There are two types of confidence. One is outer confidence, and one is inner confidence (or self-confidence). Outer confidence usually comes from things like money, a nice car, a nice house, or even the social status. Generally, outer confidence is rooted in things that are material and can disappear at any second. Inner confidence – or self-confidence – on the other hand, is what you have inside. It is going to be there no matter what happens externally, and this is the type of confidence you want because it never goes away.

So the question now is how do you get this self-confidence? For me, it comes down to three main things.

1. Don’t be afraid to fail

Your successes give you that outer confidence and that temporary boost in ego, but when you fail over and over again, that is how you build your inner confidence. For example, when it comes to meeting girls at a bar, on the street or even at school, that means you have to get rejected sometimes. Nobody in the world can win over every single girl or particular situation. I know this is one of those things that is easier said than done, but here’s how I think of it when it comes to girls: when I get rejected, I keep trying and take my chances with the next one.

I’m at a point in my life where I don’t care what other people think about me, but what I can’t handle are the regrets. I can’t manage the fact that there was a great opportunity, and I let that go because I didn’t want to take a chance. I was too scared, or I was too afraid to fail. However, I don’t want to spend my life thinking “what if” all the time, and I guess you don’t either.

2. Be polarizing

The second way to build self-confidence is to be polarizing. Don’t be afraid to be 100% percent yourself. This phrase “be yourself” is used pretty loosely nowadays. But what I mean by it is: be yourself to the extreme and do not apologize to anybody for it. This means whatever your hobbies are, whatever your passions are, whatever jokes that you find funny, don’t be afraid to express these things to everybody around you. If you like Starcraft, tell girls that you like Starcraft. Who cares?

If people don’t like you for who you are, then ignore them. Why not put yourself out there from the beginning? Use this to filter out people whom you don’t connect with and get to people who appreciate you for who you are.

Here’s how I see it. You can have safe interactions with everybody in your life and have everybody like you as an acquaintance, or you can be polarizing. Be 100 percent yourself, have some people dislike you, and some people absolutely love you. You know this as well as I do: “haters gonna hate”. Now you can go and supplicate to them, or you can tell them to go away.

If you want to have a superficial and fake relationship with everybody in your life, go ahead and keep playing it safe, go ahead and keep being a person that everybody likes as an acquaintance. But if you want to live your life and meet people who you genuinely love and who genuinely love you back, the only way to do that is to be polarizing.

3. Be yourself

The last part of building inner confidence is just to stop caring about what others say. Live your life the way you want to, do whatever you want to do. Don’t live by anybody else’s rules and ignore the rules of society that you feel don’t fit you and your endeavors.

If you want to just let loose sometimes, go ahead and do it. Go out to the streets and yell at the top of your lungs. If you want to wear a shirt or a jacket that you know, nobody else likes, go ahead and wear it! If you want to meet a random girl walking across the street and your friends are behind you saying “don’t do it that’s embarrassing”, do it anyway. Just do what you want to do and don’t worry about those people who have a different point of view.

One of the most important things I’ve learned in life is that whenever you have a strong stance on something, whenever you’re passionate about something, you’re are going to get haters. It is inevitable, but that shouldn’t stop you from expressing who you are all the time because when you meet people who appreciate you, that is going to be a hundred thousand times stronger than any heaters that you’ve come across.

Right now let’s take a step back for a second. Why am I telling you about how to build your confidence, why am I even bringing this up? The reason is that I see many guys who don’t want to take the time to build this real inner confidence. They’re too scared, too lazy, or whatever the excuses. They want that magic pill that increases outer confidence and makes them feel good temporarily, but that is not going to do anything in the long run.

When you have inner confidence, and you follow the three guidelines above, you’re going to be able to accomplish anything, and outer confidence will ooze in your life therewith.