Why faking confidence can BACKFIRE and what to do instead

These tips sound like they’ll help us be more confident, right?

“Be more confident by using a more confident body language (Made popular by Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk)

“Fake it til you make it by playing the role of a confident person, such as a movie actor.”

Wrong! If you’re a self-conscious person or have social anxiety, those tips can actually make you more nervous.

Why?

Because they make you focus on yourself.

If you already have skeptical self-thoughts, like “What will people think of me?” and “People think I’m weird”, these thoughts will naturally become stronger the more you focus on yourself.

So in an ironic turn of events, these confidence exercises make some of us more self-conscious, more nervous, and – less confident.

However, for people who’ve been able to curb their skeptical self-thoughts, faking self-confidence can work great. It’s just that it usually doesn’t work for those of us who need it the most (1, 2).

Read more: How to not be nervous around people.

Therefore, we need another tactic that works no matter our starting point.

For us self-conscious people to be more confident, we need to focus AWAY from us rather than ON us

Maybe you’ve heard me talk about the OFC-method before. That method is based on a study (3), participants had to sit down and make conversation with a stranger.

Half the participants were told to focus their full attention on the conversation. The other half were told to focus on themselves (How they came off, etc)

It turned out that that the MORE nervous people had described themselves before the test, the more effective it was to focus outward.

In the OFC-method, I talked about how to focus outward. But how do you do this in practice?

Whenever you feel self-conscious in a conversation, ask yourself (in your head) questions about whatever the person is talking about.

Let’s say someone mentions volunteering at a dog shelter. When you focus on what someone’s talking about, you’ll notice that you’ll soon be able to come up with a lot of questions.

  • What was it like at the shelter?
  • What’s her favorite kind of dog?
  • Has she volunteered before?
  • How was she able to work without pay?
  • Would she recommend it?
  • Was there any downside?
  • How many dogs were there?

If you’re, say, at a mingle with a lot of people in the room, you can ask yourself questions about any one of them.

For example:

  • What might that person work with?
  • What’s that person interested in?
  • How’s that person feeling right now? (Stressed, happy, calm, frustrated, sad?)

This ability to come up with questions (I call it “cultivating an interest in people”) is one of the most powerful social abilities you can learn.

[I also think you might be interested in reading my rankings of the best books on self-confidence over here.]

There are 2 reasons why this works:

  1. It forces your brain to focus outwards instead of being self-conscious
  2. It makes it easier to come up with things to say and get to know people

You see, if you’re good at asking yourself interesting questions about people, you’ll be able to fire off some of those questions when they fit the conversation.

Have you ever tried faking confidence? Have you tried focusing outwards? Let me know in the comments what happened!

David Morin is the founder of SocialSelf. He's been writing about social skills since 2012. Follow on Twitter or read more.

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  1. While reading, I was feeling that it has been written about me especially. I’ll try the remedy you suggested.
    Thank you.

    Reply
  2. How do you use the OFC method if/when the topic of conversation can’t be determined or the topic doesn’t interest you enough to contribute along those lines? Taking the volunteering at the dog shelter example above, if all you can think of is, “but I HATE dogs!” or similar thoughts, is a response like “Sounds cool. (Starting sentence of a totally different topic)” OK?

    Reply
  3. I find myself more nervous, more doubtful, when I am with family. I have convinced myself I am not important. I give in with the first ‘no’ or other opinion.
    I watching S12 E5 of Alaska Bush People, when two brothers argued about insulating pipes.
    I need to push away my angry doubt and keep a regular tone. This is hard! I need to push away my ‘no one loves me’ attitude.
    Your arrivals are helpful. Your idea about faking confidence is correct. I found the idea of focusing on the subject of the conversation helped.

    Reply
    • Man I agree, I have the same ‘no one loves me’ mentality but I just don’t know how to stop thinking like this.

      Reply
  4. What happens when it’s time for you to talk about yourself? this is where the nervousness comes. I can think of questions all day long for other people, but when I have to start telling a story or talk about my interests, etc thats where the trouble is.

    Reply
  5. Hi David,
    I received your email this morning and I truly loved this post. It resonated with me a lot because when I met new people I was constantly thinking about myself while someone was talking. I was making 0 friends. Then after getting CBT, I started focusing more on what others where talking about and I quietly calmed the thoughts in the back of my head. As a result, I was able to make friends and built a stronger relationship with my husband.

    Reply
  6. My problem is when I join big clubs say a tennis club some people I instantly get a bad vibe off and tend to become very insecure around them , It seems to start with their face , I don’t know why their face makes me dislike them I also get the feeling they don’t like me just by the way they look at me , it’s hard I can be confident and outgoing with some people others I clam up it’s like
    Mutism , I wish I knew how to solve this problem as it messes up my social life , jobs and restrictes my life as it makes me very cautious in going out into the world ..

    Reply
  7. I feel like I’m a really boring person and no one’s interested in what I have to say. So I just avoid talking. I feel inferior to the people I’m talking with and mess up my words. Talking in a group is my worst nightmare. My heart rate goes up by a million times and nothing comes out of my mouth. And at the end of the day, I feel bad that I couldn’t interact with people. I then imagine my whole life filled with loneliness because I’m terrible at talking to people and making friends. A failure because I could never express myself even though I knew the answers. And I feel absolutely miserable

    Reply
  8. Hey David, I have been becoming better at social skills because of your amazing advices but whenever I have a good talk with my classmate, I feel delighted at once but that conversation just echoes in my mind and I just think about it again and again. Maybe, due to overthinking I just pressurize myself foo much that whenever I go to talk with that person again I feel..jittery and mess the conversation.

    Reply
  9. I feel nervous or socially anxious only when I feel the opposite group of people are more knowledgeable or pretending to be knowledgeable and are more smarter than me.

    Reply
  10. I have a job interview tomorrow. I am very nervous as I’m not good at small talk or talking with other people in general. I have this constant pressure that I’m not interesting enough. What do you suggest?

    Reply
    • Try using the technique described of focusing on the other person. And know that it’s okay to be nervous. By being okay with it, you prevent it from spiraling out of control and instead it can actually decrease.

      I also suggest you do a roleplay with a friend who can pretend to be your interviewer. That helps a lot.

      Reply
  11. Hey David, sometimes when I want to appear lively and friendly and confident, I end up being just jittery and awkward. Please advise me on how I can fix this.

    Reply
  12. This is sooo true. Whenever i try to be confident i start to be self conscious and its so hard to focus on the person im with or talking to. Thanks a Lot. “Fake it til’ you become it”!!

    Reply
  13. Do you have any advice for trying to appear confident in front of an audience? I just started singing in restaurants and pubs and the worst part is addressing the audience.
    Thx!
    Katie

    Reply

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