I am 24 years old, and at the beginning of my career. What career? Well, I haven't quite found it yet but I'd love for it to be in the Marketing/Advertising/PR field. I have some experience with this and I find it to be absolutely great!
I have been presented with a question that is always on my mind... Where does one find confidence in their twenties? It's a great thing were coming into the very start of our careers, and mostly I feel this is the time of our lives yet it is full of muddled. Full of muddled? Yes we are full of unanswered questions, the so-called 'feeling our way' in the world. Being completely broke and not sure how the next paycheck will cover everything we need it to. . . Sometimes life in our twenties is easy-breezy and other times it's awkward, and hard to maneuver situations.
The community of twenty-something year olds have something in common: we are extremely good looking. Well, most of us are conquering (or have conquered) the awkward stage - but the question still prevails; where does one find confidence? Who knows, and who cares, if we over-think "where our confidence comes from" it can't process. We loose our suave.
Savvy?
I think we find our confidence from within.
ReplyDeleteDuring our twenties, we start to lose touch with friends, perhaps we have falling outs - our parents start to live their own lives since they've spent the last twenty some years raising us to take care of ourselves and suddenly the only person to give us 2 am pep talks is... ourselves. There's no more bff living down the hall in a shared house like there was in college, it's no longer {as} acceptable to call someone hysterically crying at 3 in the morning because of an emotionally cataclysmic event {don't get me wrong, we still have our best friends who we can call when something truly bad happens but most of the time we're on our own for emotional growth}. It's no longer cute to be super-needy with your significant other.
Basically, we become an island in our twenties - we learn to stand on our own two feet and want people around us, not need them. This is the cause of extreme growing pains - it's scary! Our path up until this point was fairly set - kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, college...and then...what? Whatever we want. And that unknown is TERRIFYING.
I guess what I'm trying to say, through all this rambling is this: In our twenties, it becomes our quest to find confidence from within instead of looking to outside sources.
Thanks for a lovely post - really got me thinking.
Great post and I have something similar in the queue about coming back from discouragement.
ReplyDeleteBeing a 20-something is great, but your question is right...how do we build our confidence? Meg had a great point in that this is the first time we have to find answers on our own and not look to others to hold us up. We are on our own.
For me confidence comes from my mini-successes on the journey to being great. In that I mean creating a personal and professional check list and getting to cross that thing off. Saying, "I did that," "I accomplished this." Although it seems cheesy, it is these mini-successes that make me think I can do anything. It is also a constant reminder that although I am 23, I was able to do everything I have wanted to so far---even if I had to eat Ramin noodles for dinner and drink cheap wine to make rent.
Focus on your goals and enjoy the journey to success- whatever you success is.
Teresa
We become an island. I like that Meg!
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