Opinion Essay: Have Self-Confidence and Be Yourself

Now that we have established our identity and what causes us to feel rejected, it is about time we put behind us the idea about wanting to live and be like someone. I am sure you have started feeling the excitement in your inner self and can hear your inner voice saying ”BE YOURSELF”.

If you practice these practical steps in learning how to overcome self-rejection, you will be a much happier person and live a fulfilled life.

Discover who you are

You won’t be able to appreciate yourself if you don’t know your true self or what you want to make out of life. We talked about knowing your identity in chapter one, so by now, you should be able to know your personal identity.

In overcoming self-rejection, it is vital that you know your true self, which is no different from your identity. To help you drill down this point more, try out a personality test. Take a pen and a small notebook, find a quiet corner or time, write down your likes, dislikes, your personality traits, your hobbies, and family history- you can ask family members to help on the family history. Once you’ve done that, take some time and reflect on your notes, this should give you a better understanding of who you are and will also help you know who you want to be.

When doing the personality test, be honest, and write both your good and bad traits. The truth is that we are all made up of both good and bad traits. Are you hot-tempered, funny, attractive, hostile, sensitive, open, defensive, etc. write what pertains to you down, as this helps you to distinguish good from bad and can work on improving the bad traits? The good news is that there is room for change if you so desire. For example, if you constantly get angry at every little thing and you know it but find it difficult to control your anger most times, you are hot-tempered and this can be controlled. The first step is realization. The moment you realize this as a weak point, you can then begin to work on it by speaking to yourself especially when you are in a situation if you know you will get angry, calm yourself down by speaking to yourself. You can call your name and say e.g. ‘James, don’t get angry’ or ‘James, just walk away”. If you can do this, you will begin to get hold of the anger problem.

This simple personality test exercise allows you to define your characteristics, know yourself better, see yourself in a well-adjusted manner, and above all, inspire you to become self-aware and make changes.

Have self-confidence with yourself

Once you have discovered who you truly are, embrace it, and have confidence in your ability and your qualities. Having self-confidence boosts your energy to focus on your goals and keeps you motivated. It also makes others know that you know what you are doing.

If you have ever doubted yourself or in your ability, please relax, you are not alone. It is quite common for one to doubt in themselves sometimes. Even those that are overly confident, do doubt themselves sometimes.

Confidence is not an attribute you are born with. It is created and develops over time. The more you practice the better you will get at.

Appreciate yourself

Why wait for others to appreciate you? Every individual is unique and has different purposes. No matter how awkward you might think you are, appreciate yourself for it because that is your unique identity and you can use that to change the world. You are wonderful in your special way.

How can you appreciate yourself? Owning up to your imperfections is one way to you can appreciate yourself. As we said earlier, no one is perfect, trying to hide your imperfections will only make things worst for you. If for example, you know you are not good at keeping to time when you have to meet a friend. Rather than always make excuses each time you are late and blaming it on traffic, why not just say you underestimated your time, hence why do are late. Stop trying to make every situation perfect.

If you find it difficult to appreciate yourself, one effective way that can help you is by having a gratitude journal. Create a gratitude journal, daily for a week or as you wish, write down things that you are grateful in life for. Start from your body, walk your way down to your personality, what people say they like about you for example, do you like the shape of your nails, your body, your hair, put them down. Do you like the fact that you are a confident individual, you are not shy, or you like to see the best in people, write them down. Has someone ever said to you, they like the way you speak, or your smile or that you have a lovely voice, write them down? By the time you carry out this exercise for a week, you will have lots of things to be grateful for and appreciate yourself.

Quit pleasing others

What does it actually mean to please others? It is the intense desire to often please and care for others even when it is unfavourable for them. People pleasers find it difficult to say no to people because the worry about how others will feel when the say no to them.

It is good to be nice to people, to help them, to do some nice things for them, absolutely, but please, please know your boundary. When we aim to please others at our own expense, we deny ourselves the care and attention we need. You need to know your limit and learn to say no some times. Pleasing others doesn’t make you any better person than you are already.

It is worth mentioning that the people you are trying to please most of the time don’t appreciate your effort, so why bother? If you understand this, it will help you to know when to draw the line. And please don’t misunderstand my point here, am not saying you should stop helping people or looking out for others, not; what am saying is simply doing it because you want to do it and not because you want them to accept you.

Can I just drop this here, everybody must not like you no matter how hard you try. I know it sounds harsh, but without any apology, it is the truth. So why waste your time, your energy, and even your resources trying to please someone that does not care. Some people even go to the extreme and lavish gifts on a particular individual just because the want them to be their friend.

When you work so hard to please others, you lose track of your identity. Sometimes, people present themselves in a way the want others to view them, so as to get them to like them. Picture this in your mind: you display a different character to every audience you come across on your daily activity, ponder on it for a second; are you being yourself? It is such an exhausting exercise, so please stop seeking their approval and just be yourself. You are a special individual with unique abilities, embrace it.

Stop comparing yourself with others

Comparing yourself with others can be very draining and bad for your sanity. Be grateful for what you have, where you are in life because if you believe in yourself you should also be grateful for where you are going.

We are in a world that compares, so you must know how to manage yourself because, comparison leads to bitterness and bitterness leads to hatred. Why then do you want to hate yourself because of how someone else looks, or what they have. If your life is filled with resentment, you will lack focus on your journey of being yourself.

Invest your time and energy in developing and improving yourself, instead of comparing your status with that of your friend. You can spend some time and money if needed and learn new skills and hobbies. This can make you a better person to the person you are comparing yourself with.

You may not know the secret behind that person’s life that you are wasting your time comparing yourself with them. Take for example, you have a friend who is busy touring the world. Every year she and her family go on holidays twice a year, and you constantly feel sorry for yourself as you are can only afford one holiday every two years, because you prefer to save up and book your holidays. What you don’t realise, is that your friend has about five credit cards that she’s struggling to pay for.

Think positive

For you to be successful in the journey of being yourself, you need to first be proactive and develop a positive attitude about yourself. Instead of always thinking of all the things that can go wrong, or how people will judge you, channel your energy on how you can succeed at things that seem challenging to you. If for example, you are preparing for a presentation to deliver at work. Instead of focusing how people will react when is your turn, or all the terrible mistakes you will make, focus your energy on how you will nail the presentation and how your colleagues will commend you. The more you think positively about yourself, the more it will reflect in your actions, and without any shadow of a doubt, you will feel a sense of satisfaction with yourself.

Speak positively about yourself

It is possible to think positively about yourself without speaking it. The speaking aspect of it makes is more real, it gives you a sense of ownership. It reinforces what you believe in.

Words are very powerful. What you say about yourself can either motivate you or demotivate you. It can either make you who you will be or it can destroy you. The moment a word goes out of your mouth you cannot take it back; it may be forgiven but never forgotten. That’s why is important you think about your words before you let them out. It all starts with the mind.

Self-talk reaffirms your purpose in life. The more you speak negativity into your life the more you believe it and work with it, but the more you speak positively about yourself, the more you believe in the purpose for which you were created for. Rather than saying ‘I can’t’, substitute it with ‘am able to’. This is in situation where you know you have the ability but afraid to do it. It is a different case if you truly know you don’t have the ability to do that.

Spend time with positive people

When you spend time with people who think positively, your values will shift towards being positive and your perspective about life will change too.

Positive people will influence your behaviour and choices; they will make you believe in, and achieve your dreams.

Make effort and time to spend with people that of the same mind. Exposure to a positive environment and people of like mind helps you to focus on your future goal. Your opinions will be respected.

Just be yourself

Being true to who you are is good for your mental wellbeing. Free yourself from the maze of trying to be someone else, quit trying to be a people pleaser, just quit and be yourself.

Believe in your values, pursue your goals with a positive mindset, indulge in your unique attributes.