Confidence is a Muscle

Gaining Confidence was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.  Confidence is like a muscle.  If you want to keep working on building your muscles, you need to keep working hard at it. If you stop working hard at it, it will become weak again.  Confidence is the same way.  If you want to keep feeling confident, then you need to keep working on it all the time.  I haven’t stopped working on it just because I’ve gained more confidence than I ever thought possible.  Gaining confidence is ongoing work.

There are three top things I recommend to anyone looking at gaining their confidence.  I have done, and still, do all three of these things. They make me feel good and confident and I’m sure they will help you too.

My Top 3 things for gaining confidence

• Positive things
• Affirmations
• Wear what feels good

Positive Things

Make sure that you keep negativity away from you as much as you can.  You are responsible for the things that go into your head, so choose wisely.

I look at myself daily in the mirror and tell myself one thing each day that I love about myself.  Make sure it’s different each day, it really does help. I won’t lie, it was insanely difficult at first, I would look in the mirror and see nothing but negative.  I had just 2 things at first I switched between when I looked in the mirror.  The more weeks and months past, the more things got added to that list.

I now don’t see the negative things when I look in that mirror.  It’s not vain to do this task. It’s not because I am vain and if those people really knew the things that used to run through my head, they would see that too. It’s a battle to keep away the negative thoughts. They could come back in an instant if I let them, and you know what, sometimes they still do.

I do it for my sanity, for my mental health. I do it because my son deserves a mum that isn’t scared to leave the house, a mum that doesn’t worry all the time about what people think of the way she looks.  I do it for me, because the negativity in my head was pure torture and I don’t deserve to hear those things all the time and neither do you.

Affirmations

Affirmations are amazing.  I urge everyone to have a few that they say to themselves at least twice a day.  At first they feel silly, but it gets easer to say and they really do work. Eventually, you start to believe them to be true.

My affirmations were easy to start with

• I am confident
• I am successful
• I am loved
• I am beautiful
• I am amazing.

If you don’t know what to say, say these 5 things, and when you’ve thought of a few for yourself, do them instead.  They need to be made by you really, they need to be in your words, but make sure you start them with I am.  I’m not going to say they are for everyone.  Not everyone will find them useful, all I can say is to try them for a month or so and see how you get on. It might surprise you just how good they make you feel.

Wear what feels good

Are you the kind of person that wears similar clothes to all the other mums on the school run because you are scared to stand out? You wear what will help you blend in because that is what feels “normal”.  I used to be too.  Today, you won’t see me in a pair of jeans because that is what the others wear.

Today, I love to wear dresses and skirts. I don’t care anymore what people think of me for wearing those things because I feel amazing when I do wear them.  I also wear makeup and perfume when I feel like it too.

If you have anything that makes you feel good when you wear it, or do it, then start doing it more.  Stop worrying about everyone else and wear that dress, wear those jeans.  Jump like a rabbit everywhere if that is what floats your boat, but do it!

Love yourself

I think that everyone deserves to love themselves and in fact you should.  It isn’t vein to love yourself, no matter how many times you may have heard that.  It’s vital, you are the only one who has to live permanently with yourself, so why not love who you are and the skin you’re in.

If you liked this you may like my post titled, how I gained confidence and how you can too