To a girl, the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show is kind of like a car accident on the side of the road. The images you’re engrossed with on the screen make you feel terrible about yourself and you know that you shouldn’t even want to look at them in the first place. But for some obscure reason, you can’t break the fixation. As the lingerie spectacular airs, everyone’s twitter feed is laden with tweets composed by envious girls yearning to look like Candice Swanepoel and “needing a diet a.s.a.p.” However, just know that before you rush to the nearest gym or pass on your next meal, you can choose remedy your insecurity in a much more empowering way while also improving yourself at the same time.
The secret to feeling secure with yourself is to stop comparing yourself to others. Instead of being your own worst enemy, be your biggest competition. This may sound strange, but hear me out. Instead of looking at every other girl and dwelling on how you think that she is smarter or prettier than you, look at yourself and think of not only the things about you that you are content with, but also focus on the little things you can do every day to make yourself better. Don’t wish to be better than the girl who sits next to you in class or the girl pretty girl you always see in Casey’s; instead strive to be better than the person you were yesterday.
Stop stressing the things you don’t have and start flaunting the things that you do. Even if you woke up tomorrow donning the physique of Adriana Lima, I guarantee that your self-confidence would not be altered the slightest bit. I am sure Adriana herself has her own array of physical, mental and spiritual insecurities. Her audience is just blind to these blemishes because she enhances her own features that she is content with and then radiates confidence. Confidence doesn’t have to be solely aesthetic either. You don’t have to clad yourself in the most current couture and paint your face with the most concealing make up to feel content with yourself. Spend the time that you would spend covering your face in cosmetics studying, exercising or working. Then you can go to class in sweats and no make up and still love yourself knowing that your time was spent improving yourself inside and out, because you deserve it.