“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than ideal conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.” – Mark Victor Hansen
Confidence is something that is hard to build and isn’t something that you can make overnight. Nothing is more important than how you feel and think about yourself. By no means am I the most confident person in the world. However, I have spent the majority of my life exploring self-conscious and not valuing my self-worth. I am mentally in a place where I have learned to love and accept the person I am, which has built my self-confidence up drastically.
What is a confident person?
Let’s first identify a confident person. Everyone’s definition of a confident person can be different, but let’s address some characteristics of a confident person
A confident person:
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Can take a compliment
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Can take a risk
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Can step outside there comfort zone
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Can admit their mistakes and learn from them
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Does what they believe is right, even if it’s unpopular
Why is it important?
Self-confidence is essential because you’ll be happier; you will find emotional stability, and others will be more attracted to you in a relationship. When you have confidence, you’ll step outside your comfort zone and push your limits to life. You’ll find yourself steering away from the negative thoughts and uplifting yourself to accomplish your goals. Once you see yourself achieving your objectives, you’ll overall be happier with your life and the direction that you are going in. Of course, you never want to do anything for anyone else but let’s be real; nobody wants to be around someone negative about themselves. It’s something sexy and attractive about a person that can walk into a room and know they are the shit. One thing I learned is that self-confidence can make or break a relationship. Let’s say I know my last relationship wouldn’t have ended the way it did if I had more confidence in myself.
Tips for building self-confidence
There are several things you can do to build your confidence. Some of them are just small changes to your frame of mind; others you’ll have to work on for a bit longer to make them familiar habits.
1. Accept Your Flaws
We all know that everyone has flaws. However, growing up, I never ACKNOWLEDGED my shortcomings. I always ignored my imperfections. My weight is something that I have struggled with my whole life. I have ever been told that I was “pretty for a big girl.” However, when I looked in the mirror, I never saw the pretty face. I always saw the ugly body, so eventually, I stopped looking in the mirror. When brushing my teeth, washing my hands after using the bathroom, doing my hair, or even getting dressed for the day, I never looked in the mirror. I knew how I thought about myself was my most significant struggle point. After not looking at myself for years, I decided that I was finally going to look at myself. After getting out of the shower, I stood in front of my mirror and looked at myself. I looked at every inch of my body and accepted the fact that I didn’t have the perfect body. I received that I probably would never have the ideal body. I received the fact that at that very moment I was self-conscious. I also accepted the fact that I was an attractive woman.
2. Stop your inner critic
After accepting my flaws, I decided that I was no longer going to hold onto the negative thoughts I had about myself. Every time the negative thoughts crept in, I would flip it to something positive. If I looked at myself the first thoughts were always negative. “you are so fat” “you are so ugly” “nobody is ever going to want someone your size” Once I had those negative thoughts I would always follow them up with positive thoughts like “you are losing the weight” “you are beautiful” “your ex was the crazy one for letting you go.” I am not going to lie; it was a little awkward saying those positive things about myself because accepting positive comments about myself was always so hard. However, it does get easier. The more you say positive thoughts and stay consistent with the positivity, the easier it is to accept how great of a person you are.
3. Handle mistakes and failures in a more positive way.
Because I was so insecure, I hated to step outside my comfort zone. I already felt fat and uncomfortable, so the last thing I wanted to do was bring more attention to myself when trying something new. When facing new tasks or obstacles, I had to tell myself that even though I feel like everyone was focusing on my weight, they probably weren’t even paying it as much attention as I thought. They were perhaps concentrating on why I was so awkward and shy. At that moment I decided that I was going to stop holding myself back and accept the fact that when I step outside my comfort zone, I was going to make mistakes, but I wasn’t going to beat myself up about them. I started to acknowledge that even though I messed up, I would learn from it so next time it won’t happen again. If Beyoncé, who can put on a fantastic show, can almost fall in a super bowl performance and people still say she killed it because she performed with confidence. Then I know I am going, but I refuse to be scared to try things anymore.
As I said, I am not the most confident person in the world. Self-confidence is always going to be a battle. However, I can tell just by doing these three things; I have gained so much confidence within the past couple of months. Let’s talk about it. In the comment section below tell me which step you tried and how it impacted your self-confidence or if you tried something different share it so that when we go into 2018, we all can gain the confidence we all desire.
Stay Lovely,
Love Chrys