Self Conciousness

Everyone is self conscious. We have an innate desire to be liked. Our wellbeing depends on it. The problem is, our self conscious desire to be liked, can cause us problems and emotional distress. The challenge? How to get the balance right.

One of the things bullies do is they make us self conscious. They try to convince us that people don’t like us because of something we did or didn’t do. This makes us doubt ourselves. Maybe WE aren’t someone people like. This is what makes us self conscious.

We don’t even have to be the target of the bully. Just knowing that they have attacked someone for whatever it is will make us worried that we might get attacked to.

Becoming self conscious makes us self censor ourselves. We want to be liked and not attacked so we avoid doing things we may actually like in order to avoid not being liked. This is why it’s so stressful.

What is the solution? To decide you are going to do you regardless of what others think. And yes, this does take courage. But if you really really like something and find joy in it – don’t let someone else convince you it’s not cool. It is cool. And I assure you, there are people who will love you for it.

Another way to overcome self consciousness is to act as if you are confident. And then, pretend that you are. Think to yourself, what would a confident and happy person do in this situation. Then do that and pretend. If you pretend enough, you actually overcome the insecurities.

Will this always work? Maybe, maybe not. The bullies are going to bully regardless of what you do, so why not do you? Their negativity is on them.

What I found was that the more I was myself, the more I drew genuine people to me. The bullies still existed, but they had no power over me and my friends because, we honestly didn’t care what they though. We were geeks. We had our own set of friends and we didn’t need them.

So, the next time you see someone being brave – congratulate them and praise them. Tell them their outfit looks cool. Boost your friends and make them feel good about themselves. That way, when a bully tries to attack them, they will have the confidence to know, the bully is the one with the problem.