We always earn what we believe we deserve even if we think we deserve better. Therefore, even a woman will treat you how you allow and train her to based on your own self-belief. Understanding this one concept is the starting point to becoming a man with strong personal boundaries. Because your reality is a perpetual and often merciless mirror of whatyou believe about yourself, you’ll never be able to change the way a woman treats you if you don’t believe that you deserve better.

The human mind functions in such a way as to attain congruence (there’s that word again). It will work overtime to close the gap between who you think you are and what your behaviors portray until the two correspond.
This is why you’re compelled to behave in a way that matches with your self-belief. As the saying goes, “you can’t hide what’s inside.” If you inwardly believe that you’re a man of low-value, just about everyone you relate with will treat you as such.

Even your adoring wife or girlfriend might find herself struggling to treat you with respect if you neglect your own well being over time. No woman wants to be with a loser (unless she’s a loser herself) and she’ll give a man hell in an effort to induce a positive change.

So what’s the solution? How does a man increase his sense of self-worth and make it difficult for anyone to disrespect him? How does a man ensure that the opinion he has of himself is worth more to him than the opinions of others? The answer is so simple it’s embarrassing to say: Develop rock-solid self-belief by becoming a better man

Photo source: Unplash.com

As a man, one of the most powerful concepts I’ve learned is the idea of framing, the awareness that the most sacred thing about a man is the integrity of his own mind. It’s the notion that a man must have such a strong conviction of his core values that nothing in his external environment can shake him of his self-belief or remove him from his path. This is the power of a man who has full possession of his own mind.

The great, American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote a powerful essay called, Self-Reliance. The following is a short passage from this essay that sums up the idea of framing and how important it is for a man to be free from the opinions of others: “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

Of course, we can get deep into a philosophical discussion about the importance of not being so bullheaded and stuck in our thinking that we have difficulty gaining the support of others to truly make a difference in the world. But we won’t. I used this quote because it serves the idea of ‘framing’ perfectly in that it’s better to avoid being a slave to the opinions of others so that you can choose outside advice and knowledge much more freely.

What you think and believe about yourself, your life, your loved ones, your career, etc. should have more value to you than how everyone else views it. Passing a woman’s tests requires a self-approved frame of mind; therefore being dependent on outside opinions will only lead to failure.
You cannot lead a woman, or anyone else for that matter, if you crave being popular. To have a rock-solid, masculine frame is to commit to who you are, knowing that you’re unwilling to sacrifice who you are just to make someone else happy. Men without a strong frame may find that they often change their opinions and behaviors around different groups of people.

They are chameleons that usually aren’t sure of who they are regardless of how confident they may pretend to be on the outside. Men like this struggle the most not only with being tested by women, but being tested by life in general.
Here’s a simple example of a man maintaining his frame with his buddy: Let’s say you were going to the movies and a good friend arrived to pick you up. It’s a late showing and you decide to throw on a cap because you just love how caps look on you. Your buddy arrives, glances at you for a moment, raises an eyebrow, and asks, “You’re wearing a hat?” The subtext behind his questioning is, “Dude, there’s no sun in the movie theater. You’ll look silly. Take it off and let’s go.” A man with a weak frame might try to explain his choice of apparel. He may even feel silly and take it off.
A man with a strong frame, who’s fully convinced of his sense of style, might say something like, “And you’re not?” Boom. He re-framed the exchange to illustrate that he’s confident with his choice, he doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and most importantly, that he’s somewhat baffled as to why his friend wouldn’t wear one as well.

Men with strong frames look on the inside to see if they’re on the right path.
They often look at the outside world wondering why more people aren’t doing it the way they are. Men with weak frames do just the opposite. They are always looking on the outside as they try to do things as right and perfect as they can. And when they do look inward all theysee are the mistakes they’re making and the things that need fixing. Don’t do this. I can tell you from personal experience that this is no way for a man to live his life. So do yourself a favor and stop living in a perpetual cycle of self-doubt. It’s unmanly.

Do you now see the dangers to your relationships and the anxietyinducing stress that can come from having a weak frame as a man? Good, because so do women. And they will test the living daylights out of you until you figure out who you are as a man and confidently assert those inner convictions.
Resist the impulse to torture yourself by caring too much about what other people think of you. It’s a habit of thought, a type of mental conditioning, and just like any other habit it can be unlearned over time.

Photo Source: Unplash.com

Can you confidently stand on stage and deliver a speech about something
you believe in, in front of an angry crowd of thousands of women who vehemently disagree with everything you have to say? It’s okay if you said, “no.” Not many men can.
Why? Well, if we take out the fear of public speaking it could simply be due to the fear of having an unpopular opinion. It could even be due to the fear of disapproval and rejection, especially by women. It could be due to the fear of being criticized and ostracized by women. Or it could be because of all these things in combination.
So what’s my point? Nice guys, male doormats, and conflict-avoidant men are petrified of being “misunderstood” or disliked, especially by women. They care too much about what people think of them and place their self-worth into the hands of the crowd. And in this case it’s a crowd of women.

It’s absolutely intolerable for a woman to be upset at them, think negatively of them, or to feel utter contempt for them. Men like this will do just about anything to avoid confrontational situations with women just to prevent the intense feelings of discomfort that come with it.

While it is important for men to be mindful of how they are perceived by their honor group (group of male friends, male mentors, etc.), it doesn’t benefit them the same way when it comes to the opposite sex. Becoming indifferent to what a woman might think of you when you act based on
your principles is one of the most powerful attitude shifts you can make
as a man. The benefits to your overall well-being will astound you, as will
the positive effect it has on how you experience a woman’s tests. When you’re not trying to read her mind to see whether or not she’ll approve of
what you have to say, you have greater freedom to act from a place of integrity.
Hyper-analyzing what a woman might think, say, do, or feel if you
behaved a certain way causes intense anxiety. Over time, such anxiety
turns into fear. The kind of fear that causes you to hem, haw, and second
guess every decision you want to make. It’s not a pretty picture to observe a man trapped in a cage of his own making as he hands over the sanctity of his own mind to a woman.

How this Behavior Plays Out ?
This sort of behavior plays out in all the usual ways that people-pleasers
display. Sometimes it’s subtle; other times it’s not so subtle, but it always
shows itself in how a man interacts with a woman. Here’s a short list of
what these behaviors look like:
· Editing your choice of words or pussyfooting with your diction so as not to displease or arouse a woman’s anger in any way.
· Making tentative suggestions to gain her approval instead of making clear statements. For example: “Honey, I’m thinking we should eat Chinese tonight.” This is a suggestion and you’re clearly waiting for her approval.
· Censoring your opinions, behavior, and even your own needs just to keep her happy and unprovoked.
· Thinking excessively about what she’ll think, say, or do if you say or do what you want to do.
· Trying to be perfect to earn the approval of others.
It’s not easy to admit that you’ve become a whipped shell-of-a-man. And it’s even harder to change what could be years of passive, peoplepleasing habits that have now defined your relationships. It is time for a change, a change in your self-beliefs that can redefine your relationships.

Photo source: Unplash.com