Building Self-Confidence
Becoming a better person and learning to love yourself is a process. All any of us can do is work to understand why we did what we did, try to forgive ourselves, and do our best to be better today than we were yesterday. We all have it in us to grow and to be good to one another. But how do we actually do that? Working on building self-confidence is the first step.
What do you actually do to start forgiving yourself and eventually learning to love yourself? I think the first step is investigating why you do the things that you do. Until you understand what your motivations are, it’s hard to offer yourself compassion or forgiveness, and it will be easier to slide back into those same patterns. Figuring out why you did the things that you did is a process that can be hard and often emotional, so if you can, a therapist is a great resource for this. They can help you explore your emotions in a way that feels safe, and potentially help you think of connections that you wouldn’t have otherwise seen. If you don’t have access to a therapist, I like the “five whys” as a tool to dig a little bit deeper. It works like this. Think of something that you did that hurt someone else. Then ask yourself why you did it. When you come up with that answer, ask yourself why again, and again, and again, until you get to a root cause of the behavior. This could be something like, “I stole from my friend because I needed money and she had money.” “Why?” “I needed money because I wanted to buy a new dress.” “Why?” “Because if I don’t update my clothes, my friends will judge me.” “Why do you think they’ll judge you?” “Because I’ve seen them judge other people, and I don’t want to be judged.” “Why?” “Because I’m afraid that they won’t want to be friends with me.” “Why?” “Because I don’t think I would be able to make new friends.” “Why?” and so on, and so on. Usually the core of negative behaviors is some kind of belief that we hold about ourselves or about the world, like that we’re unlovable/evil/not good enough/a fundamentally bad person, or that the world is a dangerous place, or that other people are inherently selfish.
Once you get to those core beliefs, you can start to challenge them. This will feel stupid at first, because your brain genuinely believes that the core belief is true. But the more you challenge that belief, the more your brain will start to accept other possibilities, and eventually, it will start to believe something else instead. For example, if a core belief is “I deserve bad things to happen to me because I’ve been a bad person”, you might challenge that with, “all people do bad things sometimes, but nobody deserves bad things to happen to them.” The more times you say it to yourself, the more you’ll start to believe it.
Once you’ve worked on understanding why you did the things that you did and how you can change the beliefs that led you there, it may be helpful to apologize to the people that you hurt. This person may not want to talk to you, so I think it’s best to do this kind of thing through text (whether that’s a letter or a text message or a DM or whatever). Go into this without an expectation of forgiveness or even a response. Rather, approach it with a desire to let the person know that you understand the hurt you’ve caused and are committed to being better. Take responsibility for what you did, be specific about it, and express genuine remorse for what happened. Avoid trying to justify, defend, or explain your actions to them, since that will only make them feel invalidated. Offer to make amends if you can (for example, if you stole money, paying it back, or if you broke something, replacing it), and then tell them the steps you’ve taken to prevent that same situation from happening in the future.
The last thing I would suggest is trying to do good things for others, not just the people that you hurt. Volunteering within your local community is a great way to grow as a person and to commit to changing. I also think it will help you to feel like your karma has balanced out and make it a little bit easier to let go of some of the guilt that you feel.
