Fake it to make it?

Recently I’ve been looking a lot at who I am now verses who I was two years ago. To be frank, I was faking it, A LOT. And while I literally live by the motto you gotta fake it to make it, the way I was practicing that in my daily life wasn’t empowering at all. Not only was I faking smiles and over editing an Instagram picture or two, but I was faking my confidence.

God, for my entire life I’ve always been the outgoing, outspoken, loud one in the room. For years I’ve been complimented on my confidence, but in all actuality, that’s always sorta confused me. There have been so many times in my life where I’ve felt that my self confidence, shit, even my self worth, were staggeringly low. However, in those same times, I’ve been asked how I’m so confident in what I wear, do or say. And while I was typically able to mask my confusion with a witty come back or quick response, on the inside I was freaking* breaking. I was so curious how a complete stranger, and even my closest friends and family saw confidence in me, when I was struggling so hard to find it myself. I often felt like I had to overcompensate for things I thought I was lacking, instead of just appreciating and building on what I did have. I was seeking affirmation and validation from outside sources and didn’t even consider that the most important form of validation is from myself.

I don’t know exactly when it happened - Ok, actually that’s a lie, yes I do, but that’s a different story for a different day so let’s just say it was Mardi Gras season, 2019.

Anyways, around late February, early March, of 2019 I made a decision to stop listening to the back ground noise, and begin listening to the music. I decided to stop trying to surround myself with people who didn’t bring fulfillment into my life. And more importantly I began to realize that there will always be people with shit to say and someone will always have an unimportant and insubstantial opinion on what I am doing. However, it’s not for those people to decide who I am or how I feel. Only I can control how I react or respond to the noise.

By realizing that I was solely in control of my mental state, I was able to truly discover what having self confidence and being self aware actually means. Despite what I thought for the first two decades of my life, self confidence doesn’t mean being the loudest person in the room and getting everyone’s attention. For me, self confidence became about radiating in my own skin, solely by being kind to myself and prioritizing my inward appearance, knowing that my outward appearance would follow suit.

And while this shift in perspective hasn’t made my life all roses and butterflies every single day, it’s made the good days more frequent, and the bad days a little easier to power through. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I struggle with my image and feel as though I need to act a certain way to keep appearances - I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have off moments. However, now I choose to be conscience of that behavior and reset my intentions and attitude when it happens.

Finding your confidence and honoring your self worth doesn’t happen over night, I’m still working on it, two years later. But on the bright side, it only takes a second to make a decision that helps guide you in the right direction. Be easy on yourself, post a selfie without any makeup, wear that new outfit your friends think is a little much, treat yourself to a good ass dinner BY YOURSELF, try a new tik tok dance, start the freaking* blog. Begin prioritizing things that are important to you and make you feel good. Screw what other people will say or think because I’m telling you, someone’s always going to have shit to say, but their opinion means nothing if you chose not to listen.

Xoxo,

Madeline,

Never Maddie

*My mom told my I couldn’t say the f word on here so I’m improvising

**also fill out the contact form on my home page and let me know what you want to see in the weeks coming up !!