How to build YOUR confidence with Constructive Embarrassment?

Hello Health and Wellness Seeker,

Do you feel that embarrassment, rejection, humiliation or anything that looks foolish must be avoided at all costs?

Embarrassment is not a pleasant emotion. We all have embarrassing moments in our lives. From minor social faux-pas to mistakes that result in public humiliation, nobody likes to be embarrassed. Every fiber of our body is designed to avoid pain. Since humiliation, rejection and embarrassment are linked as immense pain, in most people it takes tremendous willpower to consciously steer towards something that may result in pain.

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What is Constructive Embarrassment?

“Constructive Embarrassment” is when we put ourself on purpose in an embarrassing situation. By exposing ourself to these embarrassing situations, we learn how to deal with unpleasant emotions and feelings of shame. In constructive embarrassment we still care what other people think, but it is toning it down from 100 percent to 60 percent. It is a continuous process of liberating ourself to do whatever it is that we want to do and bring up our level of confidence from that embarrassing moment. The golden nugget in terms of Self-Confidence is – ‘ancestral conditioning and being scared of judgment’ is what stops us from vibrating at our highest level.

Research shows that for women their confidence level is elevated with age and experience compared to men. Ladies! Let’s not wait until we age, let’s build this competence now and begin to live that life we deserve.

Listen to the Self-Care Goddess podcast episode #27 “Busting 3 Major Aging Myths” with Annie Gaudreault on the Self-Care Goddess Podcast.

How can it help overcome fear in Public Speaking?

Did you know that fear of judgment & public speaking is one of the most feared fears – more than even death? People are more afraid of public speaking than dying because they fear being judged as stupid or making a fool of themselves. When we embrace constructive embarrassment, everything we perceive really embarrassing in front of other people becomes easier like public speaking. In constructive embarrassment we prepare ourself to face pain which is the “fear” more easily by knowing it is coming and being familiar with that feeling so we can brace ourself for it. This really resonated with me because public speaking is not a skill that I was born with. I do a lot of public speaking now, but if I had known this technique of putting myself in embarrassing situations to overcome my public speaking fear, perhaps I would have not suffered so much physiologically, mentally and emotionally to be where I am today.

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Constructive Embarrassment Challenge

I challenge you to try out some of these ideas or make up your own. Here are 11 Amazing Constructive Embarrassment Ideas:

Give $2 to 3 strangers.
Ask a stranger for a hug. Find a random stranger and say, “Hey, excuse me, can I give you a hug?”
Ask a stranger on the streets “Hey, do you want to have a staring contest with me?” Whoever looks away loses.
Give a high five to 3 strangers.
Pretend to be a greeter in front of a fast food restaurant.
Smile in the elevator and saying “Hello”. Instead of looking down or not making any eye contact.
When the door of the elevator closes, stand right in front of the door. Look at the people, smile and ask “how are you doing today”?
Go into a restaurant, pretend to be the waiter and ask for orders. Just walk up to random family, pretend to have some notebook in your hand and then say “Hello, good afternoon. May take your order, please?”. Then you pretend to write something in your hand. Take the order and then just walk outside again.
Go alone or with a buddy into the street and ask people, whether they want to punch you in the face.
Do one random act of kindness. Anything like buying lunch for a homeless person or buying a lottery ticket for a random person in the street, helping someone carry their bags, writing a positive google maps review whatever it is just do something positive for another person.
Post a video on your story where you screwed up and think it’s embarrassing.

Listen to the Self-Care Goddess podcast episode #29 “How To Build Your Resilience for Better Mental Health” on the Self-Care Goddess Podcast.

Tips for doing Constructive Embarrassment Well

Philipp advises us to start slow and then build our way up. Try to put together a plan to do one challenge every day for some time; e.g., 30 days. Having a buddy to do that is very helpful. There needs to be a balance by not being disrespectful and doing no harm to anyone. It is also very subjective, what may be easy for someone might be difficult for another. Remember that constructive embarrassment should have a minimal emotional impact and not destroy you or your level of competence.

Philipp has framed a system to get the most out of constructive embarrassment. It is called the ‘Count, Embrace and Appreciate’.

Count to avoid procrastinating. Count is very much count down. You’ve seen opportunity. Let’s say you want to embarrass yourself, sitting down on the floor of Starbucks. You see the Starbucks in front of you in the street. Now instead of procrastinating and not sure whether to go for it, use the five seconds rule which is counting down 5-4-3-2-1 Boom! and you go for it. This helps to stop procrastinating and you just go for that.
Embrace the awkward situation. Most of the time when we do the embarrassing thing, our urge will be to get up and run away. We want to disappear from that moment. Resist the urge, because the more we can stick to that sensation, the better it is. Embrace the feeling, feel the sensations in your body, notice what’s going on in your body. That’s the part where you get the most learning. When we learn how to deal with the emotions in these situations, we can deal with them in any moment.
Appreciate with Gratitude. Once you’re done with this exercise, tell yourself great job! We just did something that not a lot of people on earth would do. We are now closer to our goals so appreciate what you’ve just done.

After following these three steps just remember to be more consistent with the exercise.

Take Home Message

When you embrace constructive embarrassment techniques to build confidence the best thing that could happen is that you feel empowered to do anything in life and go after anything that you want to do. If you’re looking for a massive transformation for your confidence, give it a try, you really have nothing to lose. The good thing is that people’s reaction and judgement doesn’t matter. If they are ruthless to you the worst thing that happens, is they say “No, thank you” and then walk off. This is also something good because you did something not many people would do and the best part is you overcame your fears. We are not seeking validation from anyone; we are just out there doing this to be more confident irrespective of getting any result of success. We may have a lot of positive experiences but if we get comfortable with being neutral to negative experiences, that is also massive learning and ultimately personal growth.

I invite you to try the challenge and be open to these types of Self -Development and Self-Confidence techniques that help us grow and ultimately make our world a better place.

For more details on this amazing information shared listen to the full episode #42 on Self-Care Goddess Podcast.