How to grow balls (or have guts)

I think the more you do something the easier it gets. Same model as exposure therapy I suppose. Pushing out of your comfort zone is where one grows, one of the ways. Out there in the fear zone. Every time you feel the fear or anxiety, whatever, and do it anyway, you will get stronger. You come to know that you can do it.

 

Sometimes you have to relive that anxiety many more times than you wish in order to defeat that anxiety, and sometimes that anxiety will always be there to a certain extent, you just learn to handle it better. I really don't see any other way to have guts, or to be more confident in certain situations. If there was another way, I would have figured it out years ago lol!

 

Rather than the feeling of anxiety might you be able to reframe it as excitement?

 

Can't give you more advice than, experience in everything - will make you grow. Learn from failure, don't hate failure. Learn from what you did good, and learn how to do it even better.

An other idea, since you used dating as an example, is that every time you are on a date. You will meet a new person. A new person regarding dating can be very different from the last one, which may change the situation a lot?

And change of mindset is also important. Example: A person who don't belive in themself, how much do you think they will work to reach a goal? Little-to-nothing. A person who belive in themself no matter what, how much do you think they will work to reach a goal? A lot is the answer. Beliving in yourself, will change a lot. It does not matter how good or bad things goes sometimes, and it may be scary a lot of time, but when you don't give up you reach your goals. If you don't keep trying, you lose by default.

(Before reading the next part; I don't know if this will be related to you or not, but just wanted to point it out, and maybe it can help you).
An other reason I may think of regarding dating (since that was the example), is that a lot of people put a lot of "value" when they are meeting a person that may become their girl/boy -friend. A lot of people feel a "need" to be liked, when what really matters is what you feel about yourself, not what they think. They may think you are the best person in the world, but if you don't belive it, how can the feeling of anxiety everytime change? A lot may not really be about the situation itself, but more about you(?) How do you really feel about yourself.
(And one more thing: A lot of people put the potential partner on a "throne", they belive they need them to become happy and confident, but in reality it is all about you - they won't change you).

Regarding that you wrote on the post here I want to add a video. That shows why you should face fear, and not just feel safe:

 

Absolutely love that video! It's so unfortunate that so many of us choose to remain on the wrong side of fear.

 

In order to get back my courage and daring i had to get back in touch with my primal self / warrior self. This is that energy which is beastly and free of control of the mind as it has its own intelligence.

In order to do that i did the following:

1 - Regular excercise and heavy lifting
2 - Growling, jumping and making noise when possible
3 - Eating raw and unprocessed food

When you get in touch with this energy it will help you push through your mind games of anxiety and fear

Goodluck

 

Exposure therapy is not nonsense.

I think the trick is to make overcoming fear a habit. This aint easy, I'm still working on it myself but I think the trick is to work with small fears first. I will leave you with a quote:
'Courage isn't getting rid of fear, it is acting despite it.'