This post needs no introduction, don’t you think? There are a little over 3 more months left to the year, and wouldn’t 2011 be awesome if all our body image woes were put away? Here are some of my ideas of starting to love your body the way it is… please add your own, too!
Love your best feature. Instead of focusing on the body part you hate, why not emphasize the one that you love? If you hate your nose but love your lips, why not experiment with bright and bold lip colors to show them off? Same with your body – if you love one body part more than the rest, emphasize them and dress them up.
Ban all negative body talk. Make it a point to you and your group of friends to ban negative body talk – whether it’s complaining about your weight or gossiping about someone else – both are as horrible as each other and I recommend to stop it! Anytime you or someone else even starts, don’t worry about coming across rude – just tell them to stop.
Accept people of all sizes. I cannot begin to explain the disgust I felt when an ex-boyfriend made a comment about a larger girl. Thank heavens he’s long gone form my life. I’d suggest you don’t ever be as classless as that – never make comments about other people’s size! Just like eye colors and heights, people come in different shapes and sizes. Learn to accept it and stop judging others or yourself. If everyone looked the same this planet would be extremely boring, don’t you think?
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“Laughter is an instant vacation.” — Milton Berle
Last year I wrote a post, How to Start Building Self Esteem, after speaking to a young reader about her life and insecurities. Since then I’ve been speaking to tons of readers about their lives and an emerging theme I notice is that we could all use a big dose of self esteem and self confidence, because we all have low moments. I also feel that being a woman these days are especially hard – we have so much to do, so many priorities, and so little time for ourselves. Well, no more!
To end this month I thought we’d talk about laughter.
Laughter is so important in our lives, not only to keep us feeling lighter and happier, but can also reduce stress, improve our mood and make us feel happier and better about ourselves. (Read more of the benefits of laughter here.) Here are some ways I bring laughter into my own life, and I hope it can help you out with some ideas as well:
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Not to start the year off on a bad note, but damn December was ridiculous for me.
I had so much stuff going on with college, I had 25 (!!!) compulsory driving lessons, and the stress of dinner parties, people leaving (one of my best friends is going to the US for 8 years!), and countless essay assignments left me having three bouts of illnesses: first, a full blow fever, second a stomach flu straight from hell that went well into Xmas, and then a sinus infection.
The icing on the cake is when I got an infection from the blood test I took, leaving me in a lot of pain and in an arm cast and sling! Not. Fun.
However, lying in bed feeling sorry for myself just didn’t cut it, so I wrote this list on a piece of paper while in bed next to my puke bucket (how’s that for a pretty picture?!) for all of us who may be having a bad day. I tried some of this out myself and they really do work to lift up your mood.
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Happy New Year, everyone! Can you believe it? 2010! Now that it’s a brand new year – and a brand new decade – it’s time to start living with no regrets and achieve your dreams.
Have you decided what your New Year resolutions are? I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with them … I am so determined on the 31st about my goals, but by the 2nd of January I’ve forgotten all about them!
However, I do have a resolution this year to start off the new decade, but if you don’t really have any resolutions, may I suggest some? Here’s a little dose of inspiration for you to start the year off. I hope you like them:
- Tell that special someone how you feel about them. Open up … life is short.
- Give up the grudge from the past. Forgive and move on.
- Celebrate everything.
- Stop gossiping. Not a good look on anyone.
- Focus on the good, not the bad.
- Take risks often.
- … But always listen to your gut. It’s ALWAYS right.
As always, feel free to add your own to my list! Also, if you do have any practical New Year resolutions, I’d love to hear them. As well as listening to my own advice above (I like to practice what I preach), my resolution for 2010 is that I am going to become an early riser and a morning person.
These past few months my sleep has been insane; some nights I find myself up until 6am doing who-knows-what. I am determined to kick my night owl ways because I feel it’s really affecting my health and my social life – I can never do stuff in the mornings and afternoons because my lazy bum is still in bed! No more.
Do you have any New Year’s resolutions and goals? How is this going to be your year? ;) And to make sure we’re still sticking to our goals, I’ll do a follow-up post to see how we’re all doing and to give you a virtual kick in the butt if you’ve slacked off! ;)
Update 01/01/2010: Wow, it felt so weird typing “2010″! Happy New Year! How did you celebrate? Did you do anything crazy or did you have a quiet evening? I ate way too much as usual, so I ended up having a stomach ache (story of my life!) but I had a great time with family and friends. The picture above was my ‘outfit’ for the night, but I believe it was a bit ridiculous so I got a few laughs and stares!
I was reading a (slightly) old issue of Cleo Australia and one article, ’28 is the Perfect Age’ stood out to me. (Oh and how cool is the cover? This was the first issue in Cleo’s ‘new look’ and I think it’s great!)
The article wrote about a recent survey that was taken of 4,000 women, and it seemed that 28 was the age where they were the most happy, confident, secure in their relationships, friendships, income and career. Cleo put this to the test asking readers what their ‘perfect’ age was, and sure enough, the average was 28.3.
I’m intrigued! I had always heard the whole “women are the best in their early 30s” because the 20′s are all about discovery, etc, and 30 is when everything falls into place.
What do you think of this research? For my older readers, would you agree with this? What was life like at 28? I’ll have to say that by 28 I hope to have my life sorted (career-wise, etc.) so I would love if this age-old saying is somewhat true.
In the meantime, this got me thinking about what age of my life I was the happiest so far. I know most of my readers are not 28 yet, so if you’re younger – what age did you feel was your ‘best’ so far? I think mine would be a toss up between this past year (being 20/21) or when I was 15. … But I definitely know the best is yet to come! ;)
Saying no, is personally one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn to do. I know it sounds so stupid, but I can never say no because I always feel guilty for letting people down!
However, as I’m sure anyone would know, saying yes all the time and not creating certain boundaries with people is very hard. You feel guilty, let them down, are overworked – no one’s happy. You also end up feeling overwhelmed and in time, resenful. You turn into a people pleaser (not good) and before you know it, you’re doing everything for everyone else and not for yourself (does that make sense?!) I know some people may laugh; after all, saying the word ‘no’ only requires opening your mouth and uttering a syllable; however, this is a great problem for some.
Saying no is important for many reasons. First of all, you need to create boundaries with people. Saying yes all the time could make your peers lose respect from you and take you for granted. Just because you say no once in a while to your friend doesn’t mean the friendship is over, right? Sometimes you just don’t feel like doing what the other person suggests!
I remember having someone calling me up at obscene hours every night when she was going through a breakup. I would still pick up because I wanted to be there for her, but I could’ve just said no to phone calls after midnight. Instead I would wake up the next day feeling resentful towards her, and not to mention – freakin’ tired!
Whether it’s saying no to a close friend, a complete stranger or your boss, here are some ways to say ‘no’ nicely – after all, I think the only reason why saying no is so hard is because you want to be ‘nice’ and you don’t want to feel guilty. But it’s seriously time to set some boundaries before you go crazy. From a former people pleaser, here are my tips – safe to say I think I’ve finally learnt how to say no, minus the guilt.
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Confidence doesn’t mean you have to be the life of the party or being loud and bossy (that’s arrogance!); it’s all about loving yourself and being able to show off your talents and great personality.
- Wear bright, bold red lipstick. It demands attention and just makes you feel so powerful. Try it!
- Don’t slouch. Stand up straight when walking with your head held high. You’re an amazing person, now act like it!
- Remind yourself of what you love about yourself everyday. Put a post-it on the fridge. Keep it as your ‘welcome’ note on your cellphone. Tell your spouse to repeat it every morning like he’s singing the national anthem.
- Smile. When you smile, your body releases endorphins that provides the energy that helps make you feel great about yourself. Try smiling at strangers too, the feeling you get when they smile back is a great confidence booster too.
- Have a favorite feel good song/mantra to repeat to yourself when things go wrong. One song I’ve always loved is Yellowcard’s ‘Believe’. It goes, everything is gonna be alright, everything is gonna be alright, everything is gonna be alright, be strong, believe. Love it!
What are some of your confidence boosters? :-)
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