Day 3: Compliment Yourself
"It's okay to be shy to accept a compliment. But what's so wrong with standing up straight and saying, 'Yeah, I am great'?" - Mandy Moore
Hello Fab Gals!
This week, I've been testing out some tips from Julia DeVillers (and Atoosa Rubenstein) from GirlWise: How to Be Confident, Capable, Cool, and in Control on how to Be Your Own Best Friend, in hopes of working on my own confidence and giving you FGs some ideas, too. The third part of this how-to was to "Compliment Yourself." Since most people love to get compliments, GirlWise says, "why wait until someone else makes your day? Plant yourself love letters in your room, your locker, anywhere you can."
I knew this step was important. I'm not much of a chef, but I'm starting to see confidence as a pretty simple recipe - equal parts the things you do, and the things you say to yourself. Still, as much as I give compliments to my (other!) BFFs, it had been a while since I had complimented myself. So, I sat down with a poster board, sticky notes, a pen, and twenty minutes, and wrote down any compliments that came to mind.
Despite being out of practice, it was not as difficult as I imagined it would be. I thought about inside qualities (being caring and passionate) and outside ones (love my hair!), ones that really matter to me (being a good writer and great BFF) and ones that I don't give enough credit (It used to embarass me that I was so good at math. But hello? That's a good thing, even if I only use it for managing my money so I can shop). It doesn't really matter what you compliment yourself on, just as long as you get started - and mean it! I thought I might feel silly or embarassed by trying to compliment myself, or worse, I wouldn't be able to come up with anything. But looking back at my poster throughout the day felt good... and even better when I thought that I might be able to come back and add to it later.
If you need a confidence boost, this is definitely a good place to start. I think I'm going to work at doing this more often. I think that we are scared to compliment yourselves because we don't think what we are already is enough, or that if we tell ourselves nice things we won't be motivated to work toward our goals. But looking at my compliments poster, I actually felt excited about the challenges in my life - like I know I have what it takes to tackle them.
Stay tuned for Day 4: Inspire Yourself, and more confidence tips from GirlWise.
xoxo
The Fab GalLabels: advice, Atoosa Rubenstein, books, compliments, confidence, fab gal, GirlWise, Julia DeVillers, self esteem |
