My Short-Cut To Confidence

Catalysts for change.

Whew! This is a conversation that is very near and dear to my heart. This one goes very deep for me. So I’ll go back to the beginning where it all started:

Growing up, I was the most carefree kid. Every day, without fail, my mom would have to look me in the eyes and remind me not to forget myself whenever we would leave the house. I would come back home with bruises, open cuts, and lost items without even knowing anything had changed until someone else noticed it. 

Recently, I was catching up with a friend that I hadn’t spoken to in over 13 years and she was telling me that even though I was the youngest in the group, I would always say what was on everyone’s mind that they couldn’t form the vim to say. My jaw literally dropped when she said this. I’m so far from that now that I couldn’t imagine a version of myself that was so outspoken.

As I’m writing, I’m reminded of instances when different features of my body were made fun of or when I was referred to as being mean. People were telling me things about myself I wasn’t seeing and I was soaking it all up.

"Your forehead is massive"
”Your legs look like dinosaur legs”
”Your ears are tiny”
”Your nose is massive”

These were all mirrors that I began to see a reflection of myself in.

I started to believe that other people had a better perspective cuz they have a “360 degree view” of my body. It actually got to a point where I started taking pictures of myself from certain angles trying to see what others were seeing.

My self esteem was in the gutter and basically non-existent. People looking at me at all made me sick to my stomach. The concept of self-love made me so irritated cuz I thought it was a load of bs.

I cringed at the thought of being looked at...clearly uncomfortable in my own skin.

What led me to cut my hair:

At the time, my hair was styled in twists and I was actually somewhat feeling myself and starting to feel beautful. However, after a conversation with someone it got me thinking — I had a strong feeling that what I needed to move into another dimension of my identity was to start wearing my natural hair out. It was my biggest insecurity and therefore, my biggest obstacle in confidence.

Comfort vs. The Unknown

When you start breaking out of the insecurities that are holding you back, the biggest enemy you face is (the fear of) the unknown. When you think about it, insecurities are security blankets that we hide our fears under to keep up us from facing unpredictable or new situations.

I was looking teww sweet this day, but still a shell of myself.

From outside in — how the physical affects your mental view.

When you look good, you feel good. And well, I only thought I looked good when I hid my natural hair. I definitely had a deep fear of getting found out. Like, God forbid someone ever found me with no braids in or a wig.

Stella clearly got her groove back!!!

So, what did cutting my hair do for me?

Redemption of time.

I started fully embodying who I am. It set me apart on the outside so I got comfortable with thinking different. Ideas, like this blog, that were different didn’t feel so scary anymore…because it was me. Things that were probably deep in my heart that I couldn’t even conceptualize myself doing weren’t so scary to think about and eventually follow through on. The hold fear had on me that kept me stuck and in my head was gone. People's opinion of me is no longer my full time job. I've carried my load from that heavy work and I'm never looking back. 

Acceleration — what you present confidently appears beautifully.

You start to carry yourself different. There's nothing no one can tell me about myself that I should be suprised about. Without people telling me, I know for a fact that I am beauty. Not just beautiful, but a beauty. A serious babe...and I haven't even reached my peak yet...sorry for you oh.

And because I know my worth, there's a lot of nonsense I was entertaining before that I can't even let come near me. People will treat you how they see you treat yourself. So in essence, your price goes up without even having to ask when you walk around like you are a million bucks.

Break free from the status quo!

What would you do if you weren't insecure about that thing?
What would you do if you never had to hear anyone's opinion about it?
What would you do if you weren't afraid to stand out?

Make a bold decision that will change your reality and set you free from the fears that have been holding you back.

USe Catalysts

Simply explained, catalysts are like the final drop in a bucket that pushes the water to begin to overflow. One seemingly insignificant change can shift your entire life into a different reality.

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It’s Time For Something New

Let’s get excited.

Yes, we are creatures of habit. Yes, good habits can lead to incremental wins on the way to achieving your big goals. There’s a place for habits, but, our habits aren’t always helpful in determining how we behave, they can easily get boring and redundant. As much as I love a good morning routine, what helps me get out of bed to actually get going with my day is the anticipation of experiencing someone exciting in that day. Contrary to popular belief, it is actually possible to create the right conditions that help us act how we want to. 

Excitement has been defined as physiological arousal. Think about how you feel when you see good eye candy or that somebody that you’ve been eyeing. Your entire body experiences an awakening that’s not typical. When you get a new job, you aren't dragging your feet on the first day, dreading your entire existence. Even if it's not a job that's exciting for you, the anticipation of experiencing a new role and being a different environment is what your mind is fixated on. When you got that new car, your first thought wasn’t worrying about the bills, most likely you were thinking about who you would show first, whipping around the streets, what music you'll play, and all the places you would go.

Even though everything else is the same, exciting life events suddenly inject a fresh zeal to do what you were doing before, and once that experience no longer feels fresh or new it becomes an ordinary part of our life (read: habit).

Make things happen.

Your life is what you make of it. Life doesn't just happen to us, we make life happen. If you live everyday with the expectation to feel exactly the same, then I'm not speaking to you. But if you are anything like me, you want to wake up everyday feeling excited about what’s to come.

There’s something new in everyday. You just need to find it or create it. In fact, on the topic of habits, it’s the newness we experience that sparks the creativity and motivation we need to create healthy habits and engage in them consistently. That creativity enables you to shift your focus from the boredom of mundane tasks to creating a sense novelty to everyday life activities. 

Romanticize your life.

Music

Evoke emotions and memories that you can connect to different experiences. 

Curating unique playlists for different moods and activities is a great life hack. It allows you to evoke certain emotions that may not naturally flow while in silence. It also makes you feel like the main character cuz it'll feel like you have a literal soundtrack to your life, like it's a movie.

Food

Nothing beats that first bite feeling.

I recently did a three-day fast, and tbh, the fasting part wasn’t all that bad after the first day. But, by the second day I realized how boring life is without food. I’m so sorry, but eating really is an experience. It’s something to look forward to. I usually wind down after a long day with a good plate of food and some YT videos or at least some scrolling, but the night of the first day of my fast I literally plugged my phone in across the room. What’s the point when there’s nothing to munch on?

Pleasurable Things

Money can't buy you happiness, but it sure can buy a little excitement!

Who are we kidding, we all love nice things. Nice things elevate our experience of life. They give us something to fixate on and appreciate, even if for a short-while. It's called retail therapy because it literally shifts our focus from sad things to happy things. It's as simple as that!

Challenges

They make your life more colourful!

Problem solving keeps us on our toes. Problems present us with an opportunity to overcome something unexpected and the end result of that is a feeling of accomplishment. Even though the experience in itself is not pleasurable, it sure is different and gets our blood pumping. Challenges, when met with a strong willed spirit, strengthen our resolve to keep pushing beyond the present moment. They thicken the plot and give you a story to tell! 

Learning

Open up a new dimension of possibilities.

Learning can be so exciting! You get to know about things you never knew before and you gain a new perspective on life and on what is possible. This is why I love learning about Jesus, there's so much to Him that I can find in myself which opens up my mind beyond the limitations I may have placed on myself. It gives me hope that my present (when not ideal) won't last forever if I don't want it to. New knowledge empowers us to keep striving for a better future because there is more to life than the now!

Love

Experience a new depth of relationship.

Something about love, especially with the people we feel it the deepest with, makes it feel like you are experiencing a new part of them. Love changes everything! The way you feel, the way you think. Love is literally so energizing, like electricity running through your veins. It infuses a longing for more out of life. Love feels brand new every time. That’s why you need to romanticize your life!

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Plug Into Your Life Sources (Life-Givers)

The are energy givers and there are energy drainers — do you know what yours are?

I find that many of us just go through life without understanding what makes things work for us or what is hindering our progress, and honestly you can’t blame us. Our lives are over-saturated with noise and distractions so it’s difficult to be attentive to what is going on internally.

I have noticed that, in my case, that there are days that I feel exceptionally energized to get things done, while other days I can barely get out of bed. I only just realized that this isn’t normal. We are actually designed to be consistently inspired and empowered to create the life we desire.

How do you know you are disconnected from your life source?

Hopelessness

“What's the point? None of this matters anyways.”
That's what this feeling sounds like. When you are without a reason to keep going, just know that you have been drained of energy. Maybe you've been mindlessly scrolling, not realizing how you’ve been unconsciously comparing your life to what you’re seeing.

Confusion

This one is a bit difficult to put into words. I think the best way I can explain it is to compare it to the same feeling you get when you've been spinning in circles and feel dizzy. This is what a lot of people refer to as “brain fog.”

Baby, your mind is just cluttered. It's in many places at the same time. It's thinking about everything, everywhere, all at once, which can be physically and mentally draining. This is usually also linked to feelings of worry and anxiety.

Isolation (Physical/Mental)

This is when you can't stand to be physically around people or communicate with others. You might even want to talk, but the words just feel heavy. You may have gone so far in isolating your feelings from people (aka withdrawing yourself and your emotions), that you don't even know how to begin offloading the heavy burden of all the emotions you have become so comfortable keeping to yourself. Isolation can be extremely draining because you are often carrying a load beyond your capacity.

Weakness (Physical/Emotional)

This is extensive fatigue, otherwise knows as: burnout. One of the earliest signs of burnout is physical exhaustion — many of us have become accustomed to living while burnt out, so most of the time we don't even notice that it's abnormal.

Emotional pileup takes a toll on your body. If you don't give the emotions an outlet to be diffused through, your body and brain take the blow.

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How to identify what gives you life:

Note how you feel after interacting with certain people.

Your feelings don’t always lie to you. Sometimes they do, but not all the time. There are some smiles I see that literally light up my day. Some hugs are a reminder to your body that it’s in a safe place. It's important to take note of who those people are because, one day, they'll be your lifeline when you are (figuratively) flatlining. 

Note your productivity pattern.

When are you most productive and focused? That's when your mind is energized and has the capacity to get things done. What in that moment stands out to you? Is it your environment? Is it the time of day? Is it what you are working on? Those are possible life givers.

Note what inspires you to do more.

What external or internal motivations help you to push through when you want to give up? Basically, what's something you look forward to doing or getting. This could be a sweet treat, it could be a date night, it could be an iced out watch. Whatever gingers you and gets you excited, that's a life giver!

More to Come

Very soon I’ll talk about how to immediately identify when your energy has been drained and what caused it. Still working through that one…

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Behold Until You Become

Mirroring a successful figure.

The power of mentorship is so extremely underrated. I think we may have lost sight of the value of having proximity and access to someone that can guide you on a consistent basis, and the impact this can have on you achieving your version of success.

We can blame the false sense of access that social media has given us to people that inspire us.

Enter Stage Left: Parasocial Relationships

These are categorically the situationships of non-romantic relationships. We typically have these relationships with influencers or public figures that we feel connected to, who inspire us in one way or another. Our connection with them stems from an aspect of their lives they freely and sometimes vulnerably share with us.

The problem is: we are disillusioned about the dynamic of the relationship we have with them. We think we know them, their daily struggles, and the entirety of their story — we don’t, and more importantly, they don’t know us. So, we take from the little they share with us that resonates with our experience and we attempt to apply it to our lives.

Now, I’m not saying its all bad — there’s definitely a time and place to learn from these figures, but life throws many curve balls on a daily basis, and a deep level of intimacy with a mentor is necessary to maximize the impact they on your life.

The Good Mentor

This is someone who doesn’t want to make you like them. They are committed to moulding you into who you were made to be. There some key principles to consider in this context:

Have a mentor that is living the life you inspire to live.

Disclaimer: not everyone that inspires you should be a mentor.

There must be an aspect of their life that you wish to attain to at some point. Remember, these are not your peers. It’s possible for your mates to inspire you, but, ultimately, y'all are still battling with the same things. A mentor should have already walked paths you are yet to encounter. They should have fought and won battles you are currently facing, or know you will face at some point in your life journey.

Have different mentors for different things.

We are multidimensional beings and have different aspects of our life that require attention. This is why having different mentors for the various aspects of your life can be very beneficial. Certain people have mastered aspects of life that are tied to your purpose — this is where you need to draw strength and wisdom from.

Having clear boundaries of what each mentor can advice me on is the approach I take to balancing the information I receive. When you’re recieving information from different sources, it may be contradictory sometimes. If you don’t have a clear understanding of the specific aspect of life a mentor is advising you in, you will get tempted to do other things they do that don’t concern you. This will lead to a confused life.

A willingness to be vulnerable.

Has your mentor opened up to you? This is such an underrated aspect of mentorship because we often focus on the results someone has achieved, rather than the process they went through to achieve those results.

One of the main goals of mentorship is to share their failures with you so you don't make the same mistakes. If someone isn't willing to share, at least to some extent, where they have tripped up, they aren't a “serious candidate.”

Value of mentorship

The value of mentorship is immeasurable — seriously! A good mentor will provide you these benefits and many more:

Correction (mirror to you).

They don't just put a mirror in front of you to show you who you are — they stand in front of the mirror with you to show you what they are seeing until you can see it for yourself.

Direction (mirror from you).

They reflect a mirror into the future based on what they see within you. This one you may not be able to see for yourself, but with the direction you receive from them, you can paint a picture of what is possible for you.

Inspiration (mirror for you).

This might be the most important one. They live a life that is worth imitating. You will find yourself in situations beyond your intellectual or emotional capacity, and all you can do is do what you have seen them do, or imagine what they would do if they were in your shoes.

This is the point at which you start to think like them. You will even give advice to the people you mentor in the same way you were given — all this happening while still maintaining your individuality and personality. Basically, you just project the wisdom that you've received in your own unique way.

to be continued

I can go on and on about this topic but I'll stop here. Look out for a second part of this topic where I'll talk about how my life has changed solely because of mentorship and what it took to establish a relationship with my mentor.

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