Quiet Confidence
By: Egbinola Ahmadu
Tags: Self Love, Confidence, Meditation

I started meditating this year. If you don’t already, I would really recommend it, especially if you’re someone that finds it hard to be still or reflect in silence. If you’re like me, there’s always music on or you’re always watching something in the background (that’s actually an issue, but not the topic today). Taking a few minutes out of your day for yourself can be extremely beneficial.

I’ve been using Headspace to meditate, and there are a few courses that refer to quiet confidence. In loose terms, it’s knowing your worth regardless of what you look like, how intelligent you are etc. The feeling comes about when you’re still, not thinking about what society says or expects, just being with yourself.

I’d always complained about the whole ‘love yourself’ agenda. Everyone says love yourself but no one really tells you how to. The reason for that is there’s no rule book to it. Only you know how to love yourself the way you need to be loved. If you’re like me (again), that sounds scary. The thought of having to trust myself with something so important without any guidance *used* to scare me. (I say used to, but it still does. Working on it though!). Truth is, there’s really nothing to be afraid of. You as a human being are capable of knowing what’s right for yourself. You might feel like you don’t, but guess what? It’s better to make a mistake on your own accord and fix it, than to regret not going with your gut. I’ve suffered a lot with this and I can tell you for free, it’s the worst.

I digress. Basically, quiet confidence is knowing that you’re enough. More than enough even. It’s being proud of yourself without conforming to what society says should validate you. Those things are fleeting and they should have absolutely no power over how you value yourself.

Obviously, your strengths and talents should make you proud. But imagine how much happier you’d be knowing you deserved the world even before considering these talents. If you’re religious, this is as close as it gets to how God sees you. If you’re not, think about parents. A parent is in love with their child right from birth. A parent loves you just for existing and everything else is a bonus. The reason for that is because you deserve love. Whatever you go on to do in the world doesn’t make them love you any more or less – assuming you don’t go on to be a serial killer, but even then, the love is there regardless. In the same vein, we often extend quiet confidence to our loved ones. We’re there for them no matter what, and whatever they do or don’t do doesn’t really change the love we have for them.

So we’ve established that we’re capable of giving people this *almost* unconditional love. Why can’t we then extend this to ourselves? Like I said earlier, society has filled our heads with all sorts of nonsense like life is only worth living if you’re this rich or that beautiful. All of that is fleeting, and you’re only truly happy if you realise that you’re worth way more than all these labels.

So please, stop being so hard on yourself. Try to find some time to be alone in silence. It’ll do you a lot of good. We spend way too much time looking for what will make us worthy that we don’t realise how inherently worthy we are. Self improvement becomes so much easier when you come to this realisation. People usually approach self development out of fear. We think “I need to achieve x so I can be worth y”. Imagine if you attempted self development with an attitude of quiet confidence instead. You’d be able to achieve whatever you set your mind to because you believe you’re capable. And even if you don’t succeed, it won’t be the end of the world because you know you’re worth it and there’s no one else out there more deserving of a happy and full life.

Our time here is very limited, might as well do everything in our power to make the best of it ❤️