How to be confident in yourself

Being confident in yourself is a tricky thing… Just like with anything you do, it can make you feel like a fraud if you try to pretend to have it. You know the whole “fake it till you make it”. But I truly believe you have confidence inside you. You just forgot how to access it when you need it. It is time to live your best life, live life how you want, and learn how to be assured of who you are.

Confidence has been a hit or miss when it comes to my personal life. There are days I have it and days I just can’t shake the imposter syndrome. It is something I have been working on daily. I don’t know about you, but for me, it is hard to come by.

Writing a blog post every week is easy for me. The thoughts pop into my head I write them down because it is things I am in the middle of working on. I can speak about it because I am living it. So I can express my feelings easily through my writing. Recording the video or podcast is another story. I get so self-conscious and fumble over words. I am working on reassuring myself in my speaking as well as my physical appearance.

What is a confident person?

My definition of this person is someone who puts their well-being before anyone else. They know to be there for others they need to take care of themselves first. Someone who knows what they want and is willing to do the late nights and early mornings to get it. They are strong, compassionate, and humble to those around them. This person can make quick decisions and do things that make them happy in the long run… not for instant gratification.

This person oozes composure. Yes, they feel things like everyone else but they are not consumed by emotion. They take action when it comes to stressful situations. Somehow they always remain cool, calm, and collected. Speaking with authority and people listening because they are genuinely interested just comes naturally to them. They are not demanding people’s attention, but they attract the attention of people, and most of all they make decisions easily.

Love yourself

The first thing you need to do is love yourself. I don’t mean like the agreeable state ” Yeah, yeah, Michele I love myself” I mean love yourself enough to do things you wouldn’t normally do for your mental and physical health.

In my post a couple of weeks ago, I talked about things I wanted to do for myself in my little self-indulgent birthday post since I am no longer living for others. I no longer care what other people expect from me. It has been a liberating experience. SCARY, but liberating. Don’t get me wrong it is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Once you set boundaries for yourself it could burn some bridges with people.

And you have to learn to let those bridges burn.

You need to have more love for yourself and your mental health. Sometimes it can be lonely. I know from experience. I have no friends I see or speak to regularly who live close to me. Most of my friends are online or in other states and it can be days or weeks before I speak to someone who is not my fiance or stepdaughter.

But I love myself more than living up to other people’s expectations. I love myself more than compromising my thoughts and feelings for someone who thinks little about those themselves. It can be lonely, but my mind is at peace and I’m not involved in any drama.

Tips for being confident in yourself

Internal tips

Figure out your insecurities

When you figure out what makes you insecure you can find ways to navigate around them or learn to accept them. I don’t recommend navigating around them. It is best you learn how to love them but to each their own. Your insecurities will most likely be the number 1 reason why you don’t feel confident.

For me… I am a plus-size gal and I don’t normally mind it until it comes to finding cute clothes to wear or receiving some fatphobic comments on social media. But one of my biggest insecurities is my arms. I don’t like my arms showing. I have been just pushing through and posting pictures in sleeveless shirts on Instagram or TikTok. There is nothing I can do about them until they firm up from all the weights I am lifting at the gym.

As of right now, that is a way to navigate around them, but I am working on loving my body in all its forms. My arms though chubby have been able to hug all of those around me who love me. Has been able to lift those around me who have fallen on hard times. I can show appreciation for something that causes me discomfort and in those moments I can forget about my insecurity and live in the moment.

Change your mindset

Once you change your mindset to look at people and situations differently than what you normally would… Something just shifts inside you. It lets you see things for what they are…. good or bad. Changing your mindset also goes hand in hand with the next 2 tips.

Don’t be a negative Nancy

I have talked about this a lot if you have read my blog posts. Growing up I have ALWAYS I mean ALWAYS had the mindset that it was me against the world. I hated people, places, or things for no reason. When I look back on it I couldn’t even tell you why. Half of the things I hated were things I had never tried before. So how would I know if I hated them?

With the mindset of a negative Nancy, I ruined a lot of family events. Shit things were always happening and I believe it was because I expected it to go wrong so I self-sabotaged a lot of things because of my shitty attitude.

Think positive, Act Positive

I cannot stress this one enough. Changing my Negative Nancy attitude to a more positive mindset has opened a lot of doors. Mike and I went from living in a run-down trailer, barely making ends meet with the risk of eviction to living in an actual house in a nice part of Tampa.

I believe it was partly because Mike was just so optimistic about everything and I had this mental block that just made me look for all the negative parts. It was because of me I was self-sabotaging both of us. I think my mindset came from growing up poor. My mom was not great with money and I did not have my childhood needs met and I carried a lot of that baggage into my relationships growing up.

Once I decided I was not going to feed into that mindset anymore and I was going to take a page of out Mike’s optimistic book things began to change. It has been 4 years since I changed my way of thinking and I will never go back. I do still catch myself slipping back into finding the negatives but I physically have to stop myself and redirect my thoughts. I have to remind myself that, that was the old me and the new me trusts things will work out.

Knowledge is power

Is it just me or were we all avid readers growing up and most of us somehow just stopped doing it as we got older??

I wish I didn’t stop reading. There are so many books I have put on my reading list that I need to bust through. I keep putting it on the back burner. That shit needs to stop because it is so true that knowledge is power. Having all this knowledge inside my brain lets me play out my fantasy of being Hermoine Grainger from Harry Potter.

After reading a really good book it just gives me the confidence to tell people about it, to apply it to my life. Like when I read I am that girl by Alexis Jones. OMG, I would have shouted her words from the rooftops. I have mentioned this in multiple blog posts since I finished reading it. I love personal growth books, but any genre of book you read is going to give you some kind of knowledge. Be proud of that.

External tips

Hygiene

I have talked about this one before too. Whenever I am feeling down or in a funk, a shower helps A LOT! Also creating a little routine after the shower is super nice and makes me feel like I got my shit together.

To me, there are 2 types of showers. The being you need to clean your body, but that second kind of shower is like a deep cleaning. We light a candle and put on a bomb-ass playlist. For us ladies, we shave where ever needs to be shaved. We take our time to get that silky smooth feeling. You know the feeling. The conditioner stays in our hair a little bit longer. We shed a few tears for those who are going to be jealous when we get out.

Once you get out you use the good-smelling lotion, the leave-in conditioner in hair a cute ass outfit that just makes you feel… ugh… **Chefs kiss** MWAH!

Clothes

I just said it…putting on a cute ass outfit. If you are ever insecure about anything. You need to find yourself an outfit that just makes you stand a little bit taller. I don’t know what it is but an outfit that just makes you feel like a badass just raises your confidence level up 5x more than what it normally is.

I know most of the time I am in athleisure wear, but I don’t have some go-to outfits. Especially when I am traveling. Have you tried creating a capsule wardrobe?

Stand tall

I have burned through so many cute ass outfits that made me stand a little bit taller. It changed my posture for sure. Keeping your head held high gives you AGAIN a little bit more of an edge. If I looked at someone who walked by with their head held high and a cute ass outfit I would immediately be drawn to them. I would want to know this person.

Find a muse

I found that if I follow accounts on social media that inspires me and I hope that they inspire you to be confident in yourself. It does help boost my confidence. But do not get consumed by all the pretty pictures online. As I mentioned earlier, I am a plus-size gal, and when I find someone with my body type strutting their stuff all over their profile… It just inspires me so much. If you could see my TikTok or Instagram feed it is full of amazing women that just push me to be the better version of myself. I should not be ashamed of my body and all the amazing things it can do.

I know it is easier said than done to be brave enough to push yourself out of your comfort zone, but I have a 4 part series on doing just that if you are interested you can read it here.

Starting with:
– Finding who you truly are in the unknown
– Is your comfort zone preventing you from achieving your goals?
– If staying in your comfort zone could be holding you back. 
– If fear is standing in your way of getting the life you deserve.

Get active

It has been hard going from being inactive, working an office job to being very active. But since adding more movement to my day gives me this boost of serotonin I can do anything the rest of the day. I used to go live on TikTok and do step workouts from YouTube. I should start doing that again. My goal is to get at least 10,000 steps in a day. There are days that I don’t reach it because being a blogger is like having an office job and you sit at the computer for hours.

You have to schedule the workout to make sure it gets done or find fun ways to get it done throughout your day. In this post How to move your body more during the day. I give you some ways to add more movement. Whatever helps you get that little boost of serotonin.

Inspired to be confident?

I hope this post inspired you to find the confidence inside you. I didn’t think it was in me but just by working on these tips, I am doing things I never thought I would do. In the 2ish months since closing the chapters on my old self after doing my shadow work. I felt this weight come off of my shoulders.

I have this newfound appreciation for myself. That I think was always there, but I let the baggage of my past, the opinion of others, and my shitty attitude keep me down. I was in this funk for like 3 months and taking it one day at a time. Finally, after all that time, I feel more myself than I ever have.

It has always been a priority of mine that anyone who comes across my website (including you) will feel the love I have. It is my goal to inspire you to become the best version of yourself. Help you work on becoming more confident in yourself. If no one has told you today you are worthy and deserve everything you have ever wanted. I am manifesting good things for you. Now go forth and be… Flaunt your fabulous self!

Leave me a comment with your secret to feeling confident. I would love to hear what you do to be a badass!

Until Next Time, Have a Great Day! Remember you are a badass!