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Why Shouldn't I Be Confident?

Because in my mind, I'm a supermodel!

By Mikaela BallPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Being a woman is hard.

They want us to be thin, then they want us to be thick. And sometimes, both at the same time. This is an everyday struggle that we all face.

I work in retail, and I am nowhere near the size 2 that you see on our website or over half of the women that are in our stores. There aren't very many plus women who you see on our Instagram. Coming to work at a company that is supposed to be inviting and accepting to all women of all sizes, I thought that coming in at a size 16 would be no big deal and I would be one of many that are big AND beautiful. You would expect my surprise when that was not what happened.

Let me take you through a typical conversation with a superior about anything. And I do mean anything: slow sales, making a decision that they didn't agree with, or even saying no to trying on something that I think is hideous. There is no conversation about how I can go about changing sales, or how to re-merch a table that they didn't like. It is always about one thing. My confidence.

I get so sick and tired of hearing, "I understand why you wouldn't be confident about wearing something like that," and I just look at them with a look of astonishment and not in a good way. When I let them know that it isn't because of my confidence level, but in fact because it washes me out or that I hate the color yellow, the response is never accepted. Letting them know that I love myself and my curves over and over again makes me feel like they don't believe me or that with how I look, it could never be true that I love myself. Not only that it couldn't be true, but that I shouldn't love how I look.

But here's the thing, even though I have a manager who tries to tear me down. I stay up, and don't let the love for myself falter because of one person. My girls there help. They keep me above it all. Seeing them grow and being able to be part of them believing in themselves and being independent keeps me going. The one thing that I will never let her do is keep those girls down.

The fact that women will tear down other women to make themselves feel better is sad. We should never step over other people so that we can make it higher in the world. As women, we fight against the odds everyday whether it be professionally, personally, or on social media. The last people that we need to be against are each other. We should be building one another up so that we can all grow flourish so that we can all accept what makes us different. Most of us don't have someone who we can lean on to get through hard times or be able to hold us up while we are down. If this is happening to you, reach out to someone because we all need to take care of one another. If you are the one who is tearing others down, stop. Stop, because you may cause irreparable damage to someone else who might not be able to make it through another hit.

So in closing:

BE CONFIDENT.

BE CONSIDERATE.

And most of all... BE YOU.

Because it will NEVER go out of style.

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