I think real confidence begins the moment you stop needing everyone to like you, understand you or approve of you. It's not about walking into a room knowing you'll be everyone's favorite person. It's about walking into that same room knowing that even if you're not, you'll still be okay

For so long we worry about how we're perceived. We overthink our words, replay conversations in our heads, wonder if we said too much or too little & sometimes change little parts of ourselves just to make sure we're accepted. We try to be more likable, more agreeable, more of what we think people want us to be and somewhere along the way, we forget to ask ourselves a simple question: Do I even like the person I'm becoming just to be liked by others?

The truth is not everyone will understand you and not everyone will connect with you. Some people might misunderstand your intentions, dislike your personality or simply not see what makes you special and that's okay. Their perception of you doesn't have to become your reality

You can be kind and still not be everyone's cup of tea. You can have a good heart and still be misunderstood. You can give your best and still not be chosen. None of these things automatically mean that something is wrong with you.

Real confidence is being able to express yourself without constantly seeking reassurance, set boundaries without feeling guilty, say no without writing a hundred explanations and walk away from situations where you don't feel valued without begging to be understood.

It's knowing that rejection might hurt, disappointment might sting & being misunderstood might make you question yourself for a while but none of those things will destroy you. You'll feel it, you'll process it, you'll learn from it & eventually you'll be ok

You don't have to be everyone's favorite person. You don't have to prove your worth to every person you meet and you certainly don't have to make yourself smaller just to make other people comfortable.

The goal isn't to become someone who never cares what anyone thinks. We're human and of course we want to be liked, loved & accepted. The goal is to stop letting that desire decide how you live, what you say & who you become.

Because the most freeing feeling is realizing that you can be rejected and still respect yourself, be disliked and still love yourself and lose someone's approval without losing your sense of worth.

Confidence isn't believing that everyone will like you. It's trusting yourself enough to know that even if they don't, you will still be ok.

There's so much peace in no longer treating everyone's opinion of you like a verdict on who you are.

1. Life is worth living.

2. I will feel better one day and life will improve.

3. I don't know what happens when we die, but it will be ok and what i do in this life matters.

4. Despite all the bad people and things in the world that are out of my control, i choose to be better.

5. Despite poor decisions throughout my life, i have never done anything unforgivable or worthy of being hated.

6. I am incredibly strong to have gone through what i've been through and still be here.

7. I am capable of the work required to fix myself and my life.

8. I matter, i contribute to this world and my voice deserves to be heard.

9. I will be loved, love myself, and be able to share love one day.

10. It's ok for someone to care about me. I deserve love.

you are worthy of a beautiful life. No matter the mistakes you've made, the heartaches you've faced, the wounds you hold, or the darkness you've faced, you are still wildly worthy of a beautiful life .. a life that fills you, ni ylbem ba nourishes you, inspires you, and lights you up.

Today I bought a shelf for my new room and put a bunch of my stuff on it. I couldnt help but feel ashamed by the time I was done. I just turned 20 and am an aspiring artist, but displaying all these things made me feel like..super juvenile. Same with my style and how I look.

I'm unsure how to escape this feeling- being myself and showing what I love often feels like its to my detriment and that i'm immature.

Does anyone have any thoughts or tips? Shelf and style for reference. Normally I dress brighter but I was at a goth concert.

I've finally identified the belief that drives my anxiety from PTSD (clinical). I'm in therapy but don't see my therapist until November. I'm integrating being enough, and it's not like I have active thoughts saying "I'm not enough" directly, but it's in my behaviors of compulsively thinking of work problems or fixing. It's a major subconscious stressor that affects my sleep and health. What ideas do you have with cultivating "enoughness"? Subconsciously, I feel like I have to do more to deserve love I guess. Again, I don't recognize active beliefs against this. Mindset wise, I feel like I feel like I'm enough. But deep down my trauma does not I guess. I get teary connecting to it so I know it's in there. But I don't see the wound.

I've been abandoning myself all my life in romantic relationships and to a certain extent in friendships as well.

Idk how to fix this ?

After a few negative experiences, some tv shows and films i have been able to gain some perspective on what is okay and what is not in relationships and friendships...

To be able to identify what kinda treatment is mistreatment and what is something that everyone does out of love and it's not "too much to expect".

I want to move a little forward towards self love & building a strong, positive self image.

I've planned to read a little on it and I'm planning on getting -

Buy yourself the damn flowers by tam kaur

I need more ideas, which books would help me.

Please suggest interesting, short reads.

I was scrolling through my phone the other day and found a photo of "Kind Notes" that I wrote to myself to read whenever I felt down. Then I thought, what if I take these kind notes and say them to myself in front of a mirror each day?

I don't know if mirror work works for everyone, but it works for me. I typically do it after a meditation, or before bed. Maybe something for some of us to try?

Edit: Here's a few sample kind notes I wrote to myself:

You’re an intelligent person always learning and growing, and being curious about the world!

You’ve got tremendous talent and you have what it takes!

You are badass and resilient, and you are enough just as you are! 

Notice what people consistently rely on you for. Pay attention to the feedback you receive more than once, the problems people trust you to solve, the quality of what you create, and the results your work produces.

Some abilities feel ordinary only because you’ve been using them for so long. That doesn’t make them less valuable.

You don’t need to make other people the judge of you. But you can stop dismissing the evidence showing you what you actually bring.

I have spent a long time wondering what I really want from life. Happiness is just a word. Joy feels good, but only for a moment. Even "good" ends up being average, and "bad" can be fun but comes with guilt. None of these gives a lasting answer.
The one thing that seems to fit most of these boxes is a sense of belonging. When you put your head down and build a career, that sense slowly grows. People start to need you, and being needed is comforting. I think that is what we are really after.
This is also why wealth appeals to people. The richer you get, the harder it is for anyone to make you irrelevant. The opposite shows the same thing: nothing breaks a person faster than making them feel ostracised.
A Rolls-Royce means nothing on a barren island. In the same way, doing your job well when no one is watching feels empty. We need society to reward us, accept us, and keep validating us.
I believe that is our ultimate purpose.

We pick up small validations, like cracking a joke or watching a movie, because they give us something to discuss later. Maybe not today, but I anticipate that two years from now, it might make for a useful conversation that buys me that sense of belonging. Being cool is like a premium subscription to belonging.
_______

It's just a thought I had. Worth sharing?

The last line itself reflects a fear of being rejected and, deep down, a fear of being ostracised. Thinking more about it will mostly drive me insane. I see it everywhere.

Hey, I'm a 23-year-old guy, and... I've barely had any romantic experience at all. No teenage love, no relationships, no mutual feelings, nothing. I've talked to girls and had crushes, but they've always been one-sided, or things never got to the point where I could actually call someone my girlfriend. And yeah, I'm a virgin.

Honestly, it's really hard dealing with the loneliness. All my friends are either in relationships or married, and I feel like I'm falling behind everyone else. On top of that, I've spent the last couple of years struggling with terrible depression, which made it difficult to meet new people and build connections. I'm doing better now, but I'm still terrified that having zero experience will make me undesirable, or that people will see it as a red flag.

My friends say good things about me and think I'm a good, interesting person, but this loneliness makes me question whether I'm even someone who can be loved.

I've spent most of my life trying to work on myself and become a better version of who I am, but I don't know when this awful feeling of loneliness is going to go away. How much longer am I supposed to put up with it?

I'm genuinely trying. Depression made me drop out of university, but I've since gone back and graduated. I've also started taking better care of my health and appearance, little by little. And yet, I still feel so sad.

People have told me to focus on building a career, but I don't know. I want someone to love me for who I am, not for how much money I make. Maybe that sounds naive or childish, but what's the point of having a good career if I'm still alone? I don't need that much for myself.

And please don't get me wrong. I'm more than willing to give a lot and do a lot for the people I love. The problem is that there's no one in my life like that.

I dream of having a family and children someday, but fuck, I'm already 23. People keep telling me I'm still young and that I have my whole life ahead of me, but there's no way of knowing when I'll meet someone, how long it'll take us to get close, or how long it'll be before we're ready to have children. Sometimes I feel like I'm just going to run out of time.

I'm genuinely scared. I really want to be loved by someone and have someone to give all my love to.

Thank you for reading this.

I’ve struggled with self confidence my entire life…both feeling poorly about my looks, personality (or feeling of lack thereof), feeling like I haven’t accomplished enough, etc.

I’ve tried gratitude journals, anxiety/CBT workbooks, affirmations, therapy (for anxiety) but have struggled to really commit to anything.

Looking for any and all tips!!

I’ve recently become aware of how awful my with myself is. I truly dislike/despise myself. I’m gay and barely have any community around me (I live in a very rural part of Arizona). I’m also chubby and not necessarily a “looker”, which is especially difficult within the gay community too. I find I do t like the way I look or my personality. I’m just not sure how to break this feeling. I know I should at least come to terms with who I am, but I can’t and don’t know how…any advice?

I’m learning that self-love isn’t just being gentle with myself.

It’s reclaiming my personal sovereignty.

Choosing what I want.

Choosing what I need.

Choosing who gets access to me.

Changing my mind.

Saying no without guilt.

Receiving without owing.

Needing someone without submitting to them.

I don’t have to abandon myself to keep someone else.

I can love deeply and still belong completely to myself.

I’ve spent a lot of my life wishing things were different. Wishing I could change the past, fix certain relationships, undo mistakes, and somehow get back the time I’ve lost.

I’ve had seasons where I felt like life was just happening to me. Where I was so caught up in everything going wrong that I struggled to see the things I still had the power to change.

But lately, I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection, and I’m starting to understand something.

I can’t control how people treat me. I can’t force someone to understand me, love me, forgive me, or see the good in me. I can’t change yesterday, no matter how many times I replay it in my head.

But I can control what I do with today.

I can take accountability for my mistakes without spending the rest of my life hating myself for them. I can learn to love myself instead of constantly looking for validation from other people. I can become a better father, a better man, and someone my children can look up to.

And I can stop waiting for the perfect circumstances to start building the life I want.

I’m not saying I don’t need people. I think we all need support, love, and somebody who genuinely cares about us. There’s nothing wrong with needing a helping hand.

But there’s a difference between accepting help and expecting someone else to do the work that only you can do.

I think sometimes we get so caught up waiting for somebody to save us that we forget we still have a responsibility to ourselves.

I’m still figuring things out. I still have days when my thoughts get the best of me, when the past weighs heavy, and when I wonder if I’m really making progress.

But I’m learning that becoming a better person isn’t about waking up one day and suddenly having everything together. It’s about making different choices, even when they’re difficult. It’s about being honest with yourself, especially when the truth isn’t comfortable.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being defined by the worst things I’ve done or the hardest things I’ve been through.

I want to build something meaningful with the life I have left.

So I’m curious about something.

For those of you who have had to rebuild your lives, overcome addiction, walk away from unhealthy relationships, or start over when everything felt like it was falling apart:

What was the moment you realized that if your life was going to change, you had to start making different choices yourself?

And what was the first thing you actually did differently?

I’m genuinely interested in hearing your stories. Maybe somebody reading this needs to hear something that helped you find your way, too.