Hello Beauties Elisha here, this week I will be talking about self-confidence. This is something that I have not had for most of my life and now I’m here to tell you how I found it!

First let’s define con·fi·dence noun

the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.
the state of feeling certain about the truth of something.
a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.

I underlined “appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities”, because I failed to do this for most of my life. I did not appreciate what my body was able to do. For so many years I let my abilities go to waste. It wasn’t until I was 28 years old did I start to appreciate what my body was actually capable of doing, and boy did it have a lot of catching up to do. This topic came to me tonight after my friend and I came back from a walk/hike/run. We had walked for 1.5 miles, hiked for 1.5 miles, and finished with 1.0 mile up a hill. I told her on the last mile we would do hill sprints back to the top. Let’s keep in mind that this friend does not run at all! She does not like running at all! In fact the only way you might see her running is if a bear was chasing her. But she was a great sport and was willing to try the hill sprints with me. My friend did amazing! For not running she kept up with all the sprints and never complained. She started to talk about how bad she did and joking about how I almost killed her. I turned her negative talk right out that door and reminded her how amazing she did. How awesome it is that her body just carried her 3 miles and she did hill sprints to top it off!

I realized I had done the same thing for years, so bad that I would have never even tried to run if someone was coaching me. I had no confidence in my own body and what it was able to do. In high school I never even tried to run the mile during testing because I never believed that I would be able run. I was shocked the first time I ran for a quarter mile straight without stopping. That moment was like a light bulb went on in my head and I realized my body could actually run. My life was forever changed that day I shuffled my feet just a little faster. I challenged myself to sign up for a 5K and my goal was to run the 3.1 miles straight through. I accomplished that goal a few months later and realized how amazing the running community was. The running community does not care how fast you’re ‘moving your feet” on that race course. They are there to praise you for just being on the course, no matter how fast or slow your pace is. Just knowing that you had enough confidence in yourself to register for that race is proof that you believe in yourself to complete the miles and cross that finish line. That is confidence, that is you believing in you, that is you moving on the right path!

My life turned around when I started believing in myself, when I started praising my body for the things that it was doing. Self Confidence is about believing in you, knowing that you are capable of great things, waking up in the morning and showing appreciation for your health, by fueling your body with healthy foods, by taking care of that body that takes care of you and pumps blood to your heart every second of every day. My body has not failed me yet and I will do everything I can to help keep that heart pumping. This is the self-confidence people need to work on, there is a huge difference in vanity and self-confidence. Believe in you, appreciate your body, and take care of the body that takes care of you. Love your body and your body will love you back.