THE POWER OF CONFIDENCE

     Confidence is a touchy subject for me. You either have it, or it needs improvement. You either shine despite your fears or you stay in the shadows, letting your potential pass you by. Confidence isn't taught in school - a class I would have really appreciated, along with self-development. Truth is, our confidence actually starts at such a pivotal point in our lives, where we're learning how to take our first baby steps. When our undeveloped bones and muscles bear our weight for the first time; each attempt leading to more strength and less falls.

    I believe heavily that our home life as children determines greatly the outcome of a child's mindset and future. If you nurture your child with the right environment and give them opportunities to socialize, introduce them to new activities, having thought provoking conversations with them to develop their critical thinking, love them openly, and listening to them to show that their opinion is valuable - all of this plays an important role in our confidence because I myself didn't have much of that and it was a struggle I endured for majority of my adolescent years.

    I've opened up about my home life a bit in my previous post on a mindset for success, where I shared how I needed to reprogram myself completely from my own upbringings so that I could have better odds with success. It's not an easy process for anyone in need of reprograming themselves, but once accomplished, it's absolutely worth it. It wasn't until I was in my early 20's that I worked on my self-development and it took about five years for me to see drastic improvements. This is why our home life from a very young age really matters; it has a domino effect on children like it did for me.

8 year old me

    Here's an idea of how bad my confidence was; I ate for comfort - so I became overweight and stayed that way majority of my youth, I was bullied at school because of my weight, I fought a lot with my sister - both physically and verbally, I never made an effort to make friends and when I did - I was too afraid to be myself, I lived in my head a lot because I saw my parent's doing the same which lead to a lot of tension in our household, I didn't care about school because it didn't interest me which made me wonder if I was intellectually impaired, and last but not least, I had no idea how to embrace my feminine side because my mother wasn't around much to give us the love or attention my sisters and I desperately needed. 

It was hard.

    I truly felt like a character out of the book, A Series of Unfortunate Events, where everything kept falling apart and happiness was only brief. Despite everything though, I kept my head up and recalled many times where I persevered. Deep down, I always had a feeling within me that refused to give into the chaos around me. I refused to become a victim or let life beat me down. I had no idea what confidence was for the longest, but looking back now, I'm starting to think that it's a mixture of strength and hope; the best remedy yet.

Lost 25 lbs doing keto for 2 months

    As I matured and began to live independently, I began to see what confidence really meant to me. Confidence helped me fly to another state and live in an hotel until I found my first apartment; from there I waited months before I finally found a decent job. Confidence was me reaching out to try online dating when I had no idea what to expect, yet it led me to finding my life partner. Confidence was starting my own YouTube channel when my art skills weren't the best, where I became a great artist after five years of pure dedication. Confidence was trying special diets like juicing and keto for months, losing more weight than I had ever done before, leaving me looking and feeling my best.   

    The more I put myself into the world, the more the world gave back to me. The more I faced my fears, the more I was willing to try. The harder life became, the easier it became for me to stand tall with my head held high. As I grew up, my ability to believe in myself became more obvious and the more I tuned into what my heart really wanted, the more love I began to feel for myself. It felt like true freedom, it just took me so long to realize the power was in my hand's.

    Maybe that's confidence after all; loving yourself enough to always do what's right for you, even if you don't know the outcome.

Dyed my hair blonde for the first time!

 The best thing about confidence is that everyone has it; it just needs to be used.

Until next time! xoxo - Sarah