How Long Are You Going to Stay There?

I’ve been talking with a good friend, and over the past six months, he’s felt a bit off his game.

Work hasn’t been flowing the way it used to, the relationship he’s been hoping for hasn’t come together, and somewhere along the way, his confidence has taken a hit. It’s not that anything has completely fallen apart; life is good by most standards. It’s more subtle than that. He feels like he’s in a funk, and it’s starting to weigh on him.

And that’s a place a lot of men find themselves in at some point, I know I have been there.

The question isn’t really why it happens. Life ebbs and flows, and there will always be periods when things feel harder or less aligned.

The real question is how long you stay there?

A few off days or even a tough stretch is completely normal, but when that state lingers for months, it starts to become something else. It turns into a pattern, and eventually, it becomes your default way of being.

That’s where things can quietly shift in the wrong direction without even being aware of it.

A lot of men in that position are waiting for something external to pull them out of it. They’re waiting for motivation to come back, for a win at work, or for life to give them a reason to feel confident again. And that might happen, but that external win isn’t usually the thing that gets you back on track.

At one point in the conversation, I asked him, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if you had your own hype man?”

Someone who was there after the small wins, after the effort, after showing up on the days you didn’t feel like it. Someone who reminds you that “You are the best”, “You are amazing”, and that you’re doing better than you think, that you still got it!

We all know how to be that person for others. We’re quick to support our friends, celebrate their wins, and remind them of their strengths when they’re struggling. Yet, when it comes to ourselves, that same energy is often missing. Instead, we become overly critical, holding ourselves to impossible standards and reinforcing the very feeling we’re trying to get out of.

But the good news is that hype man already exists.

It’s you.

Most men just haven’t learned how to access or develop that part of themselves.

We’ve spent years training discipline, performance, and resilience, but very few of us have trained how to actually support ourselves. And that relationship matters more than most people realize, because confidence isn’t just built through outcomes alone.

It’s built through how you relate to yourself in the process.

We have to think about this the same way we would think about training our body. You don’t go to the gym once and expect to be strong. Strength is built through repetition, through consistent effort over time. The same applies to your mind. The way you speak to yourself, the way you acknowledge your effort, and the way you bring yourself back when you’re off all require practice.

This isn’t about forcing yourself to feel amazing or pretending everything is perfect. That’s not realistic, and it’s not the goal. We’re here to experience a full range of emotions. There are going to be moments where you feel off, uncertain, or low. But when you stay in that state for an extended period of time, it stops being a temporary feeling and starts becoming a familiar identity.

There’s also a deeper layer to this that often goes unnoticed. When you begin to shift how you speak to yourself and start offering yourself support instead of criticism, you may notice things come up. Old beliefs, doubts, or patterns that have been sitting under the surface start to reveal themselves. That’s where the real work is. It’s not just about saying better things to yourself, but understanding what has been getting in the way of you actually believing them.

No one else is going to do this for you. No one is going to consistently remind you who you are or pull you out of those moments when you feel off. If you don’t build that relationship with yourself, you’ll always find yourself looking outside for something to bring you back.

So if you’ve been in a funk lately, it’s worth asking yourself a simple question:

“How long am I going to stay here?”

And what would it look like to start backing yourself again?

Because the man you’re trying to become isn’t somewhere ahead of you. He’s already within you, and he shows up the moment you stop looking outside and start choosing him.

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