Child Like Confidence

My best friend was awesome enough to do a guest blog during her super busy life! Read ahead for her thoughts on confidence and how we need to keep our child like faith in ourselves.

I am fortunate enough to live a block away from my brother and his little family, so I get to watch my niece Zoë (aka my favorite kid) grow up. In that process, I’ve noticed something amazing. 

Zoë has unshakable confidence in herself. 

She’s only recently become mobile which means a LOT of falling on her butt. But let me tell ya, that girl gets right back up. Immediately. She takes no time for being embarrassed. She doesn’t frantically search the room hoping no one saw. 

When did we stop being that way? At what age did we lose our confidence in ourselves? 

Confidence is something we have to re-learn. At least, that’s been my experience. 

Let me paint you a picture. Little 18-year-old Syd was optimistic for the future when it was time to move out to Utah for college. I was sure my dreams were too big for the town I’d grown up in and it was time to get the h*ck outta there. But little did I know that I got a lot of my confidence from those who gave it to me. Suddenly I didn’t have my mom cheering for me when I run. I didn’t have my close friends telling me how I rock the tomboy look.

I needed my own confidence. 

Now is an amazing time to be alive. We live in a time where it is acceptable to be different. To be you. Yeah, we’ve got a lot of work to do in that field, but there’s so much more room to be confident than there ever has been. 

And you know what? It’s also incredibly important to be confident in ourselves! We’ve made huge strides using our freedom of speech. We’ve demanded rights for women. We’ve demanded acceptance and rights for people of all sexualities. We’re in the process of demanding rights of transgender individuals (see Madey’s blog a couple posts back). 

This is not the time to be shy.  You have something important to say. You have something amazing to contribute. You can be who you want to be. 

Those are tough things to swallow. It takes a lot to fully accept what we each have to offer. If you have advice on the best way to do so, hit. me. up. I’m all ears. I’ve changed a lot over the few years I’ve been away home. But before many social situations, I still have to remind myself that I am a fun person, that others like me, and that I can be confident in myself.

Let’s be like kids again.  Let’s try to be like my niece. When we fall, which will happen a LOT, get back up and try again. Maybe if we can do that, kids won’t ever lose the confidence they’re born with.  Let’s all learn from Zoë.