“Coffee in one hand, self-confidence in the other”

By Oyedokun Agnes Tioluwanimi

Self-confidence is the belief in your own ability when doing anything, by viewing yourself positively and realistically about yourself and your environment. (Densky 2006)

“You are actually too fat” “Why do you have such a long nose?” “Why is your tummy getting out of your shirt? I can give you the contact of a slim tea’s seller” “Has nobody ever told you are too skinny to look at?”

These are parts of the utterances we get daily from people even from people very close to us and all these might make our self-confidence low. It is important that you know that once you dwell on a particular thought, it comes into manifestation and that’s all you see about yourself. That’s the same way this works and after the  activities of each day, you get back to your room to think for more than 2 hours about it and how it is very true even when it might not be true.

The most common negative view about yourself is the physical look, that are not beautiful, not charming, long nose, big tummy, big forehead and all. You should not compare yourself with others because it is a bad habit and it makes you forget what is good about yourself. Also comparing your so-called poor criteria with others will put you at the weak end. As a result of this, your self-confidence  might drop to something like 45% which is less than average.

The first way to improve your self-confidence is thinking positively. Can we ever stop talking about positive thoughts? I don’t think so because everything starts from the mind. Thinking positively is being happy, healthy with optimism and powerful with hopes. (Lopper 2007) Allow positive thinking even when you are feeling negative. Be comfortable in your own skin, don’t let anybody make you feel bad.

According to Dr Sandra Scott, “You must not chase after unattainable ideas but feel comfortable with your shape.” According to Dr Joe Rubino, “accepting and being grateful for what you have can help to eliminate the feeling of incompleteness and dissatisfaction and helps to place your inner self towards confidence.”

Also, you should watch the kind of people you bring into your circle. Choose people who don’t try to bring you down or make you feel less of yourself. The people you spend time with influence your thoughts and attitudes about yourself more than you think. You should not feel bad after talking to your friends about what makes you feel bad or less confident but if they add to your problems, you know what to do.

Remember that no matter what you do, you can’t please everyone. If you try to change something about yourself just to gain people’s approval. You can almost hurt yourself in the process and even if you succeed, the person they will be approving of you won’t be you but the person you’re pretending to be.

Be the person you ought to be. Be the person you want to be. Don’t let anyone’s opinion about yourself change anything. “Coffee in one hand, self-confidence in the other.”