We spend so much of our time being cheerleaders (which is quite ironic for me as my first job was as a cheerleader for the Birmingham Bullets basketball team!) for our friends, our family and work colleagues. We encourage those around us to "go for it", "believe in yourself", "don't give up" but how much of that do we relay to ourselves. I am forever telling my son to not compare himself to others but then this morning, after hours of scrolling on Instagram found myself editing a photo of myself to the point that I didn't even look like me anymore. I sent it to my best friend completely sure she would give it her seal of approval but her response was not a happy one! The madness about this was that I wanted a photo to post of myself so other celebrants and potential clients could see "me" when in reality what I was going to give them couldn't have been further from me. We live in a world where filters are more accessible than people, where we seek likes and shares over a smile. Covid and the lockdowns it brought with it hasn't helped, sometimes the only interaction we could count on was via social media and a few likes or views certainly passed the time between Boris' announcements! We tend to think more about how others see us rather than how we see ourselves, and make decisions on what we are putting out by considering the validation we will get back. But our own personal belief in ourselves should be all the validation we need. I'm setting myself a challenge this week, every time I give someone a compliment, hype them up when they are feeling low or just wish them all the best on something they have going on....I'm doing it for myself too. Probably not out loud as that would be a little bit odd, but I'm reminding myself that I' enough, I can be a cheerleader for myself as well as for everyone else and I've got this. Just the way I am.
- tdonnelly87