Inner Game Fundamentals: 5 Tenets to Self-Confidence

In life, we’re taught that success is from the outside in.

And sure, you can be “successful” on the outer world yet be terrible on the inside. But look at what that brings. Drug abuse. Broken relationships. No real inner peace. Is that worth it to you?

If it’s not, then you need to consider developing your “inner game”.

This article is going to talk about the meaning of inner game and the basics on how to create it in a holistic manner.

[toc]

What Does Inner Game Mean?

The concept of “inner game” originates from self-image psychology. While used in dating and pickup circles, it’s an all-encompassing mental model that touches every area of one’s life.

It is the collective expression of various parts of your psychology and its ability to produce favorable life outcomes. While every area of your life has its “inner game”, you have an overall barometer that is a good indicator regarding your overall competency in life.

Without strong inner game you will hit a “ceiling” until you can increase your levels in a certain life area. This is a large part of the reason why people work with coaches of all sorts, in an attempt to increase this area of their life.

This is the basic foundation behind something like launchpad capital.

Areas Where Inner Game Matters (A Lot)

As I said, inner game can affect various areas of your life but here are some specific ones.

Confidence

High levels of self-confidence are a direct manifestation of solid inner game. Confidence comes across in the way you express yourself.

You can have confidence in a specific area (like your job) while lacking it in another area (such as dating).

Without confidence in a specific area (or even your overall life), you will be unable to assert frame control. As a result, you will be at the effect of life rather than at the cause of it.

Dating

Dating is an area that causes a lot of people (especially men) differing levels of anxiety. It causes so much anxiety that some people would rather “settle” for a partner that’s not really right for them than to go through “the hoops of dating” and experience rejection.

For most men, developing high levels of inner game in this area is essential.

Why?

Because most often, you’ll be the one to make the first move and you need to display confidence.

It will take a combination of belief, positive experiences, and even something like autosuggestion to help nullify the fears and stories surrounding dating and make it a more enjoyable experience.

Career

We will spend most of our lives doing some type of work, so it is critical that this work is a cross-section of something we want to do and something that helps us survive and thrive.

No one is going to be your advocate at work (in fact, no one really cares) so you need to show up with the belief necessary to advocate for yourself and your career interests.

You need to have the inner game to develop yourself in your craft and your career, mastering the skills you need to in order to maximize your happiness and financial success.

Speak of finances…

Finances

There is a game of money.

Many people are not taught this as children.

Many of us, if we’re honest, were taught one of two things (or maybe both):

1. Money is bad
2. It is very difficult to make

Not surprisingly, these beliefs stay with us as adults and develop into scarcity mentality. The making and earning of money is beyond this topic but bad inner game in this area is absolutely devastating.

While there are many more areas to cover, this is just a small sampling of essential life areas that are affected by one’s level of inner disposition.

So after reading this, you may realize you want to develop your inner game in these areas. Awesome. But there are some obstacles in the way that we have to address.

Obstacles to Developing Inner Game

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. t’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. – Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa

As Rocky said, life can be difficult. As a result, many of us end up developing blockages that prevent you from developing yourself. Here’s a few of them. See which ones you can recognize in yourself.

Low Self-Esteem

There are many reasons why someone would have low self-esteem. It could be anything like a bad childhood to consistent failure in life. Since self-esteem is how you view yourself, it is entirely on you to change it. Unfortunately, this can be like a bad feedback loop because low-self esteem leads to even lower self-esteem.

Low Ability

When you lack the ability to do something, it is easy to feel powerless. Powerlessness leads to low feelings of self-efficacy. Low feelings of self-efficacy lead to lack of inner direction. Lack of inner direction leads to low ability and the cycle continues. Similar to low self-esteem, this is also the tightening of the circle which makes it harder to act and gain reference experiences.

No Prior Experience

There’s a paradox in things like dating or getting a job that no one wants anyone with no experience. However, how do you gain experience when you lack experience in the first place? This is another self-reinforcing cycle. You could “fake it until you make it”. However, in many areas, that will only take you so far. If you’re getting dental work done, you better hope your dentist isn’t “faking it”.

So how do we fix these things? How do we overcome this seemingly gargantuan mountain?

How to Improve (and Develop) Inner Game

When it comes to developing strong inner game, there’s only so much you can do. Fortunately, a lot of it is within your control.

Increase Your Self-Efficacy

Many issues are due to feeling of a lack of self-efficacy. Whether you are agree or not is a complete different discussion, but regardless, you want to improve your objective ability to do things.

If someone is a bodybuilder who is used to throwing around a massive amount of weight, there’s a good (objective) chance they’ll be able to pick up a pebble on the beach.

Likewise, in your life – there are just some things that you definitely have the ability to do, no question about it. The concept is to expand that ability over time.

When you were a baby, a child, or a teenager your ability was limited. As an adult, it should have expanded quite a bit. Keep expanding it “quite a bit”.

This means “being comfortable with being uncomfortable”. This is the essence of self-improvement.

Seek Constant Improvement

Life is a game of optimization. You seek to get better in certain areas over a span of time. From this perspective, the only real competition you have is with yourself.

Many people look left and look right at what “the other guy” is doing, but that is really irrelevant. If I give you a map of Miami and you’re in New York, it doesn’t really matter where you go or what you do. You’re using the wrong map so you won’t be able to get around in a sensible matter.

Use your own map. Play your own game. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who others are today.

Find Your Niche

Everyone has something to which they’re uniquely suited due to a combination of their upbringing, inclinations, and skills. Your job is to find what yours is and develop your craft in that area.

When you find something you really like and develop your skills in that area while simultaneously giving value, you feel really good about yourself. And that of course, increases your inner game.

Develop Mental Toughness

Mental toughness (AKA grit, perseverance, determination, etc) is the ability to “fight back” against undesirable situations in life. The more mentally tough you are, the more inner determination you will have. The more inner determination you have, the more mentally tough you are.

If you look at anyone who has done anything significant in life, they often have a large amount of mental toughness. They just keep going and going and going.

How do you develop mental toughness? There are many ways, but one good way is to persist even when you feel like quitting. If you persist in the face of challenges (working out, working on projects, develop a skill) you will prove to yourself that you CAN do things. This strengthens inner game.

Have Faith

Lastly, all of inner game hinges on faith. Faith is known as “believing in unseen eventual outcomes”. It takes faith to go to college and believe that in 4 years, you’ll have a degree. It takes faith to start a business and keep working on it. It takes faith to engage on a track of self-development and see a better vision of yourself.

All of inner game hinges on faith.

Believe and achieve.

And if you want an amazing way to strengthen your inner game, check out Cornerstone. It’s jammed packed with several lessons on how to increase your psychological foundation, build a strong life philosophy, boost your productivity, and keep making solid gains year after year.

If you want more information on it, hit the jump below.