“Fake it until you make it” is surprisingly good advice for this sort of thing. I had moderate self-esteem issues in my freshman year of college, so I consciously decided to pretend that I had very high self-esteem in every interaction I had outside of class. This may be one of those tricks that doesn’t work for most people, but I found that using a song lyric (from a song I liked) as a mantra to recall my desired state of mind was incredibly helpful, and got into the habit of listening to that particular song before heading out to meet friends. (The National’s “All The Wine” in this particular case. “I am a festival” was the mantra I used.)
That’s in the same class of thing as acting like Regina Spektor or Feynman; if you act in a certain way consistently enough, your brain will learn that pattern and it will begin to feel more natural and less conscious. I don’t worry about my self-esteem any more (in that direction, at least).
“Fake it until you make it” is surprisingly good advice for this sort of thing. I had moderate self-esteem issues in my freshman year of college, so I consciously decided to pretend that I had very high self-esteem in every interaction I had outside of class. This may be one of those tricks that doesn’t work for most people, but I found that using a song lyric (from a song I liked) as a mantra to recall my desired state of mind was incredibly helpful, and got into the habit of listening to that particular song before heading out to meet friends. (The National’s “All The Wine” in this particular case. “I am a festival” was the mantra I used.)
That’s in the same class of thing as acting like Regina Spektor or Feynman; if you act in a certain way consistently enough, your brain will learn that pattern and it will begin to feel more natural and less conscious. I don’t worry about my self-esteem any more (in that direction, at least).