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How to Build Your Self Confidence

It’s The Gentlemen’s Curb a lifestyle blog where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. We are back with some more information for you. When you lack confidence, it is all too easy to hide away inside and keep yourself to yourself. Unfortunately, this is also the fastest route to loneliness and isolation. And that’s not going to boost your confidence, is it? When you are feeling low and can’t get yourself together, the road back to self-confidence can seem long and exhausting and, to be honest, you are going to have to put in a fair bit of effort to get yourself going. You need to put yourself into situations outside your comfort zone and learn to see what others see in yourself. You can be strong, confident and happy. All you need to do is give yourself a nudge in the right direction. 

Photo Credit: Lylah Levi

Tackling Body Confidence

Lots of people lacking body confidence end up lacking confidence more generally. This is quite logical in one respect because if you are embarrassed by your appearance, you are less likely to want other people to see you. Then as you avoid people more, it gets harder to go out, you start to worry about your social skills and a vicious cycle begins. Body confidence does not arrive overnight. You will always have days where you look in the mirror and don’t see what you want. This is normal for everyone, the only difference is that a confident person will look, shrug, grin anyway and get on with life. If you want to have body confidence, you need to get rid of your hangups and carry on regardless.  Accept yourself. A great way to give yourself more body confidence is to join a sports team. Not only will you feel fitter and better, but you will have a ready-made group to encourage you to do better. They don’t care what you look like as long as you arrive ready to run around and have some fun! Soccer and basketball are both great for getting involved in a local team and baseball is a lot of fun too (have a look at this website for some equipment to help get your eye in).  When you realize that most people are interested in you as a person rather than you as a body, you should relax a lot more. The most important thing is not that you look like a model, but that you are fit and healthy. This looks different on everyone so give yourself a break!

Photo Credit: Lylah Levi

Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone

Confidence is about being able to walk into a new situation and keep your cool. You are still you, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. This is worth remembering because, for those people who get incredibly anxious when doing something new, you can ground yourself in the knowledge that very little is really going to change.

If you spend a lot of time in hiding, you won’t give yourself much opportunity to spread your wings or build your confidence. So, if you want to grow, you need to put yourself in a bit of discomfort and then take a step back and think about what has happened.

Everyone finds different things scary so you will have to think about what you are avoiding to work out what you need to do. For example, if you tend to avoid talking to new people, you should learn to talk to strangers (keep reading for more!), if you are afraid of failing, you should try something you’ve never done before, etc.

The point of stepping outside your comfort zone is that you will quickly find that the world carries on regardless of what happens. Yes, you might embarrass yourself but 99 times out of 100 you won’t. And if you do, laugh it off, make a joke at your own expense and move on. You can’t stop yourself having those 99 brilliant experiences for fear of one bad one so the more you see that you don’t fail, the more you will realize that you have nothing to worry about. That’s all confidence really is.

And once you have mastered that, it’s time for the biggie: learning to talk to strangers.

Learning to Talk to Strangers

Lots of people are nervous about meeting new people because they are worried they are going to say something stupid. This is a fairly normal worry to have but it shouldn’t stop you chatting with a stranger in a bar or meeting new people in general. In fact, you need to embrace the quiver of nerves in your stomach and just go for it!

If you are looking for something more structured, have a go at these exercises in talking to strangers by Kio Stark. Starting with sitting and observing, these exercises are a good way to get you chatting with people and sharing with them. We are all social creatures really and though some people will feel weird about you saying hello to them or asking them a question, for the most part, people are happy to engage for some time.

You will be surprised by how many good responses you to get from talking to strangers but you shouldn’t be, really. The likelihood of you actually saying something stupid and the whole world collapsing in on itself is really very remote. In fact, if you want evidence of this, Jessica Pan, an English journalist in London did an experiment to see what would happen if she spoke to strangers more often. At the peak of her experiment, she asked strangers stupid questions. It was fine.

The more you get used to talking to people, the more confident you will become. Part of this is a simple realization that most people are nice and willing to chat but another confidence-building aspect is the discovery that you are also a nice person willing to chat. People aren’t repulsed by you or afraid or whatever it is you fear. They just see you as a stranger, exactly how you see them.  So you see, your body, your fears, and your shyness are no reason not to be confident. Build yourself up, get out there and go and do whatever you want.

You’ve got this.

It’s The Gentlemen’s Curb a lifestyle blog where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way.

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5 Things You Learn When Heading Out Of Your Comfort Zone

It’s the Gentlemen’s Curb a lifestyle blog where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. We are back to share some information with you today. Heading out of your comfort zone is necessary if you’re to live as your best self. Without this, life often becomes a matter of shrinking rather than expanding. If you hope to live as a gentleman and become the full embodiment of your masculine power, then sooner rather than later you should become competent in heading out of your comfort zone.

 However, this is not always as easy as it sounds. To do so is strange, entering the unknown, and can often lead us to worry. The ‘hero’s journey,’ that age-old story template often contributed to Joseph Campbell for explaining, has been grappling with this idea for millennia. As humans, we are absolutely fascinated by the ability to enter areas that we are relatively unfamiliar with, and to use conquest to make them ours, or at least more familiar. 

People might say that this is not easy to find in the modern day, but we’d suggest otherwise. There are many different things you could learn on your street alone, and that’s before you even consider conquest on another landmass. Here are a few things that heading outside your comfort zone can teach you, right from the beginning:

You’re Stronger Than You Think

You’re stronger than you think. You’ve read that sentence twice now, and it’s not always likely to make an impact. What matters is actually experiencing it, and knowing it for yourself. A child might be afraid of needles until they realize that actually, they don’t hurt half as much as they might have expected. It might be that you’re terrified to volunteer or to head to a new job for the first time.

Within the first week though, you’re much more likely to feel comfortable in your new surroundings. You’re stronger than you think. Your body and mind are evolved to live in the unknown, that is how our species has survived. You only know this however when you experience this as a practical reality.

The Fire Grows

When you head out of your comfort zone, your relationship with the unknown changes. This means that you add fuel to the fire of your curiosity instead of being afraid of what it has to offer. This only compounds with time, and soon your internal fire for more will rage.

You Begin Caring

Heading out of your comfort zone makes you a much more emotionally calibrated person. When you become comfortable with it, you ensure that you understand the benefits of doing so, and will be much less likely to fall into isolationism. You’re also more likely to make healthy choices. This could be as simple as following a men’s sober living program or choosing to eat keto. Whatever it means for you, the importance is that you care to begin with.

You Become Magnetic

One of the best ways to become interesting is to become interested in the world around you. This natural curiosity defines you as someone who cares about life and is magnetized to it. As a result, you become magnetic in the social field. That’s all we need to say.

You ‘Know’ That There’s More

It’s easy to think that your own little box is enough for you. When you see the outside world, learn something new, or challenge yourself, you’ll realize that is not the case. There is absolutely more out there for you, and this doesn’t simply stay a nice thing to think about when you experience it. It becomes a practical reality, something you can absolutely experience. When you have the capacity to do this, you ensure that you will seek this out in almost everything you do.

These things are fun to read about, but even better to experience. What’s stopping you? Until next time, it’s The Gentlemen’s Curb a lifestyle blog where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. If you have a topic that you want us to cover, feel free to email kava.king@gentlemenscurb.com

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Learning To Hunt: It’s A Matter Of Survival

It’s The Gentlemen’s Curb a lifestyle blog where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. Here is some information about survival.  Being in a survival situation means that you are dealing with extreme conditions. A big part of being in those conditions is learning how to survive, which is why learning to hunt is going to be a very important tool in your arsenal. When you are in the wilderness trekking and hiking, the most practical animals that you can hunt are birds, small game, and fish. These can be caught by hand and are so common that you won’t be without food in an extreme situation.

Larger mammals such as deer would need you to be properly equipped. You would need to have the right rifle to shoot from a distance, as well as a rifle sling from HuntersTechWorld.com to keep yourself hands-free when you need to be. Learning to shoot is a necessity when you are hunting. Small game and birds along with fish and invertebrates should be the most important considerations for your survival hunting. Almost all of them can be eaten and rabbits and geese have the most amount of flesh to offer you when hungry. The smaller the animal you want to catch to eat, the better chance you have of ensnaring it in traps. You have to hunt with care, though, as you don’t want to catch other people in the traps that you set. When you do catch an animal, you need to ensure that they are cooked thoroughly through. Killing the microorganisms and bacteria in the meat, especially lean meat, will help your body to process what it is you are eating. You need to make sure that you also consume some of the animal fat; when you’re in a survival situation, diet does not matter!

Mankind has hunted animals since the dawn of time itself, and this doesn’t go away just because there are parts of the world where cities and skyscrapers reside. There are still areas of total forest or desert, and so hunting to survive is still a necessity. Most people wouldn’t know what to do if something happened and the world plunged into one that needed people to rely on their basic survival instincts. Learning to hunt is something that will one day come in handy, especially you would be relying on yourself to eat. Wild animals don’t just sit down and wait for you to come by and kill them. You have to learn how to be precise with your hunting so that you get the best animals to help you to survive. Wild animals feel the presence of humans before they see you, so they will move away. Learning to hunt can help you to hone the skills that you need to keep yourself alive in a precarious situation. You can learn to track animals and identify the right prey to hunt and there are guides like these that can help you to get there.

Hunting isn’t just a sport for some, it’s a means to ensure that they live and keep living while they try to get from surviving to living again. Until next time, it’s The Gentlemen’s Curb where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. 

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Regaining Your Confidence In Style

It’s The Gentlemen’s Curb where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. Here is some more information for you. I hope that you all can benefit from this post. Modern life is brutal, and it can knock your confidence for a whole host of reasons. Maybe you’ve lost a job, a relationship, or you’ve simply let your standards slip due to the endless rat race cycle. Whatever the source of your problems may be, finding a way to restore your confidence should be top of your lifestyle agenda. Thankfully, rediscover your mojo needn’t be as difficult as you might first fear. Follow this simple four-point plan, and you’ll be back to feeling your best in no time.

 Invest In Your Look

 Appearances count for a lot in this world. Looking good makes us feel good while it will also influence the way other people respond to us too. Therefore, if you’re currently unhappy with the way you look, this should be the first point of focus. Every man should dress to impress, and a new wardrobe of clothes can make a big difference to your look and mindset. Meanwhile, discovering fue for hair loss treatment could be the key to feeling younger and more confident once more. If it puts the smile back on your face, the investment is certainly worthwhile.Speaking of your smile, this is one of the first things people notice, so its worth looking at enhancing your pearly whites. You could consider a teeth whitening treatment, even if you are on a budget, there are some very affordable products on the market (but always make sure they are FDA approved)
Look great. Feel great. Be great. Simple.

 Invest In Your Health   

 Revamping your look is one thing, but actively feeling more confident in your skin is an even greater reward. It’s very easy to let your health and physique slip, especially in this hectic world. Nonetheless, there’s never been a better time to rectify those mistakes. Hitting the gym to improve your fitness and physique is the perfect solution. Alternatively, these home-based workouts are a great way to ease back into things. Furthermore, paying special attention to your posture and correcting any ailments you may have can work wonders too.   A healthier you is a better you. This can only bring increased confidence.

 Challenge Yourself

Accomplishing goals, especially when you have doubts, can be one of the best ways to rebuild your confidence. Moreover, many of those achievements will directly improve your quality of life. You ’d be a fool not to embrace your natural instinct to keep striving for greatness. Aiming for career upgrades and other life goals is great. Or you can also look for adrenaline-fuelled challenges. The ones that allow you to overcome your fears are particularly great solutions. In truth, though, anything that actively leaves you feeling in a more positive mood is ideal.  Apart from anything else, this will stop you falling into the cycle of boredom.

 Help Others

Sometimes in life, helping others is the best way to help yourself. Positivity breeds positivity. Knowing that you’ve done something good for the world and people that need support will improve your inner feelings of confidence. There are many possibilities out there, including charity events or supporting community projects. Apart from improving your confidence levels, this allows you to focus your attention on something positive. This can be especially useful if you’ve had a breakup or disappointment. It can additionally become a great way to meet new people. With those four steps, you’ll be back to your confident ways in no time.  

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Forget The Club!

It’s The Gentlemen’s Curb a lifestyle blog where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. Here we have some information for you or some suggestions for the weekend. Considering so many of us live for the weekend, it’s pretty surprising that we tend to end up in the same old jaunts week in and week out. Now, heading to the pub or your favorite bar is nice. You are probably familiar with other people who frequent the place and can have a nice catch-up. You also know exactly what to expect. But every now and then it really is nice to ditch the usual and do something a little different for a change. Here are a few ideas that you might like to try out!

See a Show

If you’re looking for something a little different to do, why not go to see a show this weekend? Now, the term “a show” may be extremely wide-reaching, but this is deliberate. The options are limitless, so technically speaking, you could go to see a different “show” every weekend if you wished. But the benefit of seeing any form of show is that you feel like you’ve really done something with your time. You’ve engaged in a cultural activity rather than merely staring into a pint at the bar. It also gives you something to think about and talk about after, not only with the person you went to see the show with but to other people too. So, let’s give you a few ideas to get started. Take a look at bands who are due to play at local venues. These can be major arenas that host international successes or smaller venues who are showcasing new and emerging artists. If music isn’t your thing, why not head to the theatre. Plays tend to run year round, as does the ballet, musicals, and even improv events. The thing with this kind of activity is that events are generally ticketed, and you’re going to have to decide what you’re doing a little in advance rather than turning up at the door and expecting to walk straight in. Try where possible to use registered ticket sellers such as TicketOffices to ensure that you aren’t sold duds. There’s nothing worse than buying a ticket from someone you don’t know online, only to arrive at the event and realize that it’s fake or invalid.

Go Outdoors

We’re slowly emerging from the harsh winter months and welcoming spring with open arms. So why not embrace the finer weather and actually step outdoors for a change? Sometimes the simple pleasures are the finest. So find a local park and arrange a picnic with your nearest and dearest. Pack up a picnic basket (remembering to accommodate to everyone’s dietary preferences and requirements), find some phone speakers or a wireless battery powered radio and make a day of it! Remember to take along a blanket too, as grass can get damp at certain times of the day regardless of the weather.

These are just a couple of ideas that you might want to try out for a change! Ditch the pub and be a little adventurous! Until the next time, it’s The Gentlemen’s Curb a lifestyle blog where fashion meets fitness in a BIG  way. If you have a topic that you want us to cover please email us at kavah.king@gentlemenscurb.com 

Photo Credit: Lylah Levi

Five Routines for Dealing with Work-Related Stress Every Day

It’s the Gentlemen’s Curb where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. We are back with some more information for you to benefit yourself. Whether you are burnt out at work or finish late every day, you are exposed to a high level of stress that needs addressing. Stress can cause mental and physical illnesses, and you need to learn to look after number one before you can take care of your family. Men deal with stress differently, and you have to find the right way of releasing it before it catches up with you and impacts your health. Below you will find a few tips on dealing with everyday stress the right way, instead of pretending it is all fine.

Learn to Relax

Your greatest challenge will be learning to switch off. Find something that relaxes you and is not bad for your health. From talking to friends, to watching your favorite TV program and going for a day trip, driving through the countryside, there are several ways you can unwind and clear your head. Some people find that spending a few minutes on www.bingopower.com helps them relax and take a step back from their problems.

Take On a Sport

Exercise is proven to help you reduce your stress levels. Increasing your physical activity will generate the hormones that can help you deal with difficult situations better. No matter what floats your boat; water sports, tennis, jogging, or even extreme training and going to the gym, yoga, or football. You are going to find a good local club where you can train and connect with people.

Smart Ways to Socialize

You need to find an alternative to hitting the pub after work to release stress. Self-medication hardly ever works. Get some fresh air, join a local charity, or meet with friends for dinner. Focus on the quality of time, and follow your interests. If you are interested in historic stamps or bike models, you can find a group where you can meet like-minded people and get more buzz out of the experience than sitting in the pub with colleagues.

Challenge Yourself

You will also need a helpful distraction. If you challenge yourself, you will be able to focus on something other than stress at work and increase your self-esteem. Sign up for a marathon or a competition, and train. This will take your mind off the problems and give you a better perspective, so you can solve your issues in a more efficient way.

Learn New Skills

If you are in a dead-end job, you can try to better yourself through training and learning. When you are not happy with your job, you should open your horizons. From leadership training to pursuing an MBA, there are plenty of ways of opening the door to new opportunities and improving your personal and professional life.

Whether you are unhappy with your job or find it hard to take a step back and let go, you can use the above methods to improve your mental and physical health, your future outlooks, and your career prospects. Focus on what makes you happy and reduces your stress levels, and you can carry on bettering yourself.

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How To Deal With The Frustration Of A Patchy Beard

Once again, it’s The Gentlemen’s Curb a lifestyle blog where fashion meets fitness in a BIG way. We are back with some more information that can help you. When you’re trying to grow out a new beard, there’s nothing worse than patches. Instead of the magnificent beard, you were hoping for, you end up with half-baked coverage that makes you look like a teenager. A lot of the time, those patches will only be temporary and if you just wait it out for a couple of weeks, they’ll fill in and you’ll get great coverage. But if that doesn’t happen and you’ve still got patches a few months later, you need to do something about it. If you’ve got a few gaps under the chin and around the neck area, it’s not really that noticeable and you can probably get away with leaving it as it is, but the most common area where people get gaps in their beard is on the cheeks which can really ruin it. A lot of men get to a certain point and then decide to give up and shave it all off because it’s patchy. Luckily, you don’t need to do that because there are ways that you can fill in those patches.

What Causes Patches?

Before you can start remedying the problem, you need to understand why it’s happening in the first place. There are a few reasons for patches; most of the time, gaps on your cheeks are caused by a lack of blood flow compared with other areas of the face. That means that the nutrients and testosterone that inspires hair growth is lacking in the cheeks compared with other areas of the face. It could also be caused by a general lack of hormone overall which leads to patches in all areas of the face. Another common cause of patches is weak hair follicles. When hair does grow in these areas, it often falls out before it can fill out into a proper beard. Those are the major causes of patches in your beard, so what can you do about it?

Beard Oils

If you’re trying to grow a beard, you need to be taking care of it, just the same as you do with your hair. Getting a good beard oil that can keep the hair and face well moisturized will stop it from drying out and prevent dandruff and split ends. As well as giving your beard a better look generally, it can also help with patches if you get the right stuff. The products from Bearded Basturds are made from all natural products which can help to strengthen your hair follicles and reduce the likelihood of getting patches. Applying a beard oil daily will ensure that your beard stays healthy and grows out fully.

Hair Loss Medications

There are a lot of products out there that claim to inspire hair growth but you’ve got to be careful because the vast majority of them don’t do anything. However, there are some that have been proven to encourage hair growth and they can help with a patchy beard. Minoxidil is one of the best ones that you can get without a prescription, it’s been proven to work on your hair and the results on the face are good as well. It also doesn’t have any of the side effects that a lot of the other products do.

Microneedling

Microneedling sounds like a bit of a scary treatment on the face of it but it’s not painful and it’ll help you to fill in those annoying gaps. The treatment involves taking a roller with lots of small needles on it and running it over the patchy areas. It breaks the skin and signals to the body that there is damage in the area. Your body then sends keratin and collagen to the area which encourages hair growth. It’s a quick treatment that you can do yourself and you’ll start to see results in a couple of weeks.

Increase Testosterone

If the problem is caused by a lack of testosterone, you can take steps to increase your levels and grow out a full beard. There are all sorts of things you can do in your day to day life that will increase testosterone production without having to take supplements that could have side effects. Exercise is one of the best things to do and it keeps you healthy at the same time. Cardio exercise will increase your levels of testosterone a little bit but if you really want to boost it, strength exercises are a lot better. Studies found that people who regularly lift weights tend to have a lot more testosterone in their bodies than people who don’t.

What you eat also has a big impact on your testosterone levels as well; eating protein, carbs and fat will all help but make sure that you still maintain a healthy intake. If you just start eating loads of fatty food to grow your beard out, you’ll end up gaining a lot of weight in the meantime.

Vitamin D is another vital nutrient that helps your body make testosterone and the best way to get it is from the sun. Making sure you get outside once in a while will help with your beard growth, but if you’re struggling with that, there are supplements you can take as well.

Best Styles For Patchy Beards

In some cases, you won’t be able to get rid of all of those patches but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on your beard completely. If you’ve tried everything and you’re still not getting anywhere, you can still get a great looking beard if you style it the right way. If the patches on your cheeks are really bad, you could just go for a goatee and give up on trying to grow it out on the cheeks altogether. But if you do want to go for a fuller style, it’s important that you trim all of the hair so it’s the same length, that’ll make the patches less noticeable. Then you can use a good amount of beard oil and comb the hair over the patches to cover them up.

A patchy beard is a bit of a pain but doesn’t think that you should just give up on it. There’s plenty of things you can do to grow it out fully. Thanks for reading. If you have a topic that you want us to cover, feel free to email kavah.king@gentlemenscurb.com