When you look in the mirror, sometimes it can be hard to be happy
with what you see. So often, you can lose confidence in who you are and
how you look, and it can be a real blow to your self-esteem.
This is something which I've struggled a lot with in life. At times
there have been periods where I have struggled to see even just one
thing I like about myself when looking in the mirror and these periods
can be devastating on my mental health. It took a long time to learn to
love myself, after all, I'm a mother of two sons who I am constantly
telling they are clever, funny, handsome... only ever positive things,
but how can I make them grow up loving who they are as people if I'm not
setting that example with myself first. If you have felt like you hate
everything about yourself, please know that you're not alone. Most
people go through feelings of low self-worth based on how they view the
way that they look and with today's society seemingly being obsessed
with how people look and what is deemed socially acceptable on how to
look, it's no wonder so many of us are struggling.
There are
simple ways of getting your confidence levels up and coming to accept
and love the way that you look. Here are three that really helped to
make me feel better in my own skin.
Make Some Changes To Help Yourself Feel Better
If you're
conscious about a certain part of your appearance and feel like a change
could help you to feel happier in your own skin, then please don't be
worried about what other people think. If you're doing something to make
you feel good about yourself then that's okay and you're more than
entitled to do that.
It could be something as simple as visiting a
good hairdresser and getting that haircut and colour you've been
wanting for ages now - this is something I've been wanting to do for
quite awhile now. Even the most subtle of changes can help us fall in
love with the way that we look again and help us to be more confident in
ourselves, at least in my experience anyway.
Similarly, if you
have issues with your teeth (like me) you may want to take a trip to a
cosmetic dentist and have some work done on your teeth to help you be
more confident when smiling, etc. People who have issues with their
teeth, no matter how small, can end up feeling unbelievably conscious
about them and sadly end up not sharing their smiles with the world. If
you think visiting a dentist will help you gain the confidence to smile
and speak without hiding your teeth behind your hands then go for it.
Focus On The Positives
There are things about you that you
will like about yourself, but far too often you will spend your time
worrying about the things that you dislike. By changing your mindset,
you can become less bothered about the things that you don’t like and
instead just enjoy the things that you are confident about.
I'm
not going to lie, it takes a long time to grow to love yourself,
especially if you, like me, have been hit with nasty comments about your
appearance throughout your life. Before I wouldn't let anyone take
pictures of me because I was ashamed of how I looked - purely due to the
comments I had received from people regarding my weight. Now I never
stop asking for pictures though, because I never want to miss out on
recording my memories, especially with my children, again, due to other
people's perceptions of me.
Make a list of all of the things that
you do like about yourself and read through it in your times of doubt
or if someone has insulted or made fun of how you look. Spend time
admiring those aspects of yourself. You could even take some photos
which highlight those things to help build confidence. The more time you
can spend concentrating on these areas of yourself, the better. Over
time you will adjust your mindset, and you will be more inclined to see
the good in things.
Change Your Social Media Habits
Social media has a lot to
answer for when it comes to how we look at ourselves and there are times
when I wish I could just delete it all and concentrate on living a
happy life in my reality instead of comparing myself to strangers on the
internet. If you are someone that scrolls through their Instagram feed
and compares themselves to everyone that they see of there, you need to
change your habits - this is something I've been working on over the
past few weeks and have scaled back my time on Instagram a lot.
People post highlights of their lives, often leaving out the day to day
stuff. They post the pictures of them at their best and tend to not
share the struggles they go through. To compare yourself to this type of
edited version of someone else is not helpful, at all! You should also
consider that these people that you think look perfect may well have
similar insecurities as you. Most people have some kind of personal
hangup about the way that they look, even if they seem like the most
confident people in the world.
If social media is causing you
more misery than good, think about limiting the time that you spend on
there. Look out for the signs of these thoughts cropping up, and when
they start to enter your mind, it’s probably time to log off. If you're
like me and need social media for work, you could set up time
restrictions on apps so that you're only using them when you're being
productive and actually need to be on them, instead of endlessly
scrolling.
I hope these three things can also work for others in
order to feel better in their own skin. It takes time to grow to love
yourself, but always remember, YOU ARE ENOUGH.
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