in Uncategorized

Building Confidence

The other day I was having a conversation with a particularly hot girl friend of mine. While we were talking, something that she said took me by surprise. She said that she isn’t really confident and she’s quite shy!

Well some short background info on this chick is in order. The girl in question is someone with whom everyone wants to hang out with; she has dudes calling her every so often; she models and has appeared in commercials. So with all these qualities, how is she not confident?

 In some effort to try and help her out I told her that I’m extremely confident. It may have come out sounding arrogant at the time but it wasn’t my intention. I just feel that I’m just as good as anyone else, if not better :D. I take the saying ‘you can do anything you put your mind to’ to heart. I walk with my head held high looking everyone walking towards me in the eye. I don’t think there’s anyone as good looking as me and there’s no one I can’t compete with.

In an effort not to sound like so gloating douche bag flaunting my confidence in her face, I thought I should probably give her some lessons in building confidence, or at least how I got mine.  I told her that when I was younger, I used to walk with my eyes to the ground (I mean you have to be sure where you’re stepping right?). However, one day I came across an article about how confident people walk with their heads held high, looking the world in the eye and I told myself, “Well, you’re a confident person, you should walk with your head held up.” And I forced myself to look up.

During the same period, I discovered that people really don’t give a fuck about you or how you look if they don’t know you. I learnt this after doing a little social experiment. I once went shopping with my sisters platform heels which just happened to be rainbow coloured. Now get this, while some people stared and pointed at me, most would just note that I was wearing heels and go on with their business. This made me realise that as long as your dressing is just passable, no one cares… unless they know you.

I wasn’t as confident when I was younger as I am now and thinking back I can’t really point to a specific time in my life when this changed. Perhaps it was the time I was on TV, long story; or maybe it’s the sum of several small things: holding my head up at the world, looking in people eyes or the fact that whenever I catch my reflection I remind myself that I’m handsome. It could also be the fact that I have the ability to remember the high points of my life without thinking of the bad. Or that I’m a great story teller. But maybe more than anything is that my dad and mum, especially, have always encouraged me to do anything, reminding me of my best qualities.

I’ve been thinking about this because I want to help my friend with her confidence issues. For me it seems simple but when I tried to explain it to her it didn’t seem as simple. I couldn’t really tell her how to become more confident but I did give her what I think is a solid starting point: hold your head up to the world. What advice would you give her if she was your friend? Peace!!!

  1. Being attractive and popular doesn't really build confidence. For instance, your friend may think that people want to hang out with her because she's a model and has been in commercials, or that guys want to date her because she's hot. Those are only small parts of who she is; she may wonder what would happen if she lost her looks – would all these people still want to spend time with her and/or date her?

    The problem with being hot and popular is that people may worry that this is all that others see about them, and that they are only liked for those attributes – not for the whole of their person. Not many people enjoy being liked and admired only for their looks and fame. It means being liked for the surface of who they are, not for everything about them. Also, looks and fame can fade away rather quickly. It's hard to build confidence on something when you know it won't last forever.

    If you want to raise her confidence, maybe focus more on her other qualities and not so much on her looks, attractiveness and popularity. Show her that she is a great person for other reasons than being hot – remind her of all her accomplishments, not only those that she owes to her beauty.

    Maybe try to ask her why she isn't confident? Have people said hurtful things about her that she can't forget? Have her parents never supported her (unlike yours)? Try to figure out where the lack of confidence comes from and address that.

    Telling her that people who don't know her don't care about what she does or how she looks is a good starting point, and holding her head up is a good tip too. Both are things my parents told me and which helped me eventually gain some confidence myself.

  2. This could be a post on this own!! I guess it was kinda shallow of me to assume good looks and fame makes people confident, but I really thought that they help a lot. I think that's because most people have confidence issues of not being popular or goodlooking enought.
    I'll take your advice to heart, I will show her what a special person she is and perhaps with time she'll come to see herself as I see her.te through email. Respond in the body with "Delete". Respond in the body to post a reply comment.
    Or use the moderate panel: http://privatekenyan.disqus.com/admin/moderate/ To turn off notifications, go to: http://disqus.com/account/

Comments are closed.