Anyone else out there doing well with shaping up, but having to work hard on self-confidence? Especially us single folk? I’m working on making a list of things I can do to boost my self-esteem and so forth.

One I thought of, which I mentioned in my journal thread, is getting a nice photo taken. Haven’t done that yet. Now for me, a total photophobe, that’s a big step. Might not be for others.

Please help me add to this list, or share what you’re doing, especially if you’re in the same boat.

Thanks!

Ann

Ann,
I think a lot of people really struggle with Photos, i also dont enjoy having them taken (hence the Rogue Trooper Avatar)
So i know how big a break through it will be for you to put one on here.
Hope you do, and if so i may follow suit
Take care,
Kev

Oh, I am the same way with photos. Sometimes a self confidence boost can come from doing something totally crazy that you wouldn’t ever normally do, but just jumping right in. For example, signing up or a scuba diving class.

A trick that I like to use on those days where your self confidence is at a low, is to have an out fit or pair of shoes that you have specially bought that make you look hot and give you a confidence boost. When your down, put on that special booster outfit and head out the door looking hot and with self confidence. Because wearing sweats or PJs will just make ya feel worse.

Thanks, both of you.

Jenni, I don’t have too many great outfits yet as I keep thinking I’ll do serious shopping when I get to my goal. But I have a few things that do make me feel—well, if not exactly hot, at least attractive. I find I bought a lot of dresses last year because I realized I could get more wear out of a dress as I lose weight, though some of them from last summer are too big in the upper body now.

That one day I walked around St. Augustine, I wore a favorite polka dot skirt and black top, with comfy wedge sandals. I wasn’t completely overdressed, just a little nicer than the average tourist, and I had this sense of breezing around like a Breck girl. I’ll have to do that again.

One of my motivators is to have more choices in where I can shop for clothes.  I am limited to a few stores, and I’d say 90% of my wardrobe is from one store in paticular.  It would be nice to walk into any store and be able to get a size that fits.  I’m working on getting rid of all the “2’s” associated with my weight, (size 20, 2X, 200lbs - will likely go in that order).

Way to go, Catherine!  That’s fantastic!

Cheers,
Julie

Catherine, I know where you’re coming from! Been there (2x) myself. Funny, I do have more selection now, and sometimes it’s intimidating not to know which section of a large store to shop in (misses, juniors, women? what do those even mean?). I still have to figure out what works with my short stature and body type.  If you’re faithful to your plan, it will happen, my friend! I have to gather up my gently-worn 16s and 14s soon and donate them someplace… as soon as I can afford more clothes that fit!—Ann

Okay, I’ve been asking all kinds of people to suggest things, but most of this comes from myself.

Get a professional photo I’m happy with
Get a facial
Get a massage - if those two sound funny, getting a pedicure last year was a major overcoming of my personal boundaries. I’ve never had a facial, and the only massage I’ve had was at the chiropractor’s office, when I was in bad pain.
Have a makeover/makeup advice - as long as they know I prefer to look natural and not too ‘painted’
Get contact lenses (I love my funky rectangular specs, but for certain occasions I would love to be able to wear contacts again. Just not every day. Had eye problems years ago related to rosacea, but those days are over and the scarring has disappeared. Gotta be careful though.)
Practice making better eye contact with strangers as well as people I know
Work on becoming better at receiving compliments with grace and appreciation
Work on controlling embarrassment by simply projecting that I’m not (fake till you make it).

One thing that always boosted my self esteem was high heels! Not the short ones either, go get a pair with the tall skinny heel at Nine West or somewhere. In heels, you not only show off your great legs because you’ve been working out, but you can’t help but stand up straight and look where you are going!

Reading your entry remnds me much of myself a couple of years ago. I was enjoying life, but I was single and I wasn’t sure where to put my free time and energy. I also did what you are doing in keeping a list of things you want to do with your life and ways to improve my self esteem. Keep it up! Sign up for those classes. Leave the house and socialize with people, even if it is easier just to stay home in your pajamas. I always used to think that “Life isn’t happening on my couch!” Enjoy everyday of your life. Improve it where you can. Oh, and keep listening to the Daily Boost! I have to say keeping focused on Scott’s tidbits really helped me shape my life and goals!

I have huge issues with wearing glasses. My prescription is -7.5, which basically means I can’t function without glasses or contacts, but I’ve been wearing contacts every day for the last 7 years. I now even have the day&night;kind so I don’t even have to wear my glasses when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I’m going to get my eyes lasered in a few years, but until then, I’d love to find just one pair of glasses that look good on me. I’m saving for them at the moment and I’ll go hunt for them this summer.

It’s amazing to me how many people look great in glasses, but they don’t think they do. Take someone whose opinion you value, or hopefully like me you’ll get a good optician or assistant to guide you.

I think it’s because of the way I feel wearing them. Because my prescription is so high, I can see with glasses, but looking up, down or sideways out of the corners of my eyes makes me see big blurry things. That then gives me the impression of seeing through a box, which means it feels like there is a barrier between me and other people. But I do think if I buy glasses I really like in summer and give glasses a chance, I’ll hopefully get used to them and forget about “the barrier”. And as long as I’m exercising regularly and feeling good about myself, glasses should really be a minor challenge I love your list by the way, but I think I’ll wait until I’m no longer a poor student so that I can actually afford to do some of the things on my list 4 months to go!

I’m not a poor student, but I’m not a rich professional either, so I’m putting much of my list on hold for now also.

If you have no problems with your contacts, and get more peripheral vision from them, I can understand that.  I had a bad eye problem about 8 years ago so I had to give up contacts, though everything is fine now and I wouldn’t mind having contacts at least for special occasions.

Oddly enough, when I started this conversation here, I also opened up to a couple of my friends about needing to work on self-confidence, something they weren’t maybe seeing or feeling from me because I’m comfortable with myself around the people I know. I’ve gotten a lot of good advice and feedback, some of it comical, some of it more serious, and it’s helped a lot.

My lack of confidence kind of stems from the fact that I lived in the same place until I was 15, and have moved at least once every year since then, which makes it really hard to keep in contact with friends and especially to keep that closeness that you have with really good friends. I’ll be moving again in July, but I’ve met one of the girls who’ll be on my course next year, and I’m making a lot of progress in talking to strangers! That sounds weird, I mean being able to hold a conversation with a person I’ve just met.

By the way, I’ve just read your polka dot skirt annecdote and it sounds like something out of a movie! Maybe that’s an idea, think of yourself as a movie star for a day, and really pretend you are and see if it helps your confidence. I might try that tomorrow and wear a skirt or a dress (something I NEVER do ). Will update you on the effect this has on my self-confidence.

Nienke - 14 April 2008 05:38 PM

By the way, I’ve just read your polka dot skirt annecdote and it sounds like something out of a movie! Maybe that’s an idea, think of yourself as a movie star for a day, and really pretend you are and see if it helps your confidence. I might try that tomorrow and wear a skirt or a dress (something I NEVER do ). Will update you on the effect this has on my self-confidence.

It was kind of a movie feeling, if only a movie in my own head. I think my attitude was, I’m going out in the world and something positive is going to come of it. And it did, even if just for myself. Sometimes when I remind myself that the soundtrack to my day can be upbeat if I choose it, I can make myself feel like I’m breezing through a montage sequence from a 1950’s MGM musical. I also believe in laughing at myself when that’s appropriate, not taking myself too seriously. Sometimes I forget that like everyone else does.

I hope you do try it, Nienke. Let me know how it feels to be the star of your own movie.

Well, I have yet to wear a skirt for more than 5 minutes, but I did dress nicely and start to walk more confidently with my eyes off the ground, and it’s made a little difference. For example, when you look down you look more tired than when you look up, and the past week, nobody’s told me I look tired (which is unusual!). The other thing is that I actually managed to talk to two girls in my exercise class today (another unusual thing). One day soon I WILL wear a skirt or dress, but this is a start

Yea!  Eye contact is a big deal. In business, in friendships, in love relationships. I’ve had to work on it. It doesn’t come naturally.

I just checked back with this thread. This is one of the areas where “life has gotten in the way” more for me than sticking to my calorie parameters and sticking to my exercise regimen. Money’s gotten tighter for me, as I’m sure it has for others, with fuel and food prices up.  I really haven’t done any of the external things on my list, other than a massage from the therapist at my chiropractic office.

To a certain extent my self-confidence has improved over time, just getting used to being in my new skin, so to speak. Also I have had some time to get over some stuff that happened to me last year which I won’t go into here, but really did effect my self-esteem and make me somewhat wary of my interactions with other people.

I really do enjoy my ‘lazy’ weekends at home, though, still exercising and still monitoring my calories, but saving up for a splurge food, taking a nap, browsing in the library, sitting around with conditioner in my hair, that sort of thing.  That’s a treat too, making time for nothing.

kilroyscarnival - 22 March 2008 10:34 PM

Get a massage
Get contact lenses
Practice making better eye contact with strangers as well as people I know
Work on becoming better at receiving compliments with grace and appreciation

Been working on some of these. Massage, check. And I just picked up my trial contacts. Any opinions as to which solutions you like best if you wear soft contacts? I bought OptiFree Express.

I may stop by a department store tomorrow afternoon and see about the makeup demonstration (or the Sephora store.) I don’t wear much makeup… so it’ll have to be light and natural.

Postscript to today, as I found this funny. I popped in the contacts. Tried them out at home a little. My doc did tell me that the lenses would cure the nearsightedness and the astigmatism, but because I now wear bifocals, they don’t help with reading. Still, I drove to a nearby restaurant, and opened the menu and thought, wow, they printed this blurry. I had to squint to see, and after making out the entire menu, silly me ordered what I had there last time, half spinach salad and a slice of barbecue chicken pizza (yummy! The sauce said “Me-emphis” with three syllables, I heard it.) I also had brought a book. I sort of pretended to read but mostly watched the TV monitor in the distance, which looked perfect. So I guess I’ll need to add collapsible reading glasses to my purse if I’m going to work with these things. When I go back at the end of the trial period, I’ll see if we can do some tweaking. (And wow they took some doing to get out, especially with my acrylic nails. I never had them before when I had soft lenses. Removal is a two-index-finger thing, I guess.)

kilroyscarnival - 22 March 2008 10:34 PM

Okay, I’ve been asking all kinds of people to suggest things, but most of this comes from myself.

Get a professional photo I’m happy with
Get a facial
Get a massage - if those two sound funny, getting a pedicure last year was a major overcoming of my personal boundaries. I’ve never had a facial, and the only massage I’ve had was at the chiropractor’s office, when I was in bad pain.
Have a makeover/makeup advice - as long as they know I prefer to look natural and not too ‘painted’
Get contact lenses (I love my funky rectangular specs, but for certain occasions I would love to be able to wear contacts again. Just not every day. Had eye problems years ago related to rosacea, but those days are over and the scarring has disappeared. Gotta be careful though.)

Hi Ann,

I’m glad you brought this thread up again, I missed it the first time.  Its great that you have checked off some things even though life got in the way.

How did you overcome your personal boundaries regarding pedicures?  I was given a certificate for one but gave it away. (But I have had several massages and that has never been a problem).

Also, do you know of anyone who sells Mary Kay Cosmetics?  It has a great line of skin care products and cosmetics and they do give makeovers in your own home.

In March, I got a new pair of glasses that I just love and have received many compliments on but would like to try contacts.  I have worn glasses for over 30 years and never tried contacts.  Are they hard to get used to?