I used to not be able to see my reflection in the mirror without picking myself apart at once. I would look to all the things I wasn’t rather than what I was. And my hair wasn’t quite as shiny as hers. It wasn’t that my career was as impressive as theirs. My confidence felt as if it were borrowed — something I put on but never actually owned. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, I was surfing the web and comparing myself to everyone’s highlight reels when I finally asked myself (and I don’t even remember what triggered it) this simple,but life-changing question: STATUS QUO OR REANIMATE What if instead of feeding my insecurities, i wanted to learn how to boost self esteem?
That one small thought was the start of a slow yet profound transformation. Because we know learning how to increase self esteem isn’t just about repeating affirmations or putting on false cheer. It’s about beginning to speak to yourself differently, noticing that you have grown and accepting that your worth was never up for discussion in the first place.
When I first got interested in becoming more confident, the most important thing I learned is that confidence doesn’t happen overnight. This isn’t a bolt of lightning; it’s more of a sunrise — soft, gradual and impossible to overlook once the sun is up. So in the beginning I use to think confidence was having all your answers having everything down or walking into a room fearless, But then that changed. But the reality is, how to be more confident often begins with tiny, quiet choices: saying yes to things that scare you just a little bit, speaking up in meetings or wearing the outfit that makes you feel like yourself again.
And, of course, the greatest enemy of confidence for most of us is comparison. We observe someone else’s success and believe we’re falling short, as if life were a race we hadn’t realized we were entered in. Learning to stop comparing yourself to others is one of the mo liberating things you’ll ever do for yourself. It starts with all of us acknowledging that everyone is on their own timeline. The woman who looks like she has everything together has her own insecurities and loses battles. The friend who looks flawless in photos may be quietly plagued by self-doubt. Once you no longer count your progress in comparison to others, you give yourself permission to grow according to your own timeline.
I can remember the moment when I first realized how toxic comparison had become. It made sense why I wasn’t able to accomplish my goals — I’d been working on the wrong ones. I was leafing through a journal entry from over year ago, and one thing stood out: So many of my goals were shaped by what other people had done. It dawned on me that I wasn’t chasing dreams, I was chasing validation. That’s when I started to explore how to change your relationship with yourself in a consistent, friendlier way.
Changing your attitude isn’t just a matter of flipping a switch and being positive all the time. It’s about awareness and choice. When your inner critic begins secretly muttering that you’re not good enough; how to change your mindset is gently asking yourself if it’s true instead of believing what you’ve been hearing. You begin swapping out “I can’t” for “I’m learning,” and “I failed” for “I’m growing.” This quiet internal shift over time changes the way you show up in every area of your life.
These 6 weeks of self searching I did in my youthful days, there was one thing which made the job all too easy and that was self help books for women. They were my companions on many sleepless nights of doubt and self-doubt. I remember reading women that spoke directly to my heart — women who had fallen apart and pieced themselves back together stronger than before, who encountered loss, fear and self-sabotage yet still found their way to joy. These self help books for women didn’t have all the answers for me, but they did show me a mirror. They let me know that I wasn’t alone in my suffering and showed me how to rebuild my self-esteem from the inside out.
A book in particular recommended writing a letter to the you that you’re becoming. I gave it a shot, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a cup of tea and a candle flickering next to me. The letter began awkwardly and then it blossomed into something beautiful. I wrote about who I would be, a woman who laughed easily and trusted herself and no longer required external validation. That workout was the seed of how to make over your life.
When learning how to reinvent yourself, it’s not about changing yourself from who you are. It’s removing those parts of you that were designed for someone else’s comfort or expectations. Because reinvention is actually coming home — to your true self. This is about rediscovering your passions, creating new boundaries and stepping into the woman you are from each win and mistake.
I thought it was going to be all about IMPROVEMENT. What I didn’t know was that healing would feel more like remembering — remembering my worth, my strength, my voice. The problem of how to boost self esteem became, a passage of compassion. Its how of becoming more confident turned into showing up even when my voice was shaking. And the problem of how to stop comparing yourself to others turned into applauding other people’s success as proof that my dreams were possible, too.
Over time, my mornings changed. While I used to log on to social media first thing, now I’ll open my journal and write three things that day that had made me proud. They weren’t always huge things — sometimes just “I went for a walk” or “I said no when I wanted to.” Those experiences taught me that small acts of self-respect aggregate over time. That is quite simply how you change your mindset: It’s habituating gratitude and courage until they become your default setting.
A second major turning point was when I connected with a women’s circle in my own community, where we shared stories and passed around self help books for women like yet-to-be-discovered treasures. On the flip side, every conversation reiterated for me that you can’t grow in isolation. If we are all rising, we rise faster. That bond of sisterhood became a powerful ingredient in how to reinvent yourself, and why? Because sometimes the version of you that’s waiting to come out is just looking for the right situation in which to do it.
It’s been years ago since that rainy afternoon I first asked myself how to improve self esteem. Today I am still learning, still growing, but I do not quantify my worth by likes or titles or comparisons. But I’ve also learned, in the toughest way imaginable, that self-esteem is not a destination; it’s a practice. Confidence isn’t perfection; it’s presence. And reinvention isn’t about running away; it’s about coming home.
If you are where I once was — confused, small or lost — begin here. How to become more confident, one moment at a time. Stop comparing yourself to others by embracing your story. Tap into these profound teachings from self help books for women. Challenge Yourself Every Day: In How To Turn From Fear Based Thinking To Faith Based Thinking. And more than anything, give yourself the permission to wonder who you feel like trying to be now, and again — until your life truly feels as if it is your own.
Because you can grow. You are not confined to boundaries you set for yourself. And there's nothing at all wrong with believing that who you are as a person — right here, right now — is enough.
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