As we all have learned throughout the years, positivity can be a real challenge. Rather it be that little voice in your head telling you when you make a mistake you suck, or someone that you know criticizing you. I don't know about you, but I know one thing about me... I am extremely hard on myself. I've always been a perfectionist. If you went to school with me, you know I was always the last one to finish a test. I was the one sitting there making you wait to go to lunch or leave school haha. Sorry not sorry. Throughout the years though, as l have grown into the adult I am today; I have learned a whole other side of positivity and it's importance. In the industry that I work in, positivity can be a toughy. We put our happiness and positive feelings when someone books us for a job, compliments us, or even how much money we make. This isn't what happiness is. Happiness is being able to look in the mirror and say damn I love myself. Not in the sense where your an egotistic narcissist, but happy with who you are. It's that moment you're happy with who you have became throughout the years, proud of every step that you have took and where it has landed you. If you appreciate who you are, than how other people think of you won't even matter anymore.
Let me give you a little insight to my younger years. People I meet sometimes think I am not very interesting because I am not super outgoing and I don't open up right away. But little do they know, that I am extremely well rounded. When people ask you what do you like about yourself, name them. Can you name them? I went to this acting class I decided to sign up for when I was fifteen years old. We did acting exercises and improve which was really fun, but then came a new exercise. There was a wooden block in the middle of the floor and we all sat down in the chairs surrounding it. Then the teacher chose one of us and we had to go stand on the block and name everything that we liked about ourselves. This girl in the class went first and she was so confident: Hi my name is " ", I love my hair, my smile, the way I do my makeup, on and on. I was like wow! This girl is good. Then it came my turn, I will never forget this moment. I stood up on the piece of wood and I was like uh.. uh... I like my eyes and my nose. Obviously those are traits that aren't very unique, given pretty much everyone has eyes and a nose, but this exercise was impossible to me, I couldn't name one thing that I really liked about myself. I thought that I was super unconfident, which I was, but it wasn't only that. I was raised to be this way. In the midwest and especially in rural areas, we are taught if you brag about yourself or even say you like things about yourself you are selfish. I thought this was just an idea that I had, but I recently read this book and there was a study about the midwest involved where they proved this theory of mine. Going from not being able to name one single trait that I held and liked about myself to jumping into the fashion business was nearly impossible. When you compete every day with the most beautiful girls from all over the world, it can become the struggle to feel good about yourself. Especially if your confidence is about a zero on the scale. Confidence is so important in this day in age. Like they say about love. You can't expect someone to love you if you don't love yourself. The same goes for confidence. You can't expect people to believe in you and have high expectations for you and your future if you don't even believe in yourself. People can build you up only so much. At the end of the day, even if you have the most supportive people in your life building you up each and every day, it will still come down to how you see yourself. How you look at yourself. Today, I am no longer that little insecure girl from the south. Was it hard becoming confident in myself and stop second guessing my every step? OF COURSE, to say the least! I have learned one major thing from my whole experience with confidence. When you start with no confidence and build yourself up to where I am today, it makes you appreciate even those mistakes you made. It makes you appreciate who you were in the beginning, and most importantly who you have become.
SO, if you struggle with confidence let me tell you. You don't just wake up with it one morning. You don't just make it appear. It is a growing process, and a never ending process at that. Be kind, patient, and caring to yourself. Treat yourself like you would a loved one. Being hard on yourself, will only make it worse.... I promise you though, each year and even every day you look back on, you will see an improvement. That is when you truly know you are becoming the best that you can be, and believing in the person that is the most important....YOURSELF!!