Need a Confidence Boost?

Written by Andrelyn Izquierdo.

An opinion piece with bits of advice for the self conscious individual or someone wanting to elevate their self esteem.

We all may have those days where we need to jumpstart our confidence or add a little more fuel to increase the level of our self esteem. There are many factors that can come from yourself or others that will decrease your confidence in being you. If you're striving too hard due to perfectionism, more discouragement can occur. If you're feeling self conscious or negative about your body in any way, that smile can turn upside down causing a decline in self esteem. Then there can be larger challenges caused by others, such as bullying, racism, oppression, discrimination, and more. Each of these can chip away at you little by little if you're not proactive in reinforcing you. Here are a few tips on how to give yourself a quick confidence boost.

Getting to know yourself

This usually begins during people’s teenage prepubescent years. You know, the time when everyone calls children moody as they try to figure out who they are in life and who they wish to be. Society likes to rush everyone to plan out their futures during these years and make you choose which tunnel you’re going to dive through to see what happens. That's the funnel you'll stick to for the majority of your life. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way. Teenage years tend to be the tween of being a child where you have to ask permission for everything. And then on the other hand, almost being an adult where restrictions begin to loosen up as the journey opens up to adulthood with more options in life. That depends on the household and where you come from.

Self discovery includes finding your voice, passions, and unveiling your strengths to see what you can focus on according to your higher level skills. This is when people come up with a career they’d like to pick out. Don’t ask me about this word, because I believe that there’s no such thing as a career, but that’s my opinion and it’ll be too long to go into that it needs its own blog post just on that topic alone.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

Staying true to yourself

One of the most rewarding feelings in the world is the moment after you declare that you will not be someone else. To be authentic is to be your true self unapologetically. Does this mean that everyone will like you? No, not exactly. This can be challenging when surrounded by a demographic that accepts only one way of being or people who look a certain way. Some groups will only accept those from the same race or ethnicity, same fashion sense, socioeconomic background, or anything else used for exclusion. This does not have to mean that you would need to change yourself in order to fit in. The right call would be to keep on moving along and you'll eventually meet the right group of people who will appreciate you for who you are.

Living within an oppressive population can be exhausting and the discrimination that is endured daily can be overwhelming. To survive, it may be easier to try to fit in. Although in more dangerous situations, it would be smart to pick your battles and dim the shine of your personality. Try to resist this though as it is giving the oppressive people exactly what they want. Find people who will celebrate your uniqueness. These are the people who will truly appreciate you and stick around for longer lengths of time.

Image by GraphicMama-team from Pixabay.

Speak Up

This part gets tricky as I am not the best example to come up with creative sayings like what you would hear from comedians to shift the mood immediately from heavy to lightweight. I usually stay in the assertive and serious tone, but then keep open-ended questions in the conversation exchange to let the comfort level increase and allow trust to build. This is also showing the person you are speaking to some empathy and care as you show a genuine interest in what they would like to vent out. However, this is not a good choice to make with a toxic person who does not want to do any of the above with you or vice versa. You would have to be ready to do this method before this technique will work for you. In a conversation where everyone is taking everything personally and staying on the defense without allowing questions or unwilling to take responsibility for actions that are clearly for them to be made accountable for will lead to a conversation that goes nowhere. It’ll be like riding a merry-go-round for hours, but feel like you’re sitting in the same spot without moving even though you’re looping around the same thing over and over again. When the time comes that someone challenges you for who you are, be you. If they resort to bullying you for it, stand up for yourself. Don't worry about what others are saying about you. The most important lesson anyone can take away from this message is:

Never apologize for being you.

#loveyourself

and you'll discover the light that burns within you soon enough to boost your self confidence continuously.

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Inspired by my true story.

This article is written by:

Andrelyn Izquierdo

#AndrelynWriting