Thursday, 1 August 2013

How to Confident

    con·fi·dent  
         /ˈkänfidənt/

        Adjective
        1. Feeling or showing confidence in oneself; self-assured.
        2. Feeling or showing certainty about something.
 
Confidence is something that I've learnt to have, especially in the last year. And I wish I could tell younger me how to do it.
 
There was never a point growing up where I didn't feel shy or insecure. During nursery school (so age 3) I have a vague memory of building a tower of bricks with someone, but other than that I was just by myself, I only spoke to the teachers there, mainly, my favourite.
 
Apparently they suggested I was tested for selective mutism (where with parents you can be just a normal chatty kid, but anywhere else just no) or something. But no, I was just really really shy. (And as I've previously mentioned somewhere, I was even shy of people in my family I didn't see often)

I spent all those years growing up just not really wanting to talk to people, not putting my hand up in class even if I knew the answer. Every year teachers would tell my parents that I needed to speak up more. Even at secondary school.

So I didn't have many friends (although the ones I got are awesome I love them). I couldn't ask people for things, like in class (I ended up being put in a small class without any of my friends and I hated it) if I didn't have a pen, I never asked to borrow one, I just used a pencil instead wtf -__-

I actually have a memory in primary school when I didn't have a pen and we had a scary cover teacher, so I just kept looking at the book we were getting quotes from and then when this scary teacher asked me about it I burst into tears and said I felt ill and got dismissed from the class. Oh my god self. you are. So. Stupid.

When I was a teenager (in that class, by myself. (thisiswhyIdidn'tlikeschool)) I wasn't bullied really, but this one girl in my class (one of those two faced people, alright one minute, horrible the next) sometimes made little comments, they were nothing really but to me they were everything and I didn't like them one bit.

I remember her once saying to one of her friends 'why don't you work with Steph' (ohmygod that's my name.) in this voice as if to say she's such a loser go and degrade yourself by working with her. ;A; BUT that time a lovely lovely classmate told her to leave me alone. Jess I love you forever for that!

So it started off as just really shy, and then became insecure, especially not being able to spend a lot of time in class away from my friends, so comments always got to me. And then how I looked came into the pile.

What crap is this. Too much shy. Too much.

Anyway. Since the title of this post is 'How to Confident' I should really start getting to the point and stop talking about how I was shy.

I can't say 'oh look at me I'm so confident now' because I'm not. But I can tell you this- my confidence has skyrocketed in the past year (like I said) and now I'm gonna share how.

I can't tell my younger self this but I can tell you c:

The thing that I found that was holding me back was.....me.

I was my worst critic. I wasn't really bullied but I told myself I was good enough. Wasn't pretty enough.

Everybody does it, beats themselves up. But why? It doesn't help you at all, especially if you're already unhappy with yourself.

First of all, fixing the general shy problem that I had grown up with didn't come naturally, it's not even 'advice', I was forced to be more confident.

After leaving school I couldn't get away with not saying much and just getting on with things, I had to look for jobs, I had to talk to people I've never met before just to get along.

And once I got that job, again I had to talk to so many people, be polite to them. When I was younger I wouldn't have dreamed of being able to do that! I never used to be able to even buy stuff from people in a shop because I was too damn scared to talk to the staff, but now I'm on the other side and I can talk to all these people and I'm not nervous at all!

If I had stayed as shy as I had been before I probably wouldn't have even gotten the job in the first place.

So no not everyone is forced out into the world so here's where the next part comes in handy~

As I said, how I looked was a mega problem, still is one but less so. And again repeating myself, I always brought myself down. I was like 'I'm so ugly, I'm so fat, this is why people don't like me.'

(Aha it's actually not fun writing this stuff;;)

But now! The answer to me bringing myself down was, bringing myself back up again :D

Everyday I started telling myself 'Hey. You look good today.' Fuck I didn't believe myself for a second, I didn't think this was going to work. I was like...this is such a stupid idea it makes me sound vain.

Although I continued, started to pick out things that I liked about how I looked and eventually, I started to believe myself.

Without reminding myself, I found myself thinking 'oh actually I look alright.' :'D CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!

This, along with actually focusing on stuff like make up and clothes and hair (before I never did, no wonder I thought I was ugly), really helped!

I didn't have to go outside and think 'oh no everybody's looking at me I look awful', I just went outside, knowing that I didn't have to worry about it.

I swear, do this. Even if it's not for appearance, tell yourself that you're great, a good person, you're confident, whatever, and you'll believe yourself! As you should. Because you really are all those things <3 It just sometimes takes a while to know it.

I still have to work on boosting myself up every now and then, but it's not a complete process, although my confidence builds every day and I'm so glad for it.

All it took was for me to start believing in myself.

Imagine where I would be if I knew this when I was 12 ay.

I hope that this could actually help someone...if even a little. Cause I know these things helped me c:

Good luck~


P.S. Another confidence boost came from my little no-makeup challenge in March ^ ^

No comments:

Post a Comment