What if becoming more confident and magnetic has less to do with improving yourself—and more to do with thinking about yourself less?

In this episode of Confessions of a Wellish Girly, I’m talking about how I confused being impressive with being magnetic. I thought confidence would come from becoming attractive enough, successful enough, interesting enough, healed enough, or accomplished enough that I could finally stop worrying about how people saw me.

Instead, I’m realizing how much of my life I’ve spent self-monitoring: Did I say the right thing? Was I weird? Do they like me? How am I coming across?

We’re talking about the difference between self-awareness and self-surveillance, why the most magnetic people often aren’t the most polished people in the room, and what happens when you stop asking, “Do they lik ...