Confidence, in my own humble opinion, is one of those things that people either have, or don’t. There really isn’t much middle ground in the equation of confidence; it’s either there, or it isn’t. I don’t really know how someone could be half-confident. It’s one or the other.
For some folks, confidence comes quite naturally, but for others, it is a struggle. I would think more people struggle with feeling confident than not, and it is understandable why – we live in a world that is constantly projecting unrealistic beauty and lifestyle standards onto us, from every direction, so it makes sense that a lot of us fail to be confident because we feel insecure about our image.
I think I am a relatively confident person, but as ridiculous as this is going to sound, I don’t enjoy using the term confidence to describe how I feel about myself. Rather, I’ve gotten to a point in my life in which I truly give zero fucks what other people think about me (at least, I try to), and in doing so I’ve become a lot more comfortable with myself and my image than I was when I was constantly stressing over the thoughts and opinions of others. If I had to guess, I think I started practicing this ideology after I dealt with my eating disorder; I spent so long obsessing over how I looked, and how other people thought I looked, and after I was in remission, I realized how positively preposterous this mindset was and started living my life the way I wanted to. Not the way others or my mental illness wanted me to.
Confidence absolutely stems from acceptance and happiness with ourselves, and until we can achieve this inner peace, it is difficult to exude confidence. Work on yourself, prioritize what is truly important to you in your life, and figure out how to manifest confidence in a manner that works for you.
ontheedgeofeverything 