Most people have some issues or struggles with body confidence. If it’s something that you struggle with, you’re not alone in thinking that you wish you could do something different. No matter the root of your own relationship with your body, you have to make sure that you break that toxic cycle and start feeling good about yourself. Prioritizing self love and getting rid of the negative self talk takes some time.
Did you know that research shows that feeling good about your body has been linked with overall happiness? It doesn’t mean being thin or supermodel hot, it means being able to smile when you look in the mirror, or feel comfortable in the clothes that you wear. It’s very important that you realize that you don’t need to change anything about yourself just to be able to build better body confidence. The way you are right this second, complete with non groomed eyebrows or a missed miradry appointment, you are perfect as you are. However, it also doesn’t mean you can’t make changes if you feel that you need to. We’ve got some things that you can do that don’t involve drastic plastic surgeries or dieting yourself into an eating disorder. Let’s take a look below.
Sit And Reflect: It might help you to have a notebook or a journal to do this with, but you need to understand why you don’t feel confident in the first place. It’s less about physical looks, and more about your mindset. Uncover the thoughts and beliefs that you hold at a deeper level, and consider your current values. By allowing yourself time to ask yourself this question, you can figure out why you suffer low body confidence in the first place. Changes are always, always possible, but you do need to understand the origin of the problem first. This can help you to film differently.
Give Yourself A Little Compassion: You really need to go easy on yourself. You cannot spend 20 years hating the way you look or tearing apart your own personality only for things to change overnight. In fact, you’re going to set yourself up for failure if you try to look at things that way. It’s important that you look at flipping out on your own perspective. There are trillions of cells in your body that work tirelessly to keep you healthy, so rewiring your brain for gratitude and compassion is better than punishment and restriction. Start treating yourself the way you would treat your friends. It’s so easy to compliment friends and family members, isn’t it? If you start doing that, you’re going to find it so much easier to treat yourself with respect.
Change Your Perspective: Connecting yourself to your mirror is important. Sitting down in front of the mirror and setting a timer to stare at your reflection is important. You’re going to watch the way your eyes look and the softness of your mouth, the collarbones along your chest and the length of your neck. If you start pulling yourself into negative self-talk or telling yourself that you are ugly you need to pull yourself back to that task by looking into your own eyes in the mirror. You wouldn’t tell your best friend that she was ugly, so why would you tell yourself?
Start Practicing Gratitude Openly: The body is a remarkable thing, as is your brain. We live in a culture that glorifies unrealistic standards of beauty that only seems to be achieved with immense wealth. If you start being grateful for the body that you’ve got and start looking at it through an aesthetic lens, you’ll be able to remember all of the amazing things it’s doing for you and start appreciating your good physical health. Think about the way your body moves, think about the way it feels when you wake up in the morning. Consider that your body is there and working for you, so be a little more grateful for it.
Stop With The Criticism: Self criticism is difficult to break, but it’s important that you become more self aware. Try to monitor your thoughts and take a mental note of when you are feeling most critical of yourself. You may notice that it coincides with hormone issues or stress. This way, you can stop saying nasty things to yourself and start being more positive.
Adapt To Being Kind: If you have an internal voice that is tearing you down it’s time to teach that voice some manners! Ask who is speaking in your head when you think about your body and the way that you look. Sometimes, it’s you doing the talking and not somebody else. If you were using those words that you use against yourself out loud to other people, would you get a slap for it? If the answer is yes then it’s time to start unraveling that and practice altering your self talk to be more positive.
Work On Visualization: Not only can you do more with self talk you can do more with visualization as well. Work On visualization as well. Picture yourself the way that you imagine you wish you could be, and you’ll find plenty of ways to tell yourself that you are a good and kind person who looks fantastic.
Move Towards Acceptance: It takes time but truly feeling at ease with your body will come from within you. Don’t necessarily look just for acceptance from other people, because the only acceptance that you need is from yourself. Think about how you feel when you have all the body confidence you ever wanted, and imagine yourself wearing something beautiful that really helps you to feel good.
Change Poor Habits: It can take some time to replace those unwanted habits in your body and in your thinking. It sounds strange, but negative self-talk can often be more comfortable than positive self-talk , especially if you’re not used to any kind of praise. Becoming more self aware takes time but you do need to notice when you’re in the habit of being most critical and talking most negatively. This way, you can change those poor thinking habits.
