self esteem boosters

Anonymous asked: So in my apartment complex we have a gym for the residents. I want to start going to the gym and try to get in shape, but I'm embarrassed to go because the only thing I know how to use is the treadmill...

It’s terrifying, I’m with you! Going to the gym is like walking into a new world and everyone has their headphones in and is super into their machine/workout. That is actually a positive! They aren’t looking at you. They’re thinking about how much they’re lifting, trying not to fall over or throw up, or hoping they aren’t using a machine wrong. I’ve been going to my gym for two years and I still tentatively approach machines like a scared animal. I walk by, circle it, do some bicep curls, see if I can spy on someone using the machine and then try to replicate it.

Now, I don’t advocate machine usage. They don’t require stabilizing muscles which is a big downer. You want to work as many muscles as you can like when you’re squatting, deadlifting, shoulder pressing etc. But I know that even squat racks are intimidating. I have asked many a man if he can please grab the barbell that someone has left on the top rung so I can reach it and just recently had someone stop me mid-workout to ask why I was using safety bars on the squat rack. Don’t ask someone mid-workout. And it was so I don’t fall on my ass with a 150 pounds on my shoulders, sir.

Most gyms will give you a walk-through or even one free trainer day. You never have to hire the trainer but you can ask ‘what the hell does this work?’ a thousand times. Even if it’s just the front desk person walking you through, you can still ask. Also, there are pictures on the machine that demonstrate what to do. If you’re nervous, take a walk through, do some workouts you know, and secretly spy on the machines and try to remember the names then google them when you get home. Bodybuilding.com has a great index of workouts per muscle and all the machines/free weights to do them with videos!

There’s this great article on Nerdfitness about having 20 seconds of courage (a la We Bought A Zoo when Matt Damon sees his wife sitting in a cafe and makes himself have 20 seconds of insane, embarrassing courage to go speak to her). Promise yourself 20 seconds of insane courage. Hey, look, you’re in the weight room and no one is staring at you. You’re standing at the lat pulldown machine. Awesome! You googled this one last night and know how to work it. You can’t figure out how to fix the seat but you can ask that nice looking girl/guy standing near you and they won’t mind one bit.

I promise every singe person who has ever stepped foot in a gym wanted to shit themselves because they were scared and confused and looked around like a lost puppy until someone stepped in and offered help or they stumbled through it on their own and now they own that weight room. No one is looking at you. Headphones in, eyes on yourself in the mirror, no one else exists. Unless you’re doing this

Then I can’t help you.

Anonymous asked: i have really bad self confidence. first of all i am a red head which i get tesed for and then i have heaps of freckles nearly all over my body. My legs, arms, face, chest etc. Also i am extremely hairy i have blonde hair but still its so noticable. I have hair on my face and im a girl so its so discusting i dont just have a little bit i have heaps i have a hairy back, arms belly, chest, neck, hands etc. i try to cover it up with clothes in summer. plz help :( i also have divorced parents too.

You are so lucky to be a redhead, to start. Let’s talk about how we all want something else: I’m a blond but I would die for redhead that I would look really, really stupid with, and I only have freckles on my cheeks in the summer but I risk skin cancer and avoid putting too much sunscreen on my face because I want them to come out. Everyone has hair, we’re mammals. Some have more than others. Society has just trained us to hate it. Remember, you can always wax it or laser it off if you really care. You can dye your hair. You can cover up freckles with foundation. But you’ll still find something to hate because we live in a society that has made all of us deeply self conscious. Pick out the things you like - your brain, your personality, your killer sense of humor - and remind yourself of them out loud every single day. That’s what matters even if you strip everything else down to bone. You get one body - you can maim it, change it, dye it, cut it, burn it, tattoo it, wax it, cover it up, it’s still the one you’re going to have until you die, so fall in love with it. It takes time, but you can always get there.

Also:

Anonymous asked: a year ago i changed my eating habits because i was overweight. i ended up losing 54 pounds in a year. but the beginning of september 2011, i had a fear that anything i ate would make me gain my weight back. i went to a therapist and nutrrionest all year to get over my paranoia of food. ive gotten better. last night i had a piece of cake at my dads birthday party for the first time in 6 months & i feel so guilty and fat. i dont know how i can stop feeling like this:( i try and try :/

This is the problem with losing weight in a destructive manner, with a negative perspective of ourselves. You’ll never love yourself thin if you don’t love yourself fat (or chubby, or rail-thin, or obese, or sick, or scarred). Conquering your bad relationship with food relies on loving yourself and reinventing your view of your self. Is it easy? Absolutely not, but you have to persevere. Every single day you have to wake up, look at yourself in the mirror before even brushing your hair or washing your face, and pointing out two things you like about your body and three you like about your personality. Even if you don’t believe it at first, it’ll get easier to find things as you go along. I can now happily say I’m compassionate, kind, and giving, and that my hair looks nice this short and I really like my legs. And I mean those things now. I can promise that I haven’t always.

Anonymous asked: I'm ugly, fat, and will be for the rest of my life. My hair never looks good unless I go to the salon and is always this nappy, choppy mess. I want to shave my head (buzz/butch cut) and other than looking like my brother, I fear the stigma of being a near-bald girl. My mom and I have already argued over this.

All I hear is a bunch of self-deprecation. You’re never going to get over feeling ugly/fat/whatever feelings until you fix it yourself. I can guarantee that other people don’t think that, but it doesn’t really matter becauseyoufeel that way. You have to tell yourself what makes you beautiful every single day, even if you don’t believe it at first. Get over your hair, your body, your face, and compliment what’s inside you. Are you kind? Compassionate? Super zen about things? Figure it out. Love it. Accept it. If you want to buzz your hair off then, go for it, but don’t do it because you hate your hair. I just chopped all my hair off, but not because I hate it, because I needed a change.

Anonymous asked: Any advice for a late bloomer going to take their road test? I'm extremely nervous about failing because of the parallel parking and I feel like everyone will be disappointed in me if I don't pass the first time.

Lots of people take it more than once. Two of my best friends did. One drove down a Do Not Enter and one hit the curb. It’s scary, but it can be done on one try. Don’t panic. Practice a lot. It’s mostly nerves that screw people over. Breathe, relax, and don’t demand yourself to pass it the first time. And I didn’t have to parallel park. I still barely can.

Anonymous asked: I absolutely hate my skin color. I'm a dark-skinned black girl and I hate it. I don't know what to do, because I know I should be proud and happy with who I am. Please help me.

Everyone hates stuff about themselves. I hated my skin growing up because I had eczema on my arms, then I hated it because I was scarred. I even hated being super pale for a long time. I finally realized that I can’t change my skin color. I can tan, sure, but this is really it. It may sound stupid, but watching things with pale girls made me feel more secure when I was young. Rory and Lorelai were porcelain on Gilmore Girls, which I watched religiously, so I didn’t feel so bad about only going from pale to sunburned to pale.

Dark skinned girls are gorgeous. Empower yourself. There are so many beautiful, strong, important, hardworking dark-skinned women out there. Mrs. Obama is flawless. Alek Wek is one of my favorite models of all time. Despite all these gorgeous black women, your skin color doesn’t define you unless you let it. Not everyone out there looks at people as black or white and stereotypes them. Don’t define yourself by your skin color and don’t let anyone else. Define yourself through your hard work, volunteer work, your sense of humor, the way you’ll do anything to help a friend. That’s what makes you who you are and that’s your beauty right there.

Anonymous asked: i literally never ask for advice but i'm in such a confusing situation and was hoping you could help me sort through it.i found out last year (freshman year of college) that this guy (sort of mutual friend with all of my friends) made a joke about my weight legit like 3 days after school began behind my back for some laughs. now, we're going to be in proximity all summer, with all of our mutual friends and i'm scared of seeing him. i literally am so angry, a whole year later, bc he pretended to

(cont) be my friend for so many months. he’s now always commenting on posts on my fb and shit and i’m still so bitter lol. my one idiot best friend keeps tagging him all over the place even though she knows why i hate him -_- on top of that he told one of our friends the beginning of this year that i was “looking really good this year”. ..when his comments are what prompted me to lose 40 pounds and he doesn’t even know it. how do i get over it? if he’s gonna keep popping up i want to confron. him so ad but don’t know how?? i don’t want to come off crazy or that i ever even like-liked him, because that’s not it at all. he just so happened to be the last guy that called me fat which prompted me to lose weight, and to this day seeing his name reminds me of all of my insecurities. i feel like if i don’t confront him i’m gonna explode all over him the next time he says as much as 2 words to me :(

Some jackass who makes fun of you doesn’t deserve two seconds of your time. If you legitimately think yelling at him will help, go ahead, but it won’t change anything. You’re mad because you’re insecure and you have to deal with that personally. Ignore him all you want, chose not to hang with him, explain to your friends why, but it’s not him right now, it’s your problem that you need to tackle.

Anonymous asked: there's this girl who's really really really pretty and beautiful and has an amazing body, and iit's all I wanna be and idk how to handle it. I can loose the weigh and straighten my hair and bla bla bla, but I can't change my face.

You don’t have to change your hair or face or body or anything because that’s ridiculous. Who gives a fuck what she looks like? For the love of god, be who you are and stop trying to be someone else. Why would you ever want to be someone else? It’s so fucking pointless. Read this, stop trying to be her, stop comparing yourself, and get on with your own life because, save for a huge leap in science, you will never be her.

Anonymous asked: I become extremely introverted & self conscious in public. Every word goes out of my head when someone speaks to me I end up just smiling & nodding. It's so, so aggravating! I'm really vocal around people I know. I want to be the same in public. I want to try out acting/theater but I don't see myself doing well unless I can learn how to actually speak with people beside the given politeness. Is there anything I can do? :(

I get like that all the time. I’m well educated, I’m fairly witty, I like to think I’m clever, but when I’m in public I nod a lot and smile. Most of the time, it’s getting through more than you think it is. People have told me that when they met me I made them laugh even though I’m 99% sure I only stuttered out three words at them. Usually, we’re falsely believing that we’re totally bland and everyone thinks we’re stupid, but it isn’t true. Start slowly. If you think of 9 things to say in a conversation but only say 2, that’s still great. The next day, try to say 3. Don’t think that you have to be crazy outgoing to be in theater. Tons of successful actors are shy and awkward the second the step off the set or stage.

I was painfully shy and suffered some undiagnosed anxiety in high school, but I was in theater (I was a very blond Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz solely because I was the only one who owned red sparkly shoes). Theater is a different place. Yes, it’s public, but it’s a safe zone. In class and rehearsals and everything but the performance itself, it’s you and a handful of classmates who you become really close to. It’s all about taking that first big leap, standing up on that stage, and realizing that everyone else is just as nervous but totally supportive of you.

Anonymous asked: Since I was able to notice other girls around me, I've hated how I looked, I've always felt fat and ugly & am thrown for a loop when someone says I just look nice. I can't see it. I've mostly given up & just going through life knowing I'll never be even remotely nice to look at. But people say that I should. I don't see the purpose, when you just want to tear your skin off & start over again, but you can't so you just resign to that fact & try to move on, but people say not to. Why?

Your answer is your first sentence. You’re assuming that beauty is what the media pushes in your face, so you think the girls who look like movie stars or billboards are the only pretty ones. That’s a whole load of bullshit. Your face does not make you pretty. Your body doesn’t. Ever meet a girl/guy who looks like a model but is just a bad person? You don’t want anything to do with them because guess what? They’re ugly. They’re an ugly person. Beautiful people are the compassionate ones. They’re the ones who support their friends and family and say kind words and make people smile and laugh. They’re the strong ones, the ones who lift their chins above everything.

You’re choosing to believe that people are lying to you when they say you look nice, so you need to change your perspective and your mindset, because it isn’t them anymore, it’s you.