Building Confidence

Hello to you!

Today I am going to be writing a very different sort of post. I’m a bit nervous about posting it and I hope it doesn’t sound too cheesy, but some of you could find it useful.

Quite a while back, I saw Sprinkleofglitter’s video about being body confident. I was really glad I watched it, I’ll leave a link to the video at the end so you can see it if you haven’t already. I started thinking a lot about what she said, and a lot of teen girls can relate to it. When I started secondary school, I would say I was pretty confident. (Maybe a bit over-confident, I was very loud!) Now I’m in year 10, and I am definitely nowhere near as confident as I used to be! I think everyone struggles with self esteem, and watching Louise’s video definitely helped a lot. Earlier on today, I was thinking about the video again and I decided to write a blog post about it because I thought of a few possible tips of my own! They are still very similar to what Louise said, but hopefully this will help you as well as watching the video.

If you are a person who suffers with low self esteem, start by categorizing yourself into 3 parts. I know that sounds really weird, but you’ll see what I mean in a second. The first part is things that you like about yourself, the second part is things you don’t like but could change, and the third part is things you can’t change.

Part 1: Even though practically no-one likes everything about themselves, list all your good features. You can even includes your characteristics, because a lot of self-esteem issues are actually just in your mind as it’s the way you see yourself. If you are sat there thinking ‘I don’t like anything about myself’, I’m sure that’s not true! J There must be some things you like about yourself more than others. This list is the good list. When you’re having a bad day, just remember the things that are good about you, whether it’s your personality or appearance. I know everyone gets those days where they feel like everything is going wrong, but try to think of at least 3 good things so you are feeling slightly more positive.

Part 2: These are the things that you don’t really like about yourself but you could change. For instance, I used to hate my eyebrows but obviously there are different ways you can shape them or change them to a way you like! I haven’t really changed my eyebrows that much, but now I like them a lot more than I used to. Also, some things that you CAN’T change like your facial structure can be enhanced by contouring and makeup. And remember, whatever you don’t like about yourself – it is probably nowhere near as bad as you think, (but if you see it as one of your flaws then you will emphasise it in your mind) – other people do not see you in the same way you see yourself!

Part 3: If there are things that you don’t like about yourself but you can’t change, you’ll need to learn to accept it. I know you’re probably thinking “it’s easy to say just accept it but it’s harder to put those words into actions,” I know what you mean. But those things that you don’t like about yourself, someone else could find them your best features! And if you are struggling to accept some of those things – just remember, what you see as the ‘flaws’ are the things that make you unique and so you should embrace those things.  

And those are the 3 main steps! Whenever you look at yourself and think “hmm, I don’t like my nose/teeth/arms/whatever…” just think of the things that you DO like about yourself, and remember that you are unique and great just the way you are! (Oh lord, it’s getting so cheesy now…I will regret writing this post soon) You wouldn’t be the same person you are without your flaws, so don’t stress over them.

The last thing I have to say about building confidence/self esteem today is *drum roll – get ready, it’s going to get really deep now*: Even though you can change some about you on the surface, the most important thing is that you change the way about how you think about yourself – being confident isn’t a bad thing at all! If you feel more confident wearing makeup and it makes you happy, do it. If wearing a gorilla suit while dancing to swan lake makes you happy, DO IT! If you can do something that makes you feel more confident and happy about yourself, then I urge you to go for it.

Thanks so much for reading, I hope some of these tips were useful to you! And I hope you didn’t find the cheesiness overboard! In the comments, let me know your 3 things. Of course, only do it if you feel comfortable saying it! I hope this can help you a bit J if any of you want any more advice on building confidence or anything else in general, my blog email address is lottie.loora@gmail.com and I’ll try to help as much as I can J once again, thanks for reading! Please let me know if you liked this post in the comments, maybe I might do a few more 'deep' posts about other things in the future. I’ll link Louise’s video below:

xo