How do I have more self confidence?

Hello Doug,

It is very nice to meet you. Thank you for taking the time to send in your question. You ask a great question! This is certainly something that you can work on and improve on for yourself. You have taken the first and most important step by reaching out and asking for help. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on the issues you are expressing concern about. It is based off of the idea that how you think about situations and events determines how you will feel about and act in the given situation. Think of it like this: thoughts control feelings, feelings control behaviors. For example, if you are going into a job interview and your thoughts are, "I'm not going to get the job, they won't like me, I'm not as good as the other applicants" etc, then your feelings will be sadness, negativity, insecurity, etc. The resulting behaviors will be avoiding eye contact with interviewer, speaking softly, stuttering in the interview, unable to give clear, concise answers.

Given the same situation with the job interview, if you had positive, encouraging thoughts, your feelings would also be more confident and your actions/behaviors would show that same confidence. Confidence is an attractive feature. Practice confidence when you are outside, keep your head up, straight back, smile.

You describe several cognitive distortions in your question. All or nothing thoughts, "no one will ever love me, I never do anything right, no one wants to spend time with me." 

I encourage you to consider reaching out to a therapist to work on and reframe these negative thoughts. Look up more on cognitive distortions and see which you identify with. I know that changing your thoughts can feel like an impossible task, but it can absolutely be done! The fact you've reached out shows that you are motivated to make these changes for yourself. Practice identifying positive things about yourself each day. Nothing is too small to notice either. Give yourself credit for each task that you complete.

I hope that you have found this information helpful and I wish you all the best moving forward on your journey.