How To Become More Self-Confident & Aware as a Woman!

How To Become More Self-Confident & Aware as a Woman! Building confidence & self-esteem through self-reflection.

It’s just not easy to be a woman. There is so much stacked against us from an early age. We feel pressure to look pretty, have our body look a certain way, fit into/wear certain clothes, be sexy but not TOO sexy, & the list goes on.

Women carry this burden from a young age all through their life. My Grandma was “watching her figure” at 90. Really? REALLY? But she would say that. My mom watches her weight, even though she looks amazing to me, she always thinks she can lose more. My friends are all mothers with young children. They are constantly crying, worrying, stressing over their bodies. It devastates me. LIKE REALLY DEVASTATES ME.

I am never going to be a skinny minnie. My body has hips, butt, legs you name it. I never had a flat stomach or perfectly toned arms. As a kid, I was normal weight & once I hit puberty I started to gain weight. My highest size was a 14, now I am a 10, bordering on 12 depending on the brand. In clothes, I wear a medium top usually/large bottom. I really am okay with it! I would love to be a comfortable size 8 but anyone who knows me tells you that I do NOT stress about this. It doesn’t suffocate my life.

My body birthed 2 children, went through 2 c-sections. I work out, I eat relatively healthy (& do not want to be a slave to a food obsession).

I am a pretty confident gal & comfortable with myself.  I’m not going to obsess over these things & let them take over my life. I made a decision as Mom, I was NEVER going to create a household where they see their main female role model in their life abuse themselves with the negative comments! Or have them hear me complain about the way my clothes fit, my body, my weight, food. I wanted them to see a confident Mom who is happy with herself, & hope having that example will be positive for their own futures as young girls turning into young women then women.

It must be paying off because if you know my girls you know they are quite happy with themselves!

I think that most women put too much value into the number on the scale, the size of the outfit. They think they are terrible, awful people because they didn’t make a weight goal for the week. This is abusive behavior, that women do to THEMSELVES!

So how do you build this confidence as an adult when you have been so hard on yourself all your life?

TAKE A LOOK AT HOW YOU THINK OF YOURSELF: Sometimes you really need to make a list. If the list of things you dislike about yourself are all about your weight & appearance, then you have some work to do here! What are the positive things you like about yourself? Take an outside look at yourself & find the things about yourself that you like, that you are PROUD of! Make those the things you pay more attention to & remind yourself of them often!

BEING HEALTHY ISN’T BEING SKINNY! Women have this unrealistic image of what “healthy” is.  You can be a size 2 but are you healthy if you are mentally exhausting yourself, not eating, working out fanatically, etc? Healthy comes in all sizes & shapes. There are plenty of fit people, who lead healthy lives but are bigger in size & weight.

HAVE REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS! Your body will not be the same after kids. We are not celebrities who have babies & snap back in a week. We do not have the money or help that they have but we COMPARE ourselves to them anyway. The circumstances in our lives are so different but we think we should have the same results? NO! Your stomach may never be flat again, your boobs may not look the same. You may now have stretch marks. IT IS ALL OKAY. Love & accept this body that kept your babies safe for 9 months, birthed them, & realize your body is STRONG & look what it has accomplished. This brings me to my next point.

MINDSET IS EVERYTHING! You can be proud of your body for all that it has been through or hate yourself for not having the same body you did at 15/20/25. One way gets you much happier headspace, the other will have you taunting yourself for your entire life. You can focus on all the good things about yourself & talk to yourself as such. You can also be your own worst enemy and tell yourself that you are not enough, that you are worthless.

I will tell you now I am a different creature of nature. I (without being annoying or cocky) recognize that I am proud of who I am. Glitz & GlaMOM is something I created with NO help from the ground up & I deserve to be happy for my success. I am happy & content with how I look. Yes would I love to lose a size & a few pounds, sure! I do things all the time to make improvements. BUT I do not obsess, or make it value me as a person.

Am I torturing myself night & day about it? NOPE, NO WAY! I am a type A , go getter, make it happen kind of gal. My goals drive me. Having daughters rocked my mindset to the core. I do not just want but NEED to be healthy for them. They copy, hear, see EVERY SINGLE THING I DO. If I am an insecure, hate myself, type of person around them, this will project on to them. I would die if watching me made them into food-obsessed, body-obsessed women.

At the end of the day, we are responsible for our OWN confidence, our OWN self-esteem. Of course we want our spouses, friends & family to think we are attractive, but that all starts with US. Confidence is sexy, insecurity is NOT!

This is not a 1-2-3 process. Start slow. Look at how you talk to yourself. What is your mindset? What changes can you make to appreciate the woman you are NOW!

Check out one of my fave bloggers who posts constantly about body positivity, Sarah Tripp of Sassy Red Lipstick here!

Check out my related post on female competition (& how to break the cycle) here!