Maybe its when your coach yelled at you during softball for missing that pop fly. Or when your math teacher told the whole class you failed that test. Perhaps it was when that nasty girl wrote that you were a slut on the bathroom stall at school. It doesn’t matter when but somewhere along the way, you lost your confidence, you lost the belief that your ideas, where right and that you should believe in yourself because you were smart and capable. Someone came in and told you that you were not good enough, not smart enough, and not pretty enough. So you learned to stand to the side, you learned to admire those people whom somehow seemed unfazed by the cruelty of the world.
The world is ran by confident people and I am here to reveal the secret.
1. Persistance.
Everyone is discouraged by failure. Look at this scenario. You worked on your English paper for a week you eat and breath this paper, you are sure it’s your best work yet. You turn it in and your confident because of the work you put into it. Then a week later you get it back with an 80% on top. Not what you expected, so over the semester you might keep working hard and never score an A on a paper even though you are taking in all the suggestions and corrections. You begin to believe that you are not a good writer, that even if you like to write you should just drop it because clearly you are no good at it.
Well you're wrong.
Confidence is built through determination, through repetition and through failure. It is what you do with failure that makes you confident or insecure. Now the story of the writer who always worked hard and never got an A is my story. Fast forward I am in another writing class currently and have never scored less than a 95% most of my papers being handed back with a 100% and no corrections. I didn’t give up; I didn’t stop trying and even if I never scored higher than an 80% in this other class the repetition, my determination and reaction to failure made me confident.
Think of JK Rowling (author of Harry Potter), her books got turned down by around 12 publishers. Now most people would be turned down by 3 and be like “Maybe I should improve it”. Being turned down by 7 most people would say, “You know maybe I overestimated myself” but by 12? Most people would be done and out. The key was that her confidence in herself allowed her to keep striving for the books. Confidence is persistence because you know of the potential that lies in what you offer.
Confidence is what will take you far in work, college, and life.
2. Change the negative self-talk.
Make the voice in your head, that tells you that your jeans make you look fat or that everyone is staring because there’s something wrong with you, your number one fan. There will always be people to tear you down, to try to make you feel small so why allow the voice in your head to be one of these people. Look at yourself and think of every good thing about you. Now that is who you are.
Confidence comes from believing that you can do anything, it stems from knowing yourself and knowing that you are great. The thing is that, if you believe it the people you tell will believe it and if the people you tell don’t believe it you’ll have the confidence to know that
- Their validation is not important
- You can prove them wrong
A book that personally changed my life was The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. In this he talks about the topic of “Being Impeccable with your Words” which he basically says that in order to make your life work you have to stop saying bad things about yourself like “I am stupid” “I am dumb” “I am ugly”. These things do nothing; they serve no purpose and are a waste of energy so avoid it. Confidence radiates from within.
The world belongs to those who are willing to take it. Consequently only confident people dare take it. Confidence is more than these two things. It is realizing that people are human and they make mistakes, its taking these mistakes and turning them into positive learning experiences rather than negative ones. It is laughing at yourself and not taking it to seriously.
Everyone is a magnet, with confidence people tend to be bigger magnets, because since you believe in yourself everyone believes in you to and because humans like to believe in something, they gravitate to you like magnets so that they can believe in themselves to. Confidence radiates.
3. The Letter.
Sit down with a piece of paper and write yourself a letter with every amazing thing you have ever done, for example:
-Helped an old lady cross the street
-Graduated high school
-Got into NH
(Really anything and EVERYTHING.)
If you cannot come up with things call your mom, your best friend, anyone who loves you, because they love you for a reason.
Then tell yourself in the letter how proud you should be of yourself. Make it fluffy, and conceited. The key now is to read it every morning until it becomes your self-talk, until you believe it with every pore of your being. You will notice how different your life will be when you inhale and exhale confidence.
Then always keep your letter around because were human, we’ll come into a moment in life when we doubt ourselves. In that moment you can take the letter out and keep reading it until you remember who you are, and what you have done. This will change the game.
Remember, the world belongs to those who are willing to take it.
I'm rooting for you!
xo, liliclove
