I Believe in You (So You Should Too)
Believing in Yourself // Importance of Having Self-Confidence
Imagine this: It’s a hot, humid, and very muggy day in June, and you are running a marathon. Yes, you’re running a marathon, I didn’t even think I could run a mile myself, but here we are! Anyways, you have trained tirelessly for weeks for this run and also adjusted a lot of your diet as a whole (that’s rough).Unfortunately, when running in any sort of event, it sort of becomes your whole life for that amount of time when you’re preparing for it.
When you get to the run, you want to run at a 7:00 pace. But, do you believe in yourself? Do you know you can do it? Will that mindset help you get to that pace and finish the race strong? For todays blog, we’ll discuss how having confidence and believing in yourself can benefit you as well as how having a strong mentality can help so much in accomplishing goals and so much more. Let’s dive in.
How Can You Start Having More Self-Confidence?
This may sound like a very silly header, but it’s really important at the same time. Me, like many others, as teenagers, may’ve went through very hard times in life and resulted in having a lot more insecurity and lack of self-confidence in ourselves and our own abilities as a result of it. Some people are lucky enough to just naturally have a lot of confidence in themselves weather that be from ego’s or just general personality, which is great for them, but for others it just doesn’t come that easy. So, what are some ways to start having self-confidence or more of it?
A particular example I remember is from a part of The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck where there was a small section about a guy we’ll call Liam (because I forget his exact name in all honesty). Liam was always someone who was very insecure and always had an issue talking to girls and going up to someone to talk to them. To work with this issue he had, he did a 30 day challenge. The challenge went as follows: everyday for 30 days, Liam would go up to someone new, introduce himself, have a small conversation with them, and he did this for all 30 days. A scary interaction with someone new had now become second nature for Liam after doing it everyday. He gained a lot of confidence and had overcome that fear of going up to others. One of the best ways to overcome a fear of any kind is to just hit it straight on. Don’t think too much into it, just do it, and see what happens. Realistically, the worst thing that could happen in this kind of scenario is the person is rude in someway, but that’s really their issue.
A side note is that when you do something nice for someone or go up to someone, their reaction does play a role in what you get “out of it”, but just remember doing something nice for someone doesn’t mean they have to appreciate it always, you should too. Appreciate yourself for being kind. Anyways, back to the bigger topic.
Some ways to gain some more self-confidence in addition to conquering little fears are:
Recognizing what you’re good at- and doing it!
Building positive relationships and letting go of negative ones- be with people who are uplifting and raise your spirits, but who also push you to be better
As hard as it may be some days, being kind to yourself- a good lyrics from a Anklebiters by Paramore is “someday you’re going to be the only one one you got” which is good and bad, but remember to be kind to yourself
Give yourself a challenge - like our friend Liam from before- get out of your comfort zone a little bit, the little fears become big accomplishments once you actually do them
Celebrate your wins in life- it doesn’t matter how big or small. Every time you do something exciting, new, something that got you out of your comfort zone, or something that just made you happy today that you did, celebrate it! Why? Because why not? Celebrate those little things! The little things all eventually will turn into bigger things
Why is Self-Confidence So Important?
I feel like reading this header, again, it’s a very silly question, so I’ll keep it (somewhat) brief.
To straight up answer this question: Self-confidence is so important because believing in yourself is what will get you to the things that you never believed possible for yourself.
Weather that be running that marathon at a 7:00 pace, jumping out of a plane to skydive, asking a girl/guy out, or even taking a test in school, it all connects to having belief and confidence in yourself and your own abilities to do the harder sh*t. If you want to do the impossible, you can’t think to yourself that “This is a waste of time, it’s never going to happen.” No! Have faith in yourself. Think: “You know what, this may not work, but I still believe that it could happen, and I won’t give up that easily.” It’s not 100% making yourself crazy over it, but also not straight up putting yourself down. Having confidence in yourself is what will make you different from those who just give up that’s exactly what won’t get you results. With confidence comes having a strong mentality. As a wrestler in high school, confidence was huge for everything. In a match, if you walked onto the mat and just knew you were going to lose, you would lose. If you knew in your mind you were going to win, you’d have a much better match, and walk off feeling good, win or loss, because you knew you did everything you could.
A few ways to build up a stronger mindset/mentality:
Practice self-compassion- be kind to yourself even on the days where it’s hard, just do what you can, quality > quantity
Keep a Journal- Writing down notes in a journal can help you be more self-aware of your day and also can help you see flaws that you may want to improve and strengths too to help you in your day-day life
Give yourself time to move your body- weather it be a walk, run, lifting, stretching, exercise helps so much with developing a better mindset
Don’t be afraid to reach out for help- when you’re working on yourself, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help, you don’t need it forever but just to get a start up or throughout the process, it’s never not okay to ask for help! It’s not always what you do, but also who you know, and who can push you
Outro
For this article, I know it was a little more broad and blunt, but I hope you enjoyed. I hope this motivates you to try something new, get out of your comfort zone, and maybe end up with some more confidence in yourself. That’s all I got for now, hope to see you all back soon. I believe in you!
Thank you for reading as always😼
-Brandon
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