Confidence: The Path to Self-Appreciation
Looks absolutely do matter. Your clothes, the way you carry yourself, everyday manners, all of these matter too. But they only matter when it's through your perspective.
Key rules to being confident are:
1) Understanding and accepting that not everyone likes you.
2) Dressing the way you want to.
3) Surrounding yourself with confident people.
4) Staying away from people who self-depreciate and project it onto you.
5) Understanding and accepting that you will not always be confident.
It's the same rules to being happy if you really think about it, but that's a topic for another day.
Being confident is a skill that comes with practice. My journey started six years ago. Have I been consistently confident for six years? Absolutely not.
When I started out, I was in middle school. I wasn't lacking confidence but, it wasn't enough to keep people from messing with me. So, I decided that I had to be really confident and not just not-constantly-hating-myself.
The first step was faking it. I literally just faked it till I made it. At some point, I just noticed that the confidence came more naturally to me. I just was confident. Set it into your brain that you are confident. When you step on a stage, get ready to talk in front of a crowd, or do anything that usually wrecks your nerves just think, "What's the worst that could happen?" And leave it at that. Don't actually start making a list of the worst things that could happen.
If you find yourself in a position where someone is constantly lowering your self-esteem, remind yourself that they probably are insecure themselves with a hint of deep-rooted issues that they need to solve in the own time. Lame insults can't crack you! You're confident!
Remember that your words definitely do matter. If you self-depreciate, then others are going to start wondering about themselves. Let's say, you have a pen—just a very ordinary gel-pen, but it's new so you're excited to use it. The person sitting next to you has the same pen. They say, "Oh, I hate this pen so much. It doesn't work well. It was way too costly and I don't even like the shade of blue!" Now, you look at your own pen and you think, " She's right. This pen is too costly. I bet it's not even worth it." You continue writing with the pen because that's all you have, but you don't have that excitement anymore and you're starting hate the shade of blue. It's an example of the bandwagon effect.
The same thing happens when you criticize your looks and features. Other people start noticing those things in themselves in a negative light. Something that wasn't a problem before is a problem now. So, surround yourself with people who don't criticize themselves unnecessarily and don't criticize yourself either. By not putting your words out for the world to hear, it becomes easier to forget.
Protect and defend your barriers. Know that no one has the right to disrespect you. Make it clear that you are not a showpiece to be picked apart and scrutinized. Know your worth.
Finally, understand that you will not always be confident. You might hate the way you look sometimes. You might not like your personality. That's okay. I believe if we all stayed with our confidence cranked up at a hundred at all times then there wouldn't be much kindness and humility left in the world. You are not perfect. No one is. Confidence is the skill of showing up and letting yourself experience life without picking yourself apart. Stop expecting perfection from yourself and you are already a foot forward in the right direction. You are enough the way you are.
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