Growing up, I was always a shy, anxious and relatively unconfident person who never really opened up to people until we became close friends. To this day, most of this still rings true. But recently, I feel like I’ve finally grown more comfortable with my personality and that I am more confident with who I am as a person.
I think a big reason for my character growth is the way I spent my summer. I was absolutely committed to the grind– working three jobs, while playing on two softball teams and dog-sitting whenever possible. I was so busy this summer that I swear I barely had time to sleep! That being said, it also meant that instead of focusing on other people and their opinions, as I have done for much of my life, I was able to forget about these fears (for the most part) and naturally come out of my shell. As the summer progressed, I found that more and more people kept referring to me as “outgoing” or an “extrovert,” which was just insane to me because those were two words I never thought would be used to describe myself.
Although I attribute my busy schedule as a major factor that affected my growth, there are smaller things I actively worked on throughout the summer that helped me become my favourite version of myself. A few of the things on this list include:
Pursing New Passions and Hobbies
You’re probably thinking that this one doesn’t make any sense. I mean, I just mentioned that I barely had any free time this summer. But that’s precisely my point. Since I didn’t have a lot of free time, I wanted to make the most out of the time I did have. While I focused on continuing some of my pre-existing hobbies like reading and juggling, I also wanted to gain some new hobbies. The main hobby that I started this summer was creating fun videos for my friends and I. While this may seem insignificant to some, it quickly became my favourite part of every week. Finding a new passion was so important to me because I feel the most confident when I’m happy and having fun.
Focusing on Supportive Relationships
Honestly, this one was more of an accident in the way it came about. My social circle became pretty small this summer because I was always busy. I tried my best to stay connected to all my friends, but it was hard to balance every aspect of my life, so this one slipped a bit. This caused me to surround myself with only my closest friends and family, which ended up being crucial for my growth, as these are the people who always support me and want to see me shine. I felt safe and supported enough in these relationships to work on myself without the fear of being judged. Knowing that I had the support of these people to fall back on allowed me to try new things and overall become more confident in myself.
Overcoming Social Pressures
I don’t feel social pressure to be a certain thing, it’s more that I’ve always felt like I’m being judged for who I am and the choices that I make. Whether this was a real fear I had or just exaggerated in my head, it has always affected me. But to grow in my personality and become more confident, this was something that I tried to forget about, and my busy summer definitely helped with that. Life is too short to spend it worrying about other people, and that’s something that has finally stuck in my brain. Besides, life is never that serious! So, you just have to live the life you want, because it’s yours after all.
Embracing Change
This one seems obvious, but it’s so true. Change can be scary, especially when it means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. One of my best friends once told me that your comfort zone will kill you. Honestly, this is something I’ve carried with me ever since I heard it because I realized just how true it is. I don’t want to live a life where I don’t experience new things or try to push my limits. But to do this and live life the way you want to, you must be willing to embrace change and welcome all the uncertainty that comes with it.
I don’t think I can accurately explain how different I feel now compared to who I was last year, which is why I wanted to talk about it. I’ve always had a lot of goals for myself that felt so unattainable because I didn’t think I was the “right type” of person to achieve them. But this summer made me realize that if I believe in myself, I can do and be anything I want, as cheesy as that sounds. This article was a lot more vulnerable compared to what I usually write about, but I thought that it could help those who have also struggled with feeling confident in who they are.