I can fake calm on the outside but people still see through it in seconds — how do you actually build social confidence?

I've gotten pretty good at the performance of confidence. Straight face, steady voice, "relaxed" posture — I run through the checklist every time before I walk into a room. And it still doesn't work. Somehow people clock the anxiety in like the first 10 seconds of talking to me, before I've even said anything weird.

I think I've been treating this like an acting problem — get the outward signals right and the inside will follow. But I'm starting to think that's backwards. Maybe people aren't reading my posture, they're reading the effort it takes me to hold it.

I'm trying to actually get better at this instead of just managing the symptoms. Not looking for "just be yourself" looking for real things that worked for people who used to feel this way and don't anymore.

If you've been here: what actually moved the needle for you? Was it a mindset shift, exposure/practice, something you stopped doing, or something totally unexpected?