I had lower self-esteem, I was willing to lower my standards but now I'm not I know what I want and I'm very aware of what I deserve especially having especially with what I have received in the past in terms of partnerships I know what I deserve now and my confident and the confidence I have in myself means that I am less likely to drop my standards for somebody else. Confidence also helps you steer clear of red flags, which again is really important because I don't know about you, but especially when there is that chemistry with someone, I can be guilty of putting on those blinkers and going, I don't see a red flag. What do you mean red flag don't all men do that um yet when you're confident in yourself you

Starting point is 00:13:27 are not willing to stand for the bullshit red flags or the things that are or could potentially harm you in the future emotionally physically mentally energetically and lastly on my list confidence is important in dating because it stops you settling for someone who isn't right for you or who doesn't treat you well. Now in this scenario it's very much on par with self-worth, like self-worth and self-confidence are intertwined. There are a lot of times, I feel like there's two different scenarios here, if you've been in a toxic or unhealthy or abusive relationship before and you meet someone and they give you that little bit more of attention than the previous partner or they treat you that tiny little bit better than the previous partner then you may

Starting point is 00:14:19 feel like okay well this is this is my person because I'm not I've not experienced these things before but at the same time that could lead to you settling for someone who isn't actually right for you and who doesn't treat you well as you think, they just treat you better than the last one did. And I'll give you an example here. When I met the Am I Delusional guy, because of the way that we communicated emotionally and verbally, I believed that he was somebody I deserved to be with, because the way that we communicated was so much better than how I'd communicated with previous partners. And his self-awareness was so much greater than previous partners. However, there were quite a few toxic traits there that would or could have potentially negatively impacted me my self-esteem and my future there are a few red flags there however

Starting point is 00:15:13 the headspace that I was in at that time I would have settled for continuing to date him because from my experience of dating other people previously he was the first guy that I felt like I really connected to since my ex and because of the way that we communicated I would have continued dating him and almost settled for someone who didn't necessarily tick all my boxes who wasn't the full package as such because there was a still part of me that was perhaps doubting myself and that didn't have as much confidence in dating as I now do six months later. Whereas now when I approach people that I'm dating or potential relationships, I know I'm not going to settle. I'm not going to settle in anything, regardless of the connection,

Starting point is 00:16:05 regardless of the chemistry, regardless of what things look like on paper, it has to feel completely right. And I have to trust that that's the right thing for me because, and because of the place that I'm in in my self-confidence, I am confident enough to know that if this person isn't the one, there will be someone better out there for me. They are just some of the reasons why confidence is so important in dating so I hope they have helped to reinforce this idea that you need to increase your confidence when it comes to dating or you'll know in yourself when you have seen your confidence increase because confidence in dating looks like saying yes to dates. If you find yourself saying yes to more dates, matching with more people,

Starting point is 00:16:46 putting yourself out there more, you'll know that you have been steadily increasing your confidence. Confidence in dating also looks like opening up about yourself, keeping the conversation flowing and if there are any pauses or are any moments of silence you don't instantly go to that place of anxiety or panic of oh my god it's silent does that mean that we're not connected does that mean what's he going to think if there's silence or does that mean something bad if we can't continue the conversation silent periods are normal they are natural when you're connecting with someone new as well they're natural in relationships you the conversation isn't going to be flowing all day

Starting point is 00:17:25 every day when you're in a relationship with someone so it's okay to experience these slight pauses and when you have and when you have confidence in yourself you don't worry about these slight pauses confidence in dating also looks like asking engaging questions and making the other person feel comfortable so it's not just about you feeling comfortable and confident, it's also about helping the other person to open up in front of you and create in a safe environment for them to be able to answer your questions, for them to be able to share information about themselves and perhaps even moments where they are vulnerable with you. It also looks like being upfront with what you're looking for. So many times, I've done this myself and my clients have done this too, we are scared to be upfront about what we're looking for. Even if we're really super specific, there can be moments where we're scared to actually say, okay, this is what I want. Because we don't want to scare the person off, or we feel like there might be chemistry, and we don't want them to run away,

Starting point is 00:18:30 or we're just anxious of how they will respond to our desires. But when you're confident in, when you're confident in yourself, you are up front from the off with what you're looking for. And this is a good thing thing because you being up front with your desires is either going to make somebody want to continue connecting with you and get to know you more or it's going to make them go yeah I'm not into that and the ones that go yeah I'm not into that that's fantastic because you are getting rid of people who are not going to fit your vision you don't want everyone to like you you don't want everyone to have the same vision as you you don't want everyone to understand your

Starting point is 00:19:10 vision you're just looking for this one person i mean unless you're in a polyamorous relationship of course but in the purpose for the purposes of this episode you're just looking for that one person you only need one person who is excited about your vision who has the same desires as you who wants to get to know you more so never be afraid of scaring anyone off and I feel like when you are confident in yourself anyway you the fear of rejection does lessen and talking of rejection I will remind you that I have got a whole episode on how to handle rejection when you're dating which again I'll link in the show notes for you so you can go and check that out if rejection is something that concerns you or is something that you struggle with confidence in dating on that

Starting point is 00:19:54 same note also looks like asking tough questions so you don't waste your time it looks like walking away when your gut tells you it's a no such a big one for so many of us it can also look like sending closure messages when you know that a connection is not going anywhere or when you feel like it's come to a natural halt or you have realized that it's not your person when you are confident in yourself you are going to find it easier to send those closure messages and to send those messages to say that you're not interested in pursuing things any further and that is great for you because you're getting it out of your head you're saying goodbye you're closing a door opening and making space to open up another door and you're and it's also

Starting point is 00:20:41 better for them because you're not leaving someone hanging on or wondering how you really feel is this gonna go anywhere you're nipping things in the bud as and when they need to and confidence in dating also looks like asking for clarification and stating your boundaries without fear which we briefly touched on before so when it comes to how to be confident in yourself when you're dating there are three layers of confidence that you need to work on these three layers are think confident act confident and feel confident so first of all think about the thoughts you are telling yourself when it comes to your dating life what thoughts have you got on repeat what are you saying to yourself and And how can you change them? How can you tell yourself different things to help you feel more confident when it comes to dating? There are two episodes that I've already recorded for you. One is about the mindset shifts you need

Starting point is 00:21:56 to make when you're dating. And the other one is about things I tell myself before a first date. Again, they're in the show notes for you but these are episodes that are around the conscious thoughts you are saying to yourself the conscious thoughts you are repeating to yourself over and over again what you want to do is get to a place where the thoughts that you have the default thoughts that you have on repeat in your mind are ones of confidence instead of telling yourself that dating's hard, all men are trash, people are going to judge you, what if they don't like me, what if no one fancies me, what if I don't get any matches, instead of all the bullshit thoughts that are holding you back from dating

Starting point is 00:22:35 with confidence, your default narrative is going to be one of excitement, one of confidence, one of feeling worthy around having the relationship that you truly desire. Then when it comes to the act confident layer, ask yourself what do you need to do to act with confidence? Are there any certain behaviours that naturally make you behave more confidently? For me, things like changing my posture, the way that I stand, the way that I walk, the clothes that I wear impacts how confident I feel about myself. Whether I've done my hair or makeup can change the way that I feel, the way that I act when it comes to confidence. What do you need to do to act with confidence? I teach my clients in my confidence course community this idea around having confidence anchors.

Starting point is 00:23:27 So there are certain things that I will apply. For example, certain pieces of jewellery, certain perfumes that I'll wear. They are my confidence anchors. A certain playlist that I'll play or a song that I'll play. So whenever I hear that playlist or put on that piece of jewellery or spray that perfume, it instantly helps me to embody my most confident self. It helps me embody my confidence persona, which again is something that we talk about in the confidence course, this idea of creating your confidence persona so that as you build your self-confidence, you've got this alter ego that helps you step into that confidence a hell of a lot

Starting point is 00:24:06 quicker. I also have an episode on how to act confident before a first date. So again, link it in the show notes so you can go back and listen to that because that is a good one. That's just a short episode and that's quite a nice one to listen to as you are actually getting ready. And on that same act confident layer, I want to remind you that confidence comes from taking action. So whilst you can do the mindset work, whilst you can apply your confidence anchors, whilst you can step into your confidence persona and do things like visualization to help you feel confident, you can only reach a certain level of confidence with those tools and techniques. True, unwavering, steady self-confidence comes from you taking action. There is a new level of confidence that

Starting point is 00:24:55 you can reach when you have pushed yourself out of your comfort zone and when you have done something brave or scary. So let me give you an example. When I was 21 years old, or just before I was 21 years old, I was nearly fired from my job because I was calling in sick so often. I had terrible IBS, I had crippling anxiety, I had regular panic attacks and I used to call in sick from work all the time. I was terrified to leave the house, I didn't socialise, I essentially had no life, I was just about existing and then I was nearly fired from my job. At that moment when I realised that I was about to lose the one thing that I really really enjoyed, I made a commitment to myself to transform my life. This was back in 2011 2011 I made a promise to myself that I was going to say yes to every single thing that scared me no matter how terrified I was no matter how great the anxiety was and whilst

Starting point is 00:25:55 I started to do things like repeat a new mantra to myself so instead of telling myself all the things that scared me every single day I would say to myself I can achieve everything I set my mind to this became my mantra for life and I would repeat it over and over and over again and that helped me increase my confidence to a certain extent but it wasn't until I did all the things that terrified the fuck out of me that I was actually able to build a solid foundation of self-confidence and these were little things to start with so at first when it came to socializing I didn't go anywhere I have a phobia of sick called emetophobia and that fear of vomit made it difficult for me to go out in public because I was convinced that anytime I went out in public someone would be sick so to start with I used to go to the pub on a Friday evening and I

Starting point is 00:26:48 would say to myself right we're going to sit here for 30 minutes all you've got to do is make it through these 30 minutes and I would make it through the 30 minutes and then my granddad would pick me up and drive me home and then after a couple of minutes and then after a couple of weeks it was I'm going to go to the pub for an hour and I would go to the pub for an hour and I'd be sitting there and I'd be anxious and I'd be freaking out. And then my granddad would come and pick me up and he would drive me home and I'd get home and I would be so fucking proud of myself that I'd sat in that environment that was absolutely petrifying for me. And that gave me a bit more confidence. And within a few weeks, I'd got to the point where I could be

Starting point is 00:27:22 in the pub for a few hours. And then it got to the point where I could go from one pub to another pub, to the point where I built it up where I could go to multiple pubs in an evening. I started drinking and made a lot of friends and I was socialising all the time. Had I not put myself in those uncomfortable environments, I would never have increased my confidence to the point that I was able to get on a plane one way to Bangkok by myself and travel around the world solo. Confidence comes from taking action and is exactly the same when it comes to dating. So first of all, you do the scary thing like sign up and create a dating profile. That's an action that builds your confidence because as soon as you've created that dating profile. That's an action that builds your confidence because as soon as you've created that dating profile you're going to start getting matches and that's going to

Starting point is 00:28:09 increase your confidence. Then you're going to have conversations with a couple of people. Once you've had conversations with a couple of people you're going to have more confidence because people are actually reaching out to you. Then you'll get asked on a date. That'll boost your confidence. Then you'll go on a first date and it'll probably be scary and it'll probably make you feel anxious. But once you've got to that date and you've been on that date, you'll realise, wow, I can actually date. And you'll have another boost of confidence and slowly but surely your confidence will begin to grow because you are taking action. So whilst the act confident layer is very much about the practical things to do, so things like what do you need to do to act with confidence, it is also about confidence coming

Starting point is 00:28:50 from taking action. So try and do the things that scare you on a regular basis. When you have done scary things there is something called the discomfort zone come down which you need to just be aware of. Again we talk about this in the confidence course but I've also got a video on YouTube that I will link in the show notes for you that will help you to handle the discomfort zone come down so it will help you to handle that come down after you have pushed yourself out of your comfort zone then we look at the feel confident layer now feeling confident dating isn't just about feeling confident on a date. It's something, confidence is something that you have to embody

Starting point is 00:29:31 in your everyday life. So there is no point wandering through your life lacking confidence and then just feeling confident on a first date. You want to embody this level of self-confidence in every area of your life, in every single part of your day. When you build a solid foundation of self-confidence, that trickles out into all the areas of your life, including dating. So don't think to yourself, I have to just focus on being confident in dating. Focus on building a solid foundation of confidence where you feel confident every day and watch as that trickles into the dating area and the rest of the other areas of your life. And again, this is something that we cover in more depth in the confidence course. We break each of these three layers down.

Starting point is 00:30:17 There's a module on each of these three layers where we look at think confident exercises, act confident exercises and feel confident exercises such as visualization meditation hypnosis all those kind of things we talk about in there to help you build that solid confidence foundation when you work on these three areas and you build that solid foundation of confidence this is also going to help you when you're in a relationship. So even if doing this kind of stuff makes it feel like work now, know that it's not going to go to waste. It's not like you're going to do all this work on yourself and you're going to date and then you're going to meet someone and then everything you've done isn't going to matter anymore. All the tools and the techniques and the

Starting point is 00:31:02 new ways of being and the changes to your narrative and the way that you act, that is all going to be taken into any future relationships. So it is really worth you spending some time focusing on increasing your self-confidence. And as I said, I'll link to more episodes in the show notes that break down the three of these areas in other in a bit more detail as well because I don't want this episode to be too long but yeah confidence is super important when it comes to dating the more confident you feel the more likely you are to manifest the one and have that relationship you dream of so I hope that this has been helpful for you I'd love to hear your feedback on this and if you've got any questions following on from this episode then go to datewithconfidencepodcast.com

Starting point is 00:31:50 slash contribute. I'd love to hear how this helped you, if there are any specific techniques you're going to go and look at, if as I said you've got questions following up from this, do let me know because I want to make this space as helpful as possible to you. I'll leave links to all the episodes I mentioned within the show notes and I'll leave links to the confidence course in there as well if you want to go and check that out so that you can begin to work on each of these three layers of confidence so that you can date with confidence. I will see you in the next one. Thanks so much for listening to the Date With Confidence podcast.

Starting point is 00:32:29 I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe, rate and review, and share it with your single friends. Thank you.

The Date with Confidence Podcast - How To Be Confident In Yourself When You're Dating

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