Women routinely list confidence as the sexiest thing about a man. When you’re confident it leads directly to so much of what women look for in a guy. A confident man makes the first move, leads in the bedroom, is successful, seeks to make his girl orgasm, takes good care of himself, and so much more. Confidence does more good for your life than any other thing, including outside of the bedroom. You’ll get promoted more often, your friends, coworkers, and strangers will respond to you positively and buoy your life further. Everything is better with confidence. So what do you do when you lack it?

You are in control of your confidence level. If you lack confidence it’s because you’ve created that reality. Others have certainly contributed, but their effects are entirely determined by you. If someone makes a negative comment you can choose not to believe it or even to believe that the opposite is true, which is what a confident man would do. That’s the kind of man you want to be. How do you get to that place?

Your first step is to take a self-assessment. What are your strengths? What are you good at? Are you great at anything? Do you have great knowledge of a particular subject? Almost everyone has a strength and most people have many strengths, particularly if you’re older and have had more time to develop them. Just as important is assessing your weaknesses, particularly since attacking them is a good way to build your confidence.

If in assessing your weaknesses (at least with regards to getting laid) you are disappointed with your body you can go to the gym and fix it. If you’re disappointed with your conversational abilities you can educate yourself and get better at it. The key to increasing your confidence is to take control. Perhaps the most important step of all is to resolve to fix the problem. The more you tell yourself you’re going to make things better, build your confidence, and get laid the more likely it is to happen. There’s no reason to wallow in self-pity.

The best way to build your confidence is by doing. If you’re bad with women then you need to talk to more women. You need to demystify the experience. Women are not scary, they’re not looking to humiliate you, and they’re not looking to withhold on you. They want sex just as much as you do. If you’re totally lost then try modeling your behavior after that of a TV or movie character. You just need a foothold to get you started. Watch Mad Men and see how Don Draper works his magic on the ladies. That’s not just fiction. If you were him in the real world you’d be getting laid constantly even if you didn’t look like Jon Hamm.

So many guys use their lack of a supremely handsome face as a reason for lacking confidence and it’s complete and utter bullcrap. You do not need to be an Abercrombie model in order to find a fling. In fact, the percentage of genuinely handsome men is really small. Almost all men are decent looking, just like almost all women are decent looking. How many ladies do you see that you find genuinely unattractive. It’s a pretty small number, right, particularly for women under 40. It’s the same for men. Most women find your face attractive as long as you’re not obese (and if you are it’s time to take control and lose weight).

You will be more confident when having a fling when you realize that confidence is self-generated and a lack of it is the same. You are in control in every way. Resolve to embrace that fact and be a confident man. Resolve to act as if you are and the women will flock to you and you’ll have no trouble finding a fling. Sooner or later you’ll have actual confidence.