I see a lot of people today who lack self confidence. I feel like it's "normal" or "usual" and accepted for teens and people in their early twenties to have rocky self confidence, but I've notice now a days there's no age requirement for people to be unconfident. I remember when I was a teenager, I always saw the light at the end of the tunnel that made me think, "I"ll like myself when I'm older" or "once I'm no longer in my awkward teen years I'll be confident." Though unfortunately, you will not blow out your candles on your 25th birthday cake and immediately become confident. Confidence is not just something that happens once you reach a certain age, you have to work at it. Sure as you get older you usually are less hypersensitive to fitting in and to your appearance as you might have been in high school, but confidence is still a thing you have to work on and produce yourself. Confidence is not just going to hit you like a lightening bolt.

I would define myself as a very self confident person, especially in comparison to myself a few years ago, but it's still a process. I don't think people understand that you have to constantly work on being confident. Even though you may be very confident in yourself, there are still going to be some days where your insecurities get the best of you. Here are some ways you can start or continue your confidence journey.

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1. Fake it till you make it.

My mom used to tell me this all the time, and I thought she was crazy, but now I know this is literally the most effective thing for me. Basically this means fake confidence until you make it. So even though you might not feel attractive you should carry yourself like your a stunning, gorgeous, and happy with yourself. If you're wearing an outfit that society says isn't for your body type and you don't know how you feel about it, walk around like you think you look amazing. Even if you are fully sure that the answer you have is right, confidently raise your hand and say your answer in class (the worst that will happen is that it will be wrong). This one was the most effective tactic for me but it was definitely the hardest. You're going to feel like the biggest liar in the world. You'll be lying to yourself and the world that you're confident and happy with yourself when your not, but give it time. It was weird, the more I carried my self with confidence and pretended to like myself and the way I looked, the more I actually felt confident and happy with myself.

Contrary to my biggest fear, no one is going to run up to you and yell "I know you're not confident! I know you're faking it!" Literally no one. So fake it until you make it!

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2. Get to know yourself.

There are many ways you can do this. You could just sit down and think about it- think about you're likes and dislikes, your morals, what you stand for, things that make you laugh, things that make you cry, your facial features, your body, etc. You could also think about your dislikes and pet peeves. Think about the way people have treated you that you haven't liked, this could help you figure out how you want to be treated and how you want to treat others.

You're around yourself all the time, so you might as well know and like yourself.

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3. Confidence doesn't mean that everyone likes you, it means you like you.

It's so important to genuinely like yourself because in this world the biggest advocate for yourself, is you. When you like yourself, you don't get as hurt when people don't like you. "okay, okay, but how do I learn to like myself" Well reader, there's a lot of things you can do. Reference above- the more you know about yourself and learn the things you like about yourself is helpful.

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4. Confidence doesn't mean everyone will find you attractive, but you will be happy with the way you look.

I'm a big fan of experimenting with my looks. I love changing my hair, or getting piercings, or changing up my style. I enjoy have a constantly changing look. I learned early on in this process to stop telling people I was going to change my look before I did. If I mentioned to someone I wanted to cut my bangs and they made a face that was enough to deter me. I cared way to much about what other people thought. So now I decide for myself what I want to do with my looks and just do it. There has been many times where I changed my look and completely hated it, but honestly those times did help with my confidence. I learned to laugh at myself and realize that looks are fixable.

One thing I did that I really wish I would have kept up with was I used to look in the mirror and say things that I liked about my appearance. At first I think I could genuinely name one thing, but as time went on the list grew. Also name things about your personality and character you genuinely like about yourself.

Society has a set standard of beauty that is very exclusionary to sizes, age, and race. Although you can't really look to magazines and media to have an accurate depiction of body, race, and age inclusivity- there are so many bloggers, vloggers, internet personalities that challenge society's beauty standard that you can look to for inspiration.

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5. Check your environment.

Honestly the friends you surround yourself with, or your living situation, can play a huge factor in your self confidence and self esteem. Over the years I've definitely have had some friends that would take their insecurities out on me. You could tell they weren't happy with themselves, so they would say back handed compliments to me or be overly critical about my life choices and appearance. Get rid of them. Seriously, if someone that you care about is constantly knocking you down or making you feel bad about yourself, you don't need them in your life. Of course I'm not suggesting you get rid of all your friends that have ever hurt your feelings, but if someone is constantly cutting down your confidence, your appearance, and you- you might want to decide if you need to be around that person that much. I know sometimes cutting toxic people out of your life might be hard depending on factors like if they're related to you or if you live with them, etc. but whatever you decide to do, put your mental health, self esteem and confidence needs first.

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Confidence is definitely a process, but it's so much better than not liking yourself and not being sure of yourself.