The Two Sides of Confidence

Hello :)

Today I thought I'd write a bit about confidence. I have been thinking about writing this post for a while now, but I wasn't sure if I had enough thoughts to make an entire post about it. I often lie in bed and think of good things to write about, but in the morning I realise that it may not be as good as it seemed in the evening or I can't make it sound as convincing as it sounded in my head. 

I will try to make my thought as understandable as possible, so I hope this post will be somewhat useful or informative for those interested.

I've been fairly confident in myself for most of my life, I had a little bit of a down time in my early to mid teens, as do most people, but in general, already as a small girl, I have felt confident, I have always thought that I looked good. That was what I was told and I believed it. I think it was easy for me since I was also a slim tiny little girl growing up, so I felt like I fit the society's norm for what was considered beautiful. I was never vain about it, I didn't admire myself as someone extremely beautiful, but I felt like I fit in and that made me happy. 

That all taken into account I feel like maybe I'm not the best person to write this post since I believe that the way we see ourselves is very strongly affected by the way we are treated in our childhood. At least when I was young, I believed what the people around me told me about me, so when they said that I was cute and tiny, then that's the mentality I grew up in, I believed it and saw it as the only possible truth. I can only imagine what someone who didn't hear that all the time would've felt though. If you're given negative feedback then it just sticks to you and the younger you are the more it sticks, at least in my experience. 

I know that when I was going through not so nice times, then tens of people could say that I'm beautiful and thin and smart, but one bad comment could ruin my mood for days. It has taken a lot from me to not take other people's comments to heart. I try to live by the thought - if they don't know me, then what they say about me can not affect me. The only person who truly knows what I'm going through, have gone through, and feel is me, so the most important thing for me to regain my confidence is to be kind towards myself. That's also what I would recommend anyone who is not feeling great about themselves, I know that it's much easier to say than to do, as with everything else in life it takes practice and I still from time to time struggle with it, but most of the time when it comes to my physical appearance I feel confident about it. I don't need other people to tell me that I'm beautiful anymore because I believe that I am in every way that matters.

However, I am aware that sometimes I don't come across as the most confident person and I've wondered to myself why I feel that way. I definitely don't always feel comfortable in all situations and around all people and that is the other side of confidence that I wanted to talk about and that is being confident about yourself as a person, in all of you, your personality, appearance, abilities and so on. 

It's easy for me to be confident about my appearance because most people most of the time have said that there's nothing wrong with it. When it comes to me as a person I have definitely had comments about myself that weren't so positive and that's what made me feel self-conscious and I find that so much harder to shake off. That's what I'm currently working on. The difficult part for me is that I value individuality and I enjoy being different, fitting in isn't as important to me as it used to be, I wish to be myself and be accepted for it. That's why I have to work on not letting everything other people say about what I'm like affect me badly. It's important to take in constructive criticism, I know my flaws and I'm working on them, but the things I like about myself that other people may not appreciate, are the things I wish to maintain and keep a part of my personality.

There are actually so many more thoughts I have about being confident, but I have one of those moments where I don't know how to tie them into this post very well, so I'm just going to add one little section to say some of the things I think you'd find useful to take away from this post.

Firstly, be cautious of the things you say and how you say them because you never know how they're going to affect other people. If someone says something to you that you take to heart, then try to understand that although it may have been hurtful, then they might not have meant it that way, some people just have a harder time expressing themselves than others. Also, I am definitely the type of person who analyses other people's words to the last detail and sometimes I read more out of them than they had meant, so proper communication is very important and people who don't make you happy don't have to be a part of your life and if you can't avoid them, then be polite to them, but don't take what they say or do too much to heart, it only causes you more stress. In addition to that when other people tell you that you are x, y or z, then that's just their opinion and it doesn't define you, so just take that as their opinion and choose yourself what you wish to change about yourself. I hope this made sense, I was just trying to write down some of the thoughts that I had, maybe it'll help you, maybe it won't at the moment, but it will in the future.

That's all for today, I'm so proud that we have managed to have a blog post up every day for already 17 days in a row. A round of applause for us. See you in the next one.

Kaiela :)