Who or what determines your level of confidence in all areas of your life?
Is it the genes you were born with,your personality,the life you've had,your early childhood experiences or even your experiences in the womb?Who is responsible for how confident or not-so-confident you feel?
Hint:He/she is looking at you every time you look at your reflection in a mirror.
Building a strong,confident persona is your job and it comes with a lot of perks.
What perks?
If you are a man,you don't need me to tell you how women always prefer confident guys.It's never the handsome guy as much as the confident guy that gets the girl.Because women of all ages are naturally attracted to men who display self confidence.I guess it's an evolution thing:the stronger,more confident,more aggressive male of the herd always gets his pick of females.
Same holds true if you are a woman.Men are naturally attracted to strong,independent women,women they consider ''high value'',ones that know their worth and project it unashamedly to the world.A spineless little wimp is good for casual flings to guys,but they'll always form connections and fall in love with confident,independent women.There are men,of course,who prefer insecure girls,because they are deeply insecure themselves and they have to have convenient co-dependent partners around them to boost their ego.Would you want such a man as a partner?Doubt it,unless your ambition in life is to be tranformed into the doormat of his dreams.
Now don't mistake confidence for arrogance.There's a fine line between being an arrogant jerk or bitch and being a person confident in their skin.A rule of thumb:arrogant types have to be rude/aggresive/sarcastic to others,because they feel superior to all humanity and so have this entitlement mentality that is so offputting.A trully confident person on the other hand is secure enough in their identity,so they don't need to show others in a negative light to appear superior themselves.
Here's the double secret to building extraordinary self-confidence,no matter who you are:
-Systematically walk through your fears
Each time you walk through one of your fears,each time you get out of your comfort zone,no matter what results you get,you become stronger and more confident.First try it with little things.Then,as your faith in yourself gets stronger,get on to bigger,more important stuff.Identify those things that you'd like to try or have that sound or look too scary.Start with one,maybe the easiest.See how you feel.A warning:if you start with one that scares you big time but is also so enticingly appealing that you can't help beginning with it,(like I did with my homebirth),expect lots of miracles and blessings to come your way immediately afterwards!
-Stop criticizing yourself and your actions all the time
All too often most of us beat ourselves up too much about almost everything.Women are especially good at that.
If you are honest with yourself,you'll admit that in all areas of your life that you are lacking in self-confidence,you keep putting yourself down mentally.It's like there's a constant inner dialogue or rather monologue going on in your mind;your mean,insecure lower self keeps repeating bad,negative stuff to you about you.And you believe it.Because,come on,we are usually honest to ourselves,aren't we?
No,we aren't.This isn't even your voice.It's years and years of conditioning or negative feedback you had early on.Maybe it was too many bad experiences,maybe overcritical parents,maybe a bad combination of both.Who cares?Stop whining like a baby about how unfair life has been to you,stop blaming it on everyone else except yourself!Start fighting back instead!
A few days ago I was at a pool bar with my two youngest sons.They were enjoying themselves in the water,I was close by,keeping an eye on them and taking pictures.Right out of the blue my youngest climbed out of the kids pool and started running towards the adults pool.There was no lifeguard or anyone supervising there and my son can't swim yet.I ran and dived after him to get him out,although he was smart enough to catch hold of the side of the pool and just float.Still,I am glad I was around because two years ago he almost drawned himself in ridiculously shallow sea waters while I was a few feet away and there were litterally hundreds of people around!
Anyway,back to our pool incident.When we both got out,I realised that I had tossed my camera aside right next to the water when I dived in.Inevitably,water was splashed all over it,the lens got soaked and the thing was rendered useless.It was my one and only,not to mention all time favourite camera,a handy little Canon that I particularly loved.
Now comes the beating up part.If anyone else I knew had gone through this,I would praise them for having the presence of mind to do what was right,namely save their kid.Instead,I immediately started criticising myself: ''You fool,why didn't you just leave the camera on a bench,or even give it to someone else to hold for you before you dived?And why did you have to take pictures in the first place?You should have been in that pool with your kid,enjoying the moment,instead !Serves you right!And what kind of malfunction is that you're suffering from,losing and breaking stuff like that all the time?''
See how self-defeating this is?And we do it much too often.But if you keep putting yourself down like that,then a/you start believing your negative,self depreciative rant and of course feel awful about yourself b/others start thinking the same things about you,because you project those negative traits.Needless to say this is not at all conducive to self-confidence!In fact,it litterally kills our spirit in the process.
This is what I do in such cases:I start talking back to myself in the same manner:''You shut the f@ck up. I did what was best.If you think you can do a better job with taking care of four boys all on your own,two rebellious teenagers,an absent-minded pre-teen and a naughty preschooler for that matter,you are welcome to it!''
Refuse to feel guilt about anything!Choose right now,from now on,to NEVER EVER allow yourself or anyone else in the whole world to make you feel guilty about anything.If you know you did something wrong,sincerely apologise,take corrective action when possible,forgive yourself and forget about it! Guilt can practically sap your strength and deprive you of all power.That's why most religious leaders,now and in the past,are particularly clever at abusing this,because guilt-ladden individuals are pathetically easy to control.
The biggest secret to self confidence is to stop being so hard on yourself! Instead,look at every action you took,no matter what the outcome was,and honour yourself for taking it.We always do what we think and know is best at any given moment.So take some time every night before going to sleep to honour the actions you took on that day.Praise yourself for doing what you thought was best,promise to continue doing so,then forget all about them.Focus on the future instead.
If you are worthy of life on this planet,you are worthy of everything else.Honor that great gift of life by never ever doubting your own worth again.
Love,preace and confidence
Eirini
photos from here
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