About Self-Confidence (and Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

Self-confidence… What a tough subject I chose for my comeback in the blogosphere! After all, one of my favorite songs says “I’m only happy when it’s complicated” (it’s “Only Happy When It Rains” by Garbage).

Anyway, few months ago, a fellow blogger (we are members of the same Facebook group of bloggers and entrepreneurs) asked if someone could write a guest post for her, since she was abroad and for some reasons she couldn’t update her blog.

She wanted a post about confidence. I wrote a draft but she rejected it because she wanted something about top tips to gain confidence, not a reflexion about it.

But I was happy about how it turned out so I decided to keep it for my blog and here it is:

In “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” Truman Capote wrote “Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot”. It’s just one of the many beautiful sentences you can find in that novel and it’s so true, even if I think that “anyone” should be you.

Self confidence is “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities”. There’s a world in these words (forgive the pun). I could write for hours about confidence and surely I would still miss something.

Self-confidence can be a gift, something we naturally own. Or it can be a struggle and a great achievement.

Personally, I don’t know how I became self confident, I know it can sound crazy but probably I simply realized I am!
I never considered myself a very confident person, actually, but one day, while I was chatting with some friends/colleagues, they told me “you’re so confident, it shows” and I replied “really? I never thought about it” and they both agreed they could tell by the way I walk, the way I talk and so on.
So, probably I never thought about my self-confidence because I shouldn’t have to.
Can some of you relate?

Of course I go through difficult moments, is there anybody who doesn’t? Please, I want to meet her/him!
I wonder about many things. I wonder if I’m beautiful, because sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and I see a good looking girl while sometimes I see… a monster! So I ask myself which “sometimes” tells the truth, haha! I wonder if I’m smart, if I’m capable of doing something and so on.
So, I think self-confidence is something that needs to be nurtured.

When it comes to being confident and comfortable about ourselves, fashion can be a very good ally, don’t you think?
Clothes, accessories and make-up can give us some extra self-esteem. Some women can’t live without their beloved high heels, others wouldn’t go out without some lipstick on. Is that a bad thing? Can we already call it comfort zone? I, for one, realized that feeling good about ourselves can be a matter of small things. I feel comfortable when my hair is clean and scented, when I have glowing skin, when I am in good shape because I exercised.

I think that you have read, at least once, some tips to improve your posture, the gesture you have to avoid during a job interview and I’m sure you know that men find confident women extremely attractive.
So, one thing is sure. Self-confidence is one of the main ingredients of success, in every field of life.

I started this post with a beautiful quote and I’d like to end it with another beautiful one, by Edward Estlin Cummings.
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit”.