Today’s piece is dedicated to a beautiful friend of mine who has expressed a lack of confidence despite how amazing she really is. So for her and all of you readers who don’t understand how amazing you really are I hope you find value in this.
I wanted to write something to express my belief that everyone deserves to feel good, we should all be able to smile when we look in the mirror, we should all feel good about our lives and we should all know how to find that good feeling again when life challenges us.
We live in an age where media bombards us with how we should be, society imposes it’s own ideas of how we should be and even those close to us put pressure on us to be a certain way and it leaves very little room for us to form our own opinions of how we want to be. Really the only opinion that matters is our own and I want to try share with you how I make sure no one can affect how I feel except me.
As a personal trainer I work with people to help them shape their bodies, to recover from injury, to gain strength or to just challenge them and I believe that attached to every goal I have ever been told is the desire for more confidence. I’m lucky that every day I get to help people with this, but in my opinion you deserve to feel confident all day every day, regardless of outside opinion, regardless of your shape, regardless of where you come from or what you have or haven’t achieved.
Confidence is something I am lucky enough to have always had an abundance of. For most of my life I have felt totally confident in myself, my capabilities and my ability to develop confidence in new things. As a young man I considered myself to be one of the ‘popular’ kids, I did well in sports, I had lots of friends, I was healthy and everything on the outside seemed to be just fine. But there were times that I absolutely lacked confidence, I hid it so well and bottled up everything to a point where it almost took my life or more to the point I almost took my own life.
Today though, I am in a place of total confidence and I want to try and share with you some things that I believe helped me and can possibly help you to build yourself up. I have to be honest and tell you that I do still at times get a little down on myself or let things affect me, but the difference these days is how I deal with them.
Here is how I think you can do it.
Let it out: If something has got you down then you need to figure out what it is, figure out why it’s affecting you and either release the attachment to that thought yourself, or tell someone you don’t feel 100%.
Be honest: This is of course part of my first point, but I think it’s incredibly important. You need be honest with people about your feelings, if someone is hurting you let them know about it because 99.9% are not trying to hurt anyone, so when they do they probably don’t mean to. You also need to be completely honest with yourself, if you don’t take full responsibility for your own feelings then how can you expect to ever help yourself or expect anyone to be able to help you.
Learn: If something has got you down in the past then don’t expose yourself to it again. Simple.
“Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”
Repeat: Life will always come with it’s challenges and with each challenge can come some new lows, but on the flip side of those lows come the highs. These highs are what create those amazing memories that will define our lives and help us to build a greater confidence in ourselves.
These are a few simple steps I have found myself taking a lot over the years and I’m happy to tell you that it has made talking to my friends a lot easier, it has made my relationships with friends and family better, it has made my ability to connect with new people easier and each time I go through this process I become stronger and more confident in everything I do.
So if you have found yourself feeling down, life doesn’t seem to be going the way you planned, someone said or did something to hurt your feelings, or maybe they didn’t say or do something and that hurt your feelings then I want you to just believe me that there is a reason you are here, believe me when I say you are strong, you are beautiful, you are smart, you are funny, you are loved, you are capable, you are enough.
Share this with someone you think needs a little pick me up and let them know how amazing you think they are.
Peace!
Today’s song should make you feel good no matter what’s going on in your life!
Kane Fitzpatrick 