Tackling Anxiety & Being More Confident

Tackling Anxiety & Being More Confident

I'm really excited to be back writing on this blog, it's been a long time. One of the main reasons I stopped writing on here was that, at the time, I massively lacked confidence. I was so anxious and nervous that somebody I know would read it or see it and work out that it was me. There have been so many opportunities in my life that I have turned down out of fear of what other people would think/say. It has taken me 23 years but I have finally reached a point where I'm not really bothered what other people think or if they have anything negative to say. The main takeaway point here is if there is something which you enjoy or a positive opportunity available to you, just say yes and do it. Don't ever dull your shine or your sparkle through fear of what others may think. In this post, I'm going to talk about a couple of things I did to tackle my anxiety and become more confident.

The main thing that helped me to have more confidence in myself was looking at the people that I surrounded myself with. I have always considered myself to be an open, honest and kind person and because that is who I was, I just assumed that everybody else has the same nature but unfortunately, they don't. I constantly gave people second/third/fourth chances, even though they had already shown their true colours and this had such a negative impact on my mental well being. It is so important to surround yourself with people who are positive and will make you feel good about yourself. There are too many people around who will do anything they can to bring other people down simply because they hate to see others succeed. The friendships and relationships I have right now are, too put it simply, the ones I know are going to last me for the rest of my life.

          

     

Another thing that helped me in regards to tackling my anxiety, was saying yes to and doing, everything that scared me. Even simple things, like joining a gym, because I was too afraid of exercising in front of others in case I was judged or laughed at. I'll be honest, this is isn't an easy thing to do, there were so many times where I just thought, 'I could just go and hide out at home watching Netflix in my PJs and not have to do something I'm scared of', but every single thing I achieved or experienced made me feel just that little bit more confident. Of course, there are still things that I probably would never do, like sky diving and bungee jumping, but at least that is due to a more understandable and realistic fear of heights/falling, as opposed to confidence. It is important to push yourself to take risks and do things that are out of your comfort zone, otherwise, you will spend your life regretting it. 

Also, an important thing for me when tackling my anxiety was keeping myself organised and motivated. This might not sound like something that will reduce anxiety or boost confidence, but for me, it really did. I would constantly set myself goals and targets of things I wanted to achieve. I would write daily to-do lists and goal lists and push myself to complete them. For me, this really helped because when I become unmotivated I find it so easy to just hide away and spend my free time just lounging around and reading or watching TV and not really doing anything. Don't get me wrong it's still nice to have day or two where I just do nothing and relax, but it's equally important to have days where you motivate yourself to do new things and just get things done. At the end of 2019, I set myself a big list of goals that I want to achieve in 2020 and restarting my blog was on that list, so, here I am. I'm aware that it's taken a good few months into the year for me to do it, but at least it is now done. I'll probably write another post about my life organisation/to-do lists/goal settings another time, as it might be something that others would find useful. 

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

Ciao Maddie xoxo