What’s Wrong With Being (Mostly) Confident?
Inside: Are you feeling like your confidence has taken a hit? Sometimes it helps to know you aren’t alone.
Mother’s Day started at 1:43am in our house. With vomit.
I don’t know what was going on with our 1-year-old, seemed like a boot-and-rally situation. But it was definitely a two-parent level boot. Glen got her cleaned up while I changed the sheets. Then he got her settled back in for nighttime routine #2 while I sat in bed waiting for the other shoe to drop. Knowing that I wouldn’t actually fall asleep until my daughter was sleeping soundly again, I checked my phone to pass the time.
Big mistake. Huge.
For some reason, a publication I had sent an article to for consideration had their team up sending rejections at 1:30am on Sundays. Cool cool cool. It’s not the first rejection email I’ve gotten. Certainly not. But they aren’t the most fun. And this one came right after vomit.
What Like It’s Hard?
It also came at a time when my confidence was a little shaken for other reasons. And when my confidence is shaken it is pretty unnerving because to be honest, I’m one of those obnoxious people with an overabundance of confidence.
Somewhere along the way I developed the kind of confidence that led me to try out for teams I probably wasn’t good enough for, run for Class President on an elaborate platform of “let’s have a prom!” and participate in beauty pageants scholarship programs I had no business in. This confidence led me to raise my hand a lot, easily make fun of myself because I knew I could take the joke, and once record a cover of Meredith Edwards’ A Rose Is A Rose in my dad’s home office…
My confidence hasn’t been a bad thing. It’s kept me from having severe back troubles (no slouching here) and allowed me to wear whatever shoes I wanted (if he wants to be taller than me that sounds like a personal problem). It led me to some educational and professional achievements I’m proud of and to bringing a bright pink Easter grass looking comforter to college. My confidence has also given me the courage to make choices that maybe weren’t great, but led to funny stories.
I Couldn’t Handle the Truth
But of course I have my insecurities. I’d be the WORST if I didn’t. And they tend to rear their awkward teenage heads when my confidence has led me down a new highway and suddenly I realize that I still have my learner’s permit. Like this writing dream that is growing stronger by the day.
I feel confident that I’m moderately funny and I’m in a passionate love affair with the written word. My confidence tells me that it is a mostly requited love. We’ve found a groove. Yet it’s difficult not to play the comparison game. Like this past week when I learned that some other bloggers running in my circles have a readership more than 5 TIMES mine.
I took the news well, and by that I mean I thew up a little in my mouth. Then I proceeded to question all my hopes, dreams and talent or lack there of. I’m very happy for them and their well earned success. Sincerely! But at the same time Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily. I can’t even wrap my head around that many people being interested in what I have to say.
Baby, You’re a Firework
Common sense (Glen) tells me that I need to put it all in perspective and that no writer, no situation is exactly the same. There isn’t any sense comparing and beating myself up about it. It’s time to put the well oiled armor back on and be that confident girl who lip synced on stage to Coolio in 7th grade. 1, 2, 3, 4, get that woman on the floor.
I have a lot left to learn about writing, and I’ll keep plugging along.
My confidence doesn’t seem to have patience for pity parties and has been leading me to be uber intense about learning through every podcast, comedy special, and article known to womankind. I know that if I didn’t have that confidence I’d just hang up the blogging success dream, and the book writing dream, and that one really cool dream where I eat donuts with Tina Fey and she laughs at my jokes. It would be a shame to give up that last one especially.
I suppose where I am going with this is that Taylor Swift was right, if you get thrown off your game then you’ve got to shake it off, shake it off. And Demi Lovato was right, there’s nothing wrong with being confident. And Shakira was right, my hips definitely don’t lie.
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This is awesome! You are hilarious in a very vulnerable and sincere way. 🙂 Following for sure. Lol I appreciate this humor.
Thank you so much for the super sweet compliment and for following!! Looking forward to laughing with you!
Rejection letters suck for sure. Glad you’re shaking it off. I expect to read a post from you one day that compares your Tina Fey dream with the real thing!
Hey girl No one ever told Beyonce to not be so confident. Live your life!
You’re speaking my language!! After reading about a blogger who made $7000 in her 6th month of blogging, I realized she admits to writing about what is popular rather than what she loves. She didn’t even want to be a blogger! She researched the Keto diet just so she could write about it because Pinterest told her to *eye roll* Maybe I’m jealous of her success. Maybe I hate that my (our) dream just fell in her lap and she took it “just because.” I’m not sure. But I feel everything you just said!! Keep being confident, Becca! ♥️
So glad this resonated with you! And more importantly I’m glad you are writing what you love. Passion first, money second!
This is awesome!! I love how funny you are in your posts and it really is like talking to a friend instead of reading some copy of everything else!! You’re doing great! Keep at it and you’ll definitely be eating donuts with Tina fey one day 😄
Thank you so much! That’s exactly what I’m going for and I’m so glad it comes across!! You rock. 😃
Girrrrrrl I HEAR you. Comparison is the killer of joy, but also makes for what Christine and I like to call very good “Blog Fodder.” You keep on doing you, boo. The world needs your voice!
Love you ladies!! We will all keep at it and someday drinks fancy mimosas to toast our wild success!
I am so sorry Becca, The road is not an easy one, hopefully your passion and seemingly endless content will keep you motivated.
Thanks, Mel! ❤️ So appreciate your support.
I’m having one of those weeks, too! I constantly try to remind myself that comparison is the thief of joy, but it’s soooo hard.
Totally is! But you are crushing it building an awesome blogging community. Keep at it!!
It’s sooooo dangerous to compare yourself to other bloggers! I am glad that I follow some successful blogging stars (I count you as one of them by the way!) It’s only when I compare the number of followers that i think *what am I doing wrong!*
Now, Ican just be happy for the successful/funny bloggers and just attempt to make my corner of the internet welcoming for that day when folks *do* want to follow me too. 😉
Well that just made my day!! Thank you so much.
I’ve loved connecting with you in the blogosphere. And I love that, a welcoming corner of the internet. Perfect!
We all experience rejection once and a while, but laughing it off is the best way to deal with it! I often find myself feeling very down and rejected with my blog because I’ve worked sooo hard on it and can’t seem to get the page views I try so hard to get, but I’m trying with everything in me to continue on with it and try not to let it get me down too much! | https://reeseandharper.com
Keep at it! There’s so much competition for internet eyes. But if you love it, keep laughing, keep writing!
Totally! Keep at it. It can for sure get discouraging but if you love it, it’s worth it. 🙂
You’re one of my faves. Keep on keepin’ on! I genuinely look forward to all of your posts 🙂
You rock lady! I’ve loved connecting with you in this crazy little blogging world.
Your blog is one of the funniest and most original blogs that I’ve ever come across, so keep it up! It’s important to remember that not all views are created equally. If I post my blog to StumbleUpon or Pinterest, which I rarely do these days, I can get hundreds of views for a single post in a day or two, but is that what I really want — for someone to click through and leave? No. I want *engagement.* It’d be nice to say that I got 1,000 views per day, but if I didn’t get any interaction off of that, it would feel the same as getting zero views, honestly. I want to connect with people through my stories, so as long as I’m doing that, I try to ignore that stats page.
The best writing always comes when you are willing to share your vulnerable side and embarrassing ticks with the world. No one is perfect, most of us far from it, and we can better relate to someone who often does not get it right.
What Erika said! You have comments and good engagement, and that other blogger probably dressed up as a sexy Star Wars character in her previous line of work and went into blogging with an already established niche audience, but I don’t know who you are talking about soooo….
And I too want to laugh with Tina Fey over donuts. Except change donuts to wine, lol
Hahaha but that lady earned that audience!! Dang!! Let’s both have donuts and wine with Tina. 🙂
I’m in! 😉
Great post! I honestly wish I had more confidence… nothing wrong with it all all. And I love your writing style by the way!
Thank you so much for reading! My best confidence advice – we often think that people are thinking about us WAY more than they actually are. When we understand that honestly people are pretty self-involved (human nature!) it frees us up to just do our thing and not worry about other people’s opinions.
Completely off topic but I nominated you for the Mystery Blogger Award. You can check it out https://thelupiemomma.wordpress.com/2018/05/19/2355/?preview=true
Thank you so much! I look forward to checking it out!
Love your attitude and perspective. You have such a great sense of humor and there’s nothing wrong with being so confident! You go mama!
Thank you so much!! You rock! 🙂
Your blog brought a smile on my face. I really needed it today. Love your writing and humor definitely helps in dealing with situation.
Thank you so much! I’m really glad to hear that you found what you needed today. We could all use a little more laughter! 🙂