Those Who Mind Don’t Matter and Those Who Matter Don’t Mind.

I’ve become increasingly aware of the fact that I am very overly concerned with what opinions other people have of me for various parts of my life. The top of that list being my appearance. I can’t think of a night out where I haven’t taken a photo of myself and put it up on social media wondering how many likes it was going to get or if people are going to have a positive reaction towards it, it’s always the first thought that comes to my head and then my own opinion follows. This leads to me sometimes having a bad night because of it, of course if I’m feeling crappy and it gets a lot of likes then I’ll feel better, but if it doesn’t do as well it can make me feel bad about myself. WHICH IS UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. It’s the same way you could be complimented a thousand times and receive one criticism and the criticism is what sticks out it your head.

Why do we let the opinion of others rule our life so much? Unless what you’re doing is impacting their life negatively it shouldn’t matter to them, and it definitely shouldn’t matter to you. Can you remember all the positive things people said to you today? For example: “Good morning”, “Thank you”, “Have a nice day” or even bigger things like “You look really nice today”, I can’t but I remember that young girl at work today who was cheeky towards me.

This week (tomorrow to be exact) I am heading over to Liverpool to visit my friend and I’m not going to post a picture of myself on social media. I’ll post of the city and interesting places because I’m away and I’ll want to remember it, I’ll even take pictures of myself on a night out and just won’t post them anywhere.  I don’t want my focus to be on what other people think of my appearance, I want to feel good in myself because I like the way I look. I’m aware this may sound stupid to some people but to me I think it’s important I learn this lesson. If it’s successful I’ll give an update.

I was brave today.

I know when you read that title you’ll think I’ve done something monumental and live changing, but no, I uploaded a video of me singing to Facebook. 

I know this may not seem like a massive fear or anything of significance but to me it’s showing how far I’ve come from as little as 6 months ago. Despite my love of singing I never would have thought of showing anyone, despite people on my Facebook being my friends. I’m proud of myself today and that I didn’t let my low self esteem get the better of me today. Here’s the link in case anyone’s interested in listening: https://www.facebook.com/OriaMurray/posts/10204774464361828

Thanks! 

How to build confidence.

On 2nd November 2015 I had a massive drop in my already low self esteem and confidence. I had myself questioning my character, my intelligence, my likability and basically every other thing you could possibly question about yourself. A falling out with a person I was incredibly close with had me in a complete spiral. This person wasn’t a bad person but they were attributing to my unhappiness, which they were most likely doing unintentionally (however as I do believe in seeing the best in people this may be untrue). Anyway from November right through until 14th February my confidence continued to drop until I was a shell of my former self. It was at 5am on that day I decided to make a change.

(Having been on medication and attending counselling for depression and anxiety for about a month prior to this I can’t fail to note that it has aided me greatly in these changes, and continues to do so, but my lifestyle changes have something to do with it too)

1. My first course of action was removing all the people out of my life who were either taking advantage of me or making me unhappy. In the end this was only two people but I felt a lift almost immediately. I would consider myself quite a generous person, it is actually the only attribute I have continuously liked about myself, so a person taking advantage of me could have done so quite easily without them really realising it themselves. Not that it makes it right, but it’s something I have to point out.
2. Creating a network of close people around me: I had isolated myself from most people for fear of getting hurt or irritating them. It was when I opened up to people I discovered how many people cared about me and that itself was a huge confidence boost.
3. Work: I dove into working, I signed up for more shifts at both of my jobs, tried extra hard at uni, volunteered for collecting for charities and signed up for university societies. All of this meant I had forced social contact with people which meant I had to gain confidence very quickly to adapt.
4.  Projecting positivity (see last blog post).
5. Went on dates: This is an odd one, but I signed up on tinder and spent time going on dates with people, something of which was new to me in the sense I had never went on a date with someone I had never met before. The experience in itself was frightening but I faced these fears and really enjoyed myself, which brings me to my next point.
6. Facing fears: I went on a holiday without my mum for the first time ever, I got on a plane by myself, signed myself up for abseiling down a building, started singing on stages again. All of these slowly built up my confidence one fear at a time.
7. Started eating healthily, I’ve always had weird eating habits, usually involving not eating enough. After about a week of this I felt like a new person, I felt less tired and therefore had a better outlook on the world.
8. Treat yo’ self: I started going for facials, bought nice clothes and makeup, restyled my hair. It may seem superficial but I’m starting to feel better about my appearance and for me that’s a huge deal. 

And that’s it. My eight little points of how I improved my confidence. I only hope it keeps growing and recovers completely from the set back I received.