Work on your confidence like your life depends on it (spoiler: it does.)
This post is a bit of an experiment. You see, I am myself struggling a lot with confidence, and I will admit it before I start delving into the topic. Some days, I feel like the strongest woman in the world, and other days, I have as much confidence as Bridget Jones in the scene where she sings All By Myself, drunk and miserable. Needless to say, the days I feel like Bridget Jones are not exactly the happiest. So no matter where you are on the road to self-confidence, I feel you and understand you. It’s not the easiest challenge to undertake.
However, I am striving to be the best version of myself, and thus undertaking this journey is so important. The more confident you are in yourself, not only in how you look like but also in who you are, the happier you will be. You can’t face the world if you feel like a tiny little seed ready to be crushed. You need to grow your leaves and your beautiful petals one by one, to be strong enough to face the winds without breaking. Although I am still on the road to self-confidence, here is my advice on how to get started on your journey.
START NOW
How many of us have found ourselves thinking, while scrolling on Instagram, ‘She is so confident! I wish I was like her!’ or ‘Why can’t I be as strong?’. We’ve all been guilty of wishing we had the confidence we see in others all the time. Truth is, and I’m just gonna throw it out here: because someone looks super confident, doesn’t mean they are. The motto ‘fake it ’til you make it’ has never been truer than on social media. However, one thing you can get from looking at all these pictures of strong, confident women, is the motivation to start your own journey. You can wish it all you like, but feeling confident is a process that only you can build. Start little: think about what bothers you about your present state of self-confidence. Think about the changes you would like to see happen in yourself. What are the little things in your every day life that would make you feel more confident? It could be anything from finding the courage to wear a bold outfit outside, to smiling to people in the street, or even saying ‘yes’ to a night out. Every day, do one little thing that you will be proud of, and that will get you started on your journey. And then keep going!
REALISE THAT YOU DON’T NEED VALIDATION FROM OTHERS
This is a big one. You won’t find your confidence through the eyes of others. You may feel great after a friend tells you how amazing you look in your outfit, but the minute you’re alone and facing yourself in the mirror, all the compliments in the world won’t matter. True confidence is looking at yourself, without frills and disguise, just you, and think that you are exactly who you want to be, for yourself and in the world. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take anybody’s advice – after all, I am right here, writing this post to help you find your own voice. But when you’re trying to figure out the things that make you feel confident, only take your instinct into account. What people see from the outside is very different from how you truly are, and this is true even for the people closest to you who know you and support you every day. Self-confidence is a very personal and deep process, one that you should care for seriously. My words may seem over-dramatic but I do believe that building your confidence can change your life for the better. So don’t see your own confidence through the eyes of others; only yours matter.
DON’T LIE TO YOURSELF
Coming back to the point of faking it ’til you make it, there’s something that doesn’t sit well with me. It’s easy to fake something, and just get lost in the appearances, especially if it means faking to a social media following, or even to friends when you meet up with them. You can create a mechanism of fake confidence, a facade that you show to others to say ‘hey look at me, I feel great with myself’ whereas when you’re alone at home, on a bad day, the facade breaks and you realise that you’ve just made it all up and tried to convince yourself of something that isn’t true.
Please don’t lie to yourself. If you’re really not feeling confident at all one day, but you have to go out and meet a friend, just accept it. You will have better days. Don’t put up a character that is not yours. It is better to have a low day that to get suck in a spiral of pretence. You could only keep it up for so long anyway before it all falls apart. Embrace yourself with all that you are, and work with it. Don’t suppress it.
BE READY TO DRIVE ON A BUMPY ROAD
As I have mentioned, I think self-confidence is very personal to each individual. Only you really know who you are and how you can improve. You will have times of success and thriving, but you will also experience hardships, you will question everything and sometimes think that in the end, you are not confident at all. It’s easy, during a low point, to feel like the days where you’ve felt confident don’t matter, as though confidence was an end point and if you ever fail to reach it one day, it means you are never a confident being at all, no matter how hard you try. I’ve felt like that more times than I’d like to admit. But you should see confidence as something you work on forever. It sounds exhausting, I know, but it actually is amazing to think that you are always working on yourself. Always striving to be better, to make yourself happier. You are in charge. And just that thought can already make you so much more confident in your abilities and the power you have to change yourself and take the direction you want in life.
What are the things that make you feel confident? What would your advice be to others on their self-confidence journey?
Lots of love,
Julia x
