There's always this poisonous barb in the back of my head luring me in and telling me that maybe I'm just dead. But not really dead, its not a dumb, parasitic barb. Just dead in my head and clearly exaggerating the good that lies in my stead. After all, what true good is someone who's not all right in the head?

It goes away and I wane, and I start to feel strong and sane. I feel maybe the things swirling around in my brain are not just caged beasts but like songs with refrains, like cells with membranes. Whole, complete, useful.

Yet as I get confident it yells at me to be confident I'm not confident. I confidently yell at it to shut the hell up and stride forward, but then the traits I'm confident in are told to be less confident, and others tell that its not good enough to be confident, and then I'm less confident. But I'd only be good if I was more confident, you see, there we go, the dilemma in the madness, the plum in my proverbial pudding. I think I'm too good yet not good enough all at once.

What the **** am I?

I'm my own strongest motivation yet my own personal hell. All the things I say sound brilliant yet ridiculous all at once and its just stuck swirling inside my head and its beautiful and disgusting. I'm a genius yet an idiot. Gifted yet totally talentless. I can't catch which way sometimes what it is. Am I too ******* myself or am I just fooling myself into thinking I'm something I'm not and no one has the heart to tell the fool she's not special?

Why would anyone ever make humans like this?

I do know one thing I was a fool about, though. The one thing that I like to forget that's in my head.

That when it comes to the disorder that plagues my synapses, I'm not that special. It has its good times and its bad. But I had been so good lately I...

I was confident that I would just stay better.

That's the one thing I'm confident I was wrong about, because today I did something that normally would make me weep for joy and I felt nothing. Feeling nothing about something I love so much hurts more than I can bear.

What the **** am I?

I was so confident a few months ago. And parts of my head are still confident now. But I don't know who to trust anymore when all I've heard is nothing and no. It makes me feel adrift in an open sea, and the worst part is I thought I knew the waters below me, but now I can't tell where I am at all.

I'm confident that right now that I'm lost.

Achieving self-confidence and self-worth can be difficult when there are so many outside factors in the world that are constantly weighing in on people at all times. Once you achieve self-confidence however, you can truly achieve happiness. Being confident in one’s self has nothing to do with other people and their opinions, once this concept is understood, one can look at themselves in a way in which they can love themselves for who they genuinely are.  In order to achieve self-confidence, one must know themselves, accept themselves for who they are, be themselves without worrying about other’s opinions, and always do their best.
The first step in the journey to self-confidence is to fully know who you are, inside and out. Once you identify your flaws, your assets, and your likes, you can then further develop into a well rounded and unique individual. It is important to become independent because being independent creates self-confidence. If you know that you can do anything that you need to do without feeling uncomfortable, only then you can become confident in what it is that you are doing. Whether you like to paint, write, collect things, make things, whatever it may be, dive into it head first and don’t blink twice. If you want to do something, then you should do it. Doing what you want to do is very important because it does not matter what anybody else thinks you should do. What’s important is knowing what you want to do and feeling one hundred percent confident in doing it, regardless of what outside circumstances or people tell you otherwise. Once you figure out who you are, you can be confident in knowing exactly who you are, exactly what you want, and exactly where you want to go in life.
The next step in becoming a self-confident individual is to accept yourself for exactly who you are. Once you know exactly who you are, it is much easier to accept yourself, your flaws, your mistakes, and your opinions. Once you accept yourself you can then love yourself and all of yourself. Every single person is different, unique, and complex in so many different ways that you absolutely cannot compare yourself to anybody else. What you’re doing when you compare yourself to somebody else is tearing down your self confidence and setting yourself up for disappointment. There is not one definition for beauty, nor is there just one definition for smart or funny. You must also keep in mind that just because somebody else is smart and beautiful, does not mean that you are not smart and beautiful. You must keep the mindset that when you love yourself, it’s a lot easier for other people to love you as well. Once you truly become happy with who you are, that will shine through and you will radiate happiness wherever you go.
Once you know yourself and accept yourself, it is important to always be yourself. You now know who you are and what you like, so there is no reason in hiding that. If you are out with friends and they want to go see a scary movie and you absolutely hate scary movies, don’t be afraid to tell your friends exactly how you feel. They may end up going without you and that’s fine. People always appreciate somebody who is truthful and can make decisions for themselves. If you pretend to like what everybody else likes then you will become lost and your self-confidence is going to go right out the window. If you are comfortable with yourself and what you want, then you should have no problem making decisions for yourself and saying no to people. If you have an obsession with old newspaper articles then put them up in your house, on your fridge, or on a bulletin board. No matter how different your likes may be from those of others, you must embrace what you like. Don’t hide them away. Show them off to the world, show yourself off. If you can be yourself and make your own decisions, disregarding anybody else, then you are on your way to self-confidence.
The last step in achieving self-confidence is to always do your best. As simple as this sounds, it is greatly impactful on one’s self-confidence. If you always try your best no matter what, then you will never have a reason to feel bad about yourself. What more can you ask from someone than to always do their best? At the end of the day if you know that there was nothing that you didn’t try your best doing, then you can go to sleep feeling confident and fulfilled. What is important about this step is to apply it to even the smallest of tasks. Even if you are having a terrible day at work, you must at least try your best or you will feel bad about it later. For example, your boss may ask you to sweep the floor. You may not think that something so little as sweeping the floor can impact your self-confidence, but it most definitely can. Sweep underneath the tables and in all of the hard to reach corners, because it’s only going to take a fraction of a minute longer and at the end of the day you can say that you did your best and that you are proud of yourself. You might have a terrible boss, but you at least don’t have to question whether or not he may be right about you being a bad employee, because you will know that you are the only one who sweeps the corners and does your job to the best of your ability and so therefore it will not matter what your boss says or thinks. You will have no reason to doubt yourself if you know that there was nothing else that you could have done to do a better job.
Achieving self-confidence is truly as easy as following these four simple steps. Once you know who you are, accept who you are, be who you are, and always try your best, you will be self-confident and happy with yourself. Once you choose to love yourself for who you are and you achieve self-confidence, the possibilities in life are truly endless. Self-confidence will guide you and help you to live a self full filling, happy, and exciting life.