Sharing My Story and Secrets to being Confident

This is one of those posts I will share my own story and hope it enlightens you on how to be more confident.

Truth be told, I wasn’t very confident at all. In fact, I think my shyness and troubles I’ve had dealing with working with people were all because I wasn’t confident. I just had this awful feeling about myself and I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy anything if I had to be with people. I felt it was too hard to talk, because I was always worried about how I’d look and sound.

Right now, I think I’ve never been so confident. On top of the world, and I’m feeling so great that I want to meet new people! Why did I change, you may wonder?

Here are the steps I took:

1. I brought myself back to health. I started eating 20x more fresh vegetables than I used to, all raw and in the form of a smoothie or salad. I find that the more I eat these, the better my skin looks. The better my skin looks, the less acne I get, and therefore, I feel more confident. It’s like giving my appearance a boost, so I actually feel good about myself.

2. I give myself more time to look after my own self. In the past, I’d just have a shower and that’s it. Now, I actually give myself the time to scrub my face with green tea leaves and apply a mask once in a few days. When you make time for yourself, you will notice a difference. Sometimes, you need to have a reason or purpose for doing so, perhaps a goal.

3. I give myself plenty of positive affirmations. I seek them online, make my own and such.

4. I keep forcing myself to think about the good things. I try and catch any negative thoughts I have, such as “…” and I will reverse it, and say, “NO!”.

5. This helps a lot, but what you really need to do is have a better or clearer image of yourself. It’s kind of hard because we, ourselves, are probably the ONLY PEOPLE in the world who don’t see us in the way others do. We usually have to look in the mirror or watch a video to know how we sound.

My suggestion is, go record videos of yourself, put on nice clothes and doll up and take some great photos, and record yourself in an audio post, perhaps you can do a podcast or something fun. The point of that is, get used to how you sound and look. Sometimes, I discovered that disliking your own voice may not even have to do with how it sounds, but merely because you THINK it sounds different from how you usually sound. If you can get used to it, I think you will enjoy it much more.

Same with looks. You really don’t see yourself enough so you don’t know how you look. The point of photographs is to really try and get comfortable in your own skin.

6. I don’t try and talk to people who bring me down, that is – anyone who tries to make me feel bad about myself.

7. Lately, I’ve been feeling confident and good, and a big part of it also has to do with feeling good on the inside. Sometimes if I did something I considered not very nice, then I’d lose confidence. Try and do something great for someone, and you may just find that you feel so good about yourself!

8. Practise talking. If you’re bad at talking or feel as if you may stuff something up, try and practise when nobody is around. It may sound silly but it’s a brilliant way to get used to knowing what to say. You can try thinking up crazy or funny stories, or just anything that you think would be great to talk about.

9. Try creating a sense of humour for yourself. You can do that simply by being random, or saying things people wouldn’t usually hear. The secret to humour is to give them a good surprise.

10. Exercise! I find that exercising helps keep your body in shape, and it also makes you happy. You may find that being able to exercise will give you heaps of confidence, as it makes you feel more capable.

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Remember, confidence is something only you can give yourself. Others may give you plenty of compliments, but you are the only one who has the power to interalise it, and to believe in it. Keep thriving and being confident, everyone!