I got a lot of asks on this topic with slight variations of essentially the same question so here goes.
Fake confidence is not confidence. Itās literally fake, it says that in the name. Itās pretending. Thatās not terrible but if youāre wondering why all this time has gone by and you still havenāt become truly confident itās because itās fake! At best it will appear real to outsiders, which is nice, but you will still be miserable as the person who is inhabiting your body and living your life. Fake confidence only looks good until someone with authentic confidence walks into the room and shows you how itās done. The truth is that most people who fake it until they make it, donāt ever make it. They are just hoping to be perceived as someone who has made it.
Iām sorry to tell you but if youāve been doing affirmations for years and years and youāre still sending me asks about being confident, itās not working. I canāt say if youāre doing it wrong, not doing it enough, or not believing it hard enough but either way, somethingās gotta give. How many more years are you gonna waste?
You start building confidence in 2 ways: one, you get action-based self esteem. Get some hobbies and work on them. Learn some skills, get good grades, try something new. Do something with your days!! Make an effort!! Complete something!! Scrolling all day wonāt give you a sense of accomplishment and when 5,7,10 years go by and you look up and realize that you have nothing going for yourself, you will obviouslyyyyy feel like crap. Reread this point over and over again. Two, get in tune with yourself and figure out what you like, dislike, and truly want. When you really know yourself like that, you will make moves accordingly. You wonāt question everything you do and run all of your decisions past other people. Youāll just happily make decisions on your own accord. You will not get to know yourself on a deep enough level if you are online all day and thatās a fact. Youāre constantly bombarded with everyone elseās content, everyone elseās opinions, everyone elseās sense of style. Your brain has become a frankstein monster of every other persons ideas. Who are you even? Do you even know? Without a bunch of tiktok girls to tell you what your new aesthetic of the month is, do you even know what you like doing, buying, wearing, how you like to decorate, or what you want to do as a morning routine? Or are you just gonna keep letting outsiders tell you that in January youāre a pink Pilates princess and in March youāre a clean girl and in July youāre that girl. Who are you?? Youāll never be confident if youāre always cosplaying other people. Log off and find yourself.
Stop crumbling every time someone doesnāt like you or what you do. Learn to like yourself! Stop letting the opinions of strangers hold you hostage. Do you like yourself? Okay then.
Remember that being confident doesnāt require you to think youāre the best of the best, the crĆØme de la crĆØme, the hottest thing walking. You can think your looks are overall average, and still be wildly confident. You can acknowledge that you arenāt the best in the world and still be confident. Not only is being less than perfect absolutely okay, itās rooted in reality. When people try to boost your confidence by having you tell yourself that youāre essentially perfect in whatever domain, thatās toxic positivity and fake confidence yet again. Rid yourself of the thought that confidence always looks like arrogance and lying to yourself about being at the top of the pyramid. Yes you have shortcomings. Lots of them. So do I. And???
I just want to reiterate that lying to yourself hardly does anything for your confidence long term and itās just so clear. If you are upset about the fact that your body is average, your face is average, you have little to no dating experience, and you havenāt been a part of any substantial activities since freshman year volleyball where you werenāt even that great and quit after one year, I donāt know why you think that pretending youāre Maddy Perez or Jennie while you halfheartedly recite affirmations that state youāre the sexiest woman in the room āØ, everyone is obsessed with you āØ, you attract nothing but lifeās luxuries āØ is really helping you. Likeā¦.this isnāt building your confidence really. Giving you a bandaid perhaps. But what would really make you feel better is to go out and get some activities into your schedule where you start at a low level and through your hard work you get better and better. You start working out and building the body you want. You accept the fact that you donāt need to be the prettiest girl in the world to enjoy yourself and have a fantastic life, so instead you style your hair and makeup in a way that you genuinely like and confidently go out into the world knowing and fully being okay with the fact that not everyone thinks youāre stunning but thatās okay. Because you are pleased when you look in the mirror. And thereās more to life than trying (and failing) to be everyoneās type. Thatās much more progress than listening to āmanifest looking like an instagram model 10 hour 3D audioā every night.
