My three advices to be confident in yourself.

« Be confident in yourself, and you will know how to live. »

Goethe

A few weeks ago, a very good friend of mine asked me how she could do to be confident in herself. At that time, I didn’t have a blog yet, so I couldn’t share these tips, which I’m sure could be useful to as many people as possible. I would therefore like to correct this.

To begin with, in order to have self-confidence, you have to love yourself. To love oneself does not only mean to say, to look in the mirror and say « I love you ». This may be a first step, but it would be far too simple if it stopped there.

Loving yourself means to take care of yourself.
Taking care of yourself means taking care of your physical and mental health. Indeed, sometimes talking to your friends or family about what’s going on in your life is not enough to get a clearer picture. Simply because they are part of your life, know you and have an opinion about what is good or bad for you, for your future. It is therefore sometimes difficult in these circumstances to think about your future and what you want for yourself. Talking to a psychologist can help you to resolve this kind of problem. Yes, seeing a psychologist is not only for people with mental disorders. I recommend this experience to everyone.

There is one thing I would like to say because I don’t often hear it in the media. We are not all equal in terms of self-confidence. Some have parents who from childhood push them to surpass themselves, to always do their best and not to worry about what others will say. This was my case. My mother always pushed me to give my best. She always told me « The people you’re so afraid of, who give you sweat drops on your back. They go to the bathroom like you and me. They are all as human as you and I are. »

This is the first step, do not care about what others may think of you. We’re all roommates in a huge apartment called Earth. As my mother says, some enjoy life, others are there to accompany them. Be a part of the first category, the category of people who live, who enjoy life.

Stop trying to be nice.
I think my friends will say it themselves: I’m not a nice person. Or at least it wouldn’t be the first adjective people would use to describe me. Quite simply because, as I often say, being nice is not something you can eat, it doesn’t pay the bills and above all it doesn’t make you happy. What makes you happy is to know when to say no when you don’t want to do something, it’s to impose yourself even if sometimes it can be difficult. All those times you say yes to things you vaguely want, it’s time wasted on the things that really animate you. However, time is a limited resource. So choose carefully what you invest your time in.

Be patient with yourself.
As I was explaining, not all of us are equal in terms of self-confidence. Some have acquired it since childhood, for others it is a more laborious learning process. For example, since I was a child, I have always written poems, short stories, articles… But until recently I never had the courage to publish what I was writing. And one day it happened, I said to myself, « Christelle, why not you? ». Through dithering, discussions with my friends, inspiring sentences, I gathered all my courage and started. And I have never been happier than since I opened my blog and I see that it is useful to people and that it allows to change mentalities step by step.

Everyone has their own rhythm, their own tempo. So listen to yourself. Take time alone with yourself because after all you are your own best friend, you are your own biggest puzzle to solve. Ask yourself what you really want to do, what is stopping you from doing it now and if you could do something about it. And don’t be angry with yourself if you don’t know right away.

If you would like to go even deeper into the subject, I am enclosing here an article that explains the virtues of « Think week », a practice popularized by Bill Gates, which consists of cutting yourself off from everything for a week in order to think more deeply about your projects.

Take care of yourself.