CONFIDENCE

Straight up, this is not a quick solution. This is something that takes a lot of time, and a lot of effort, and a lot of slaying demons. I can't promise you anything, but this is what worked for me, and in my experience. If you've got any advice yourself, send me a message somewhere and I can add it :)

Self-bias is an absolute nightmare. It is your worst enemy. It will do everything it can, with every weapon it can to make you feel like shit. It will make you compare your worst with others best, and even make you doubt your best. This here is a photo of me at 21 years old. I ABSOLUTELY LOATHED this photo for years. Now most people will delete a photo they don't like, I don't. I keep all my photos, and I will explain why later.

There's a few reasons why you probably won't like you.

1. You're not your type.
2. Your outer self doesn't match your inner self.
3. You never learned to love yourself in the first place.
4. You're always comparing yourself to others.

Yes, I realise how strange that first one may be. You know what you're attracted to, and if you're not what you're attracted to, you won't see what others see in you either. The second one is a little harder, that comes with a lot of time and effort and may not always happen. Personally speaking, my outer doesn't match my inner still. Learning to love yourself is hard, and even harder still if you've not been taught that; or worse, you've been taught NOT to love yourself because "it's vain", or it's narcissistic.Hint: Its definitely vain, BUT THATS A GOOD THING! Ultimately if you're comparing yourself to others, you're always going to feel bad.

Remember from now, everyone has beauty in them, as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Not everyone will see if, and you're biased not to.

Straight up, I'm not a psychiatrist. I could be talking out of my ass at this point, but I'm not. I'm speaking of my experience.

First Thing: Understand that the brain is more inclined to see and focus on the negatives. It's a survival instinct or something weird, but its a thing. This won't ever change - but you can learn to override it.

Second thing: stop self depreciating. Much easier said than done - but trust me. Stop saying you're ugly, stop saying you're trash, stop saying horrible things about yourself. If you wouldn't say it about me, then really don't say it about yourself. I'm not even kidding. You're as much as person as I am and have as much right to be happy as I am.

Third thing: stop comparing to others. This one is really hard. When you see the lives of others, you often see their highlights, the good bits they want to show you. Not the bad things they hide away.

All this will help you start building yourself upwards and to look at yourself in a better light.

Long term is a scary thought, especially when you want results 5 minutes ago. I said this wouldn't be easy though. Remember me saying about that photo? I don't delete any of my photos. This isn't a thing about how far I've come, this is a thing about me building my confidence. Every single photo, I looked for something I like in each one, and I really looked. I focus on that. and I keep focusing on that. Over time, you start ignoring the bad points because the good points are the important thing. Stuff like "Oooo my eyes are pretty!", "I really liked that colour of lipstick.", "I just felt good when I took that photo" are all valid things.

Yes, it is a bit vain. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. Society has so much stigma over vain people because society doesn't like people who love themselves for some reason. We live in an incredibly toxic world, we need to break these bad habits and bad programming and genuinely learn to love ourselves. People who love themselves are powerful people, and society is scared of that.

It is an option, become your type. Its not a bad thing to love yourself, or to consider yourself as sexy, or hot, or attractive. There are days I'd do me. Not even kidding.

Accept compliments, this is a really really hard one - but so simple to actually do. If someone compliments you, say thank you and smile, don't downplay it, don't reject it, just take it and return a compliment. My advice? Compliment something they have control over. It makes so much difference. "I love your top!" instead of "I love your shape!"

Take Selfies. I'm not even kidding. People see it as a bad thing, because they're dickweasels. Take the selfie, love yourself, work that camera and most importantly... SAVE THE PHOTOS! Even if you hate them!!

My favourite tip... if you're able to, POWER DRESS. Dress to kill, dress in a way that makes you FEEL POWERFUL AND UNTOUCHABLE. When you feel good in what you wear, you feel good in yourself and others will see it too. Trust me, anyone who meets me will notice a difference between me dressing normally and me power dressing. If you want to know if you look good, ask. If you want fashion advice? Ask.

Don't know style would suit you? Simple. Anything that makes you go "OOOOOOOO THAT LOOOKS AMAAAAZING". Not even kidding. Try clothes, learn what works for you and most importantly, take pictures for yourself.

Check out This video on Facebook by the amazing David Shu on How to pose and how to take good photos of yourself. [David on TikTok and Instagram]