#30dayglowup - Day 12
Can I become more confident in myself and not care what other people think? Let's have a look at how to use journaling...
Becoming self-confident
and cultivating self-love is one of the most important parts of any glow up journey
and using journaling can be a significant tool to help you in this process. Feeling
truly confident in yourself is not easy nor is it black and white, most people
never feel truly self-assured and let their own opinion of themselves hold them
back. For me, I’ve spent a very long time resenting myself and struggling with self-image,
and even now I’m still on the journey as part of my personal glow up to really
feel happy with myself.
This
article is going to focus on how to use journaling for self-love however it can
be used for a whole range of things, especially in regard to mental health. When
you struggling with feeling like you have too many thoughts in your head or
ideas that you can’t organize in your brain properly, getting them physically
written down on paper can feel like a weight off of your shoulders and make you
feel more relaxed, especially before bed. For anyone thinking about giving it a
go definitely just have a try – journaling can be personalized so much to your
individual preferences and there’s no harm in trying.
Self-love
is so important in your everyday life – you spend all of your time in your own
head and no one knows you as well as you do. Your opinion of yourself is so
important and has such an impact on your mental wellbeing. It’s not selfish nor
is it narcissistic (unless it gets to the point of arrogance), its something
that is vital to your happiness. It is also very difficult to love others if
you don’t already love yourself so if you’re wanting to be accepting to other
people you’ll have to start with looking into your own mind.
How to
In terms of
using journaling to cultivate self-love there isn’t one way that works for
everyone. For me, I add on some affirmations at the end of each of my daily
journal entries to reinforce a positive view of myself. I also incorporate
these positive ideas (listed below) into my writing and try to adjust my
natural thought process. Your aim is to try and write and think about yourself positively,
and that’s it. Journaling for self-love is essentially repeating positive things
about yourself until you truly believe them. Realize that your opinion of
yourself is your reality – other people may think what they want but the only
thing that truly matters are your thoughts and your perception of yourself. As
soon as you decide you’re beautiful or ambitious or funny, you just are.
Because no one can touch your own reality.
As an example, if your first reaction when you
see yourself in the mirror is to criticize, try and correct yourself to focus
on something that you like. You may seem like you’re lying to yourself at
first, but by gradually altering your mindset you will begin to believe these
positive thoughts and slowly change your mindset of yourself.
Literally
just decide something about yourself – me, for example, I’m absolutely stunning.
Other people may not think that and to be honest I don’t really think that, but
once I’ve decided that it’s a thing the only thing holding me back from that
being my reality is my own negative thoughts – which I have control over.
I know this
probably sounds very abstract and like it won’t work but honestly just give it
a go – you never know how it could change your thoughts.
Areas to focus on
Forgiving yourself
You, like
every single other person on the planet, are going to make mistakes. It’s a
natural part of living and you couldn’t get through life without doing
something wrong at some point. Allowing yourself to experience forgiveness is
so freeing and prevents you from building up a cycle of self-resentment. Treat
yourself like you would any close friends – I can barely remember any of the
mistakes my friends have told me and if I do, they don’t seem significantly.
Even if you’ve done something catastrophic and life-changing, you deserve to forgive
yourself and move forward. Don’t let reflecting on past situations govern how
you act now.
Accepting your current self/ life
There is
such a balance between being ambitious but also not resenting your current self
and life. Yes, it is important to want more from life and yourself, but also being
confident in who you are now will stop you from letting everything pass you by
because you’re too busy focusing on a dream life. Just enjoy the journey to self-love
– recognize your accomplishments no matter how small and be proud of the person
you’re becoming.
Striving to be the best version of yourself
This is the
other sign of the coin to the previous tip. You can be happy with yourself but
still want to achieve more or be better. If you want to change something about
your life or yourself then don’t let anything stop you – as I said before, it’s
only you inside your own head and you know yourself best. Strive to get the
life or the career that you’ve always hoped for – if you’re self-assured in
this process and know what you want, eventually you’ll get to where you want to
be.
Respecting your body
Body
confidence is a whole other kettle of fish. With the recent rise of the body-positivity
movement it’s becoming easier to see representation within the media and
associate less negativity with your own body. But I know from personal
experience that feeling confident in your own skin is very difficult (Literally
– having suffered with stubborn acne and scarring all throughout my teenage
years). If you start to incorporate this within the cycle of trying to see
yourself positively then you will see improvement. Your body does so much for
you and keeps you alive, it deserves respect beyond just worrying about how you
come across to other people, so let yourself stop resenting it and pursue
self-love instead.
Releasing yourself from other people’s opinions
As I said
before, the only person whose reality matters in the grand scheme of things is
yours. I’ve heard a comparison before of treating your mind like a boat and the
negative thoughts as the sea. You can be surrounded by them, but you’ll only
begin to sink once the water gets in the boat i.e. once you let other people’s thoughts
get in your head. If you change something about yourself people will probably notice
the first time you see you but in reality, that’s it, they’ll clock it but probably
not even bat an eyelid after that. Don’t let the fear of other people ruin your
self-esteem.
10 prompt suggestions
- Things you’ve achieved today
- Traits you admire in someone close to you
- What negative things do you believe about yourself and where these stem from
- Things you like about your personality
- Morals and beliefs that are important to you
- Things you’re good at
- Things you like about your physical appearance
- Things you’re grateful to have in your life
- Reasons you’re proud of yourself
- How have you positively changed over the last year
Tips
Adapt your journaling to suit you
If you’re
more of a visual person, try mood boards, if you’re like me and just like
getting your thoughts down, a wall of text is just fine. Whatever you feel like
works best for you is the correct way of journaling – you can incorporate ideas
you hear about or adapt your style as you change but ultimately, it’s
completely up to you.
Acknowledge your accomplishments
I like to
write down 3 things at the end of each day I’ve accomplished. Sometimes it’s
even just I hoovered or something mundane but being proud of even the little
things is very important to valuing yourself overall.
Get a journal that you like
This one is
perhaps not the most important but enjoying the process and not finding it a
drag definitely makes a difference. I personally like really inky pens because I
don’t like to press too hard on the page, so that’s what I use because it makes
me happy. You just need to do these little things that make you happy.
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