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In the last newsletter, we talked about how confidence gets built: by walking into a room scared and staying there long enough to find out you're okay.
And yet, most of us are quietly doing the opposite. The moment something gets uncomfortable, we leave.
Think about the last time you had to wait in line for even a few seconds, or you ate a meal alone. Your hand probably reached for your phone before you even thought about it. It may feel like no big deal, but every single time you do it, you're teaching yourself a subconscious lesson: The second something feels even a little uncomfortable, it’s time to escape. Bored? Leave. Awkward silence? Leave. Nervous? Leave.
Do that a few hundred times a day, and avoidance stops being a choice—it just becomes your normal. Constant scrolling trains us to be better at avoiding, and the cruel part is that avoidance increases the more you feed it. The more you dodge the little discomforts, the bigger every discomfort starts to feel, until something as ordinary as starting a conversation becomes way too much.
Recently, a new form of escape has emerged: talking with AI.
When something is weighing on you, it's so easy to chat about it with AI instead of a friend. Honestly, it can feel good because AI listens without interrupting or judging, and it never gets bored of you. You walk away thinking, That helped!
But be honest about what really happens in that scenario. Whatever you shared, AI just agreed with you. If you said you were right, AI told you that you were right. If you said you were the problem, AI gently talked you out of that too. It doesn’t actually know whether you’re right or wrong, and it has no real discriminatory powers to tell you the difference, so it just hands your own feelings back to you in a more validating and reassuring way, and you call it support. You feel better for an hour, and you’re left standing in the exact same spot where you started.
Here’s the real problem: You cannot build confidence with someone (or something) who always agrees with you. Confidence comes from the people who sometimes don’t agree with you—and from staying in real conversations that can scare you a little.
The scroll and the chatbot are the same trap but with different looks.
They are both grounded in this premise: Relief − Truth = Avoidance
They give you an easy way out of feeling uncomfortable. But remember, discomfort is never the enemy. Feeling discomfort is a whole important workout.
Put another way, Discomfort + Staying = Confidence
Here are four tips that can help you get through the uncomfortable moments:
1) If you’re going to use AI, make it push back
When you’re chatting with AI about a problem as if it’s your friend, stop letting it agree with you. Try a prompt like this: “Be brutally honest with me. Tell me where I’m wrong and challenge my thinking with reasons—don’t just validate me.” Don’t allow the conversation to reinforce the same beliefs you already have.
2) Talk to real people, even when it’s uncomfortable
Getting past the small talk, awkward pauses, and the little voice in your head saying, “Ugh, do I have to chat to them? can be hard, but do it anyway. That unease isn’t proof you’re bad at this; it’s just that you’re not used to it. (Imagine you’re at the gym learning a new workout routine. This is a rep. It only gets easier once you keep doing it. Doing more in-person activities can help you learn to accept people instead of fueling avoidant behavior.
3) Catch the scroll and skip it once
Next time your hand goes for your phone in a dull or nervous moment, notice the urge—and just this once, resist it. Stay in the boredom. Those few seconds or minutes are exactly where your muscles get built.
4) Keep AI for doing, not for soothing
Using AI to draft a hard email, plan your week, or learn a skill is useful. Where AI gets you into trouble is when you use it to talk yourself out of an uncomfortable feeling. The second it becomes your go-to for avoiding a hard feeling, AI stops helping you and starts holding you back. At that point, it is just another tool to escape, same as the scroll.
Pick one of the tips this week. Just one. Stay in a single uncomfortable moment instead of escaping it, and watch what happens. You’ll find yourself becoming stronger.
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