to you, it’s time to unpack the heady stuff. We all have our own personal insecurities that other people won’t necessarily understand, whether it be curly hair that you wish was straight, freckles you wish weren’t there, weight you wish you’d never gained, or a top lip that (in your opinion) could do with the Kylie Jenner treatment. Your friends can tell you that you’re beautiful the way you are until they’re blue in the face, but no number of compliments will fix your self-confidence. It’s an inside job.
The recent body positivity movement is a huge step in the right direction for men and women of all shapes to feel more confident about themselves, but I can also see how it might have the opposite effect. Where once it was the fitspo models making you feel ‘less than’, now the people you should be able to relate to are making you feel that way because you’re not ready to love the skin you’re in. The current trend has good intentions, but it can still feel like a judgement when you aren’t measuring up to your peers.
Try to keep in mind that it’s not a competition. It’s very easy to post a picture and a positive caption, but that may not reflect how that person really feels. They say the quickest way to change the way you feel is to change the way you think, and they tell you, ‘Wake up one day and decide you’re confident, and in six months maybe you will be’, but if that doesn’t work for you, give yourself a break!
On my least confident days (usually when I have some event to attend), I pull out a standby feel-good outfit and do my hair and makeup, and that usually flips my switch. Find your feel-good steps!
Contributors
I asked my contributors if there’s one thing they do or wear that gives them instant confidence…
‘Black skinny jeans. They go with everything, you can wear them anywhere, and I have about twenty pairs!’
—Jane
‘Bright lipstick, doing my hair properly, and wearing heels usually works a treat for confidence too. But only comfortable heels…limping in pain and confidence don’t tend to work together! Oh, and a favourite handbag!’
—Jen
‘Can I pick two?! If I have an important event or a night out, I always make sure I have a great workout earlier in the day—it makes me stand taller and I just feel cleansed! I always feel like a rock star after a great haircut, too.’
—Joanna
‘A well-fitting pair of jeans and a great pair of heels give me a real boost in confidence!’
—Emma
‘Nice underwear; it always makes me feel sexier, and we all need a bit of that, don’t we?’
—Liza
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Let’s Get Real
It’s quite possible that your current as-is style isn’t entirely what you imagine it to be. In your mind, you may be colourful and vibrant, but in reality, you may reach for more black than you realise. Maybe you think you’re dressing for comfort when in fact your clothes are ill fitting and as a result unflattering. These are the first examples that come to mind, because they are discoveries I made about my own style when I documented what I wore every day for a month.
My first thought when looking at the thirty-day overview was that I do not get dressed unless I must. I’ve read countless self-help books that tell you the most productive people get up early, make their bed, and get dressed every morning no matter what. I would love to tell you I get up at 5 a.m. and have an off-duty jeans and T-shirt combo that I slip into before tying my hair in a messy bun, slicking on some gloss, and heading out for the school run. I do not.
Fun fact: Several years ago (at school drop off), I was waving off my daughter and about to walk home when another mum stopped me. I hadn’t really spoken much to the other parents, since they all seemed to know one another and I was a solid ten years younger than most—it’s more varied now, but at that time I was very much in the minority as a young—mum, so it took me by surprise. She didn’t make much small talk before asking me, ‘Who do you live with?’
To give a little context, I was nine months pregnant at the time. My daughter was six, so this woman had seen me at school for more than a year, and whether this was just her question or a collective enquiry I’ll never know. Nor will I know her true motivation, but after answering, ‘My husband’, and not having much else to say, we parted ways. It wasn’t until later that I realised what (I assume) she was really asking. I looked young for my age as it was, but I had no glam routine to walk the two minutes from my house to go to school. She assumed that I was either too young or at least of too little means to live independently from my parents in an affluent area.
This isn’t something that bothers me a stitch now, but at the time the playground politics really got to me. Now I look around at pickup and see the glam mums chatting, the working mums rushing, the mums who have come however they were dressed at home (HOLLA!), and of course the dads…who don’t seem to be nearly as concerned by any of this as we do.
Just because I turn up to school in my pyjamas (joke! I haven’t yet, but the minute Milo is old enough for me not to get out of the car, I will consider it a legitimate option) doesn’t mean I don’t care about what I wear. Just because I go barefaced to the supermarket doesn’t mean I don’t love (and I mean truly love) me a new lipstick—it just means that I didn’t prioritise those things on that day. What I learned from my outfit experiment was that I could probably use a ‘uniform’ to fall back on for those lazy days, but more than that, I learned that comfort is my motivator. Oh, and I’m never going to iron anything, so I will stop buying things that need ironing.
Who Am I Again?
My blurb is starting to fill out a little now, isn’t it? Let’s condense it into some bullet points—join me with your own, won’t you?
•Young mum
•Still struggles with age appropriate style
•Enjoys comfort dressing
•Pretends she’s not still intimidated by the other mums at school
•Refuses to iron
•Warm/deep colour palette
•‘Apple’ shape
•Still wishes she was Jessica Simpson a bit a lot
I’m looking for a style that flatters me but doesn’t push me too far out of my leggings and sweatshirt uniform while I’m at home and makes me feel put together but not too formal at work. I also may need to work more on my outlook than my outfits when it comes to the school run…unless I’m prepared to do full hair and makeup to come home and sit in front of a laptop. That doesn’t sound like something I’d do, but we’ll see!
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