Every once in awhile I like to get personal on here. It’s been a bit, so why not have a little heart to heart? Disclaimer: This post is a bit on the cheesy side, but necessary! If you’ve been following me for a while, then you know that I am a strong believer in conscious living and creating your own reality by going after what you want. I encourage you guys to always be true to yourselves and always work on self-improvement. This month Halo Top ice cream reached out to me and asked if I would take on their “Stop Shoulding Yourself ” campaign. I think it’s such a great message and campaign in general and a great opportunity for me to share this personal story with you.

Being confident and doing what I do publicly (being a blogger and “influencer”) didn’t come naturally. There was so much self-doubt in the beginning that it held me back. This wasn’t a typical career move that most people would take and I thought to myself, maybe I should be pursuing my graphic design career, maybe I need to be prettier, maybe I need to edit differently, maybe I should not do this at all, maybe I should have tried another route? For the first 5 years of this blog (yes, 5 years) I wasn’t being true to myself. I didn’t realize it until later, but the truth is I let everyone tell me what to do, what not to do, how to think, and even let people talk me out of thinking I had any future in this. I found myself doubting my every single move.

It’s taken years of working on myself to understand how damaging these thoughts can be. Not only did all this lack of confidence and self-doubt hold me back in life, but it also caused a barrier between my audience and myself. I wasn’t living my truth and wasn’t fully grasping what I really could accomplish. I was too scared to mess up and do something wrong. After years of working on myself and watching my thoughts, I’ve finally reached that point where I feel confident in my decisions (big and small) and allow myself to mess up, to be imperfect, and have I’ve also learned to be kinder to myself. I’ve learned to ignore those voices in my head telling me how to live my life.

Working on myself has really made a huge difference in every aspect of my life. Believe me, I KNOW it’s not that easy, but it is 100% possible to stop doubting yourself and start feeling more confident. I want to share a few things I’ve done to help get myself to this point in my life in case anyone needs help and is going through the same thing I did.

1. Let go of the “shoulds”

Setting goals and expectations is great, but it’s definitely time to stop telling ourselves what we should do and focus on what we CAN do. I know that I can be pretty hard on myself by focusing on what I “should” have done and I’m sure a lot of you are the same way. “You should do what is expected of you”, “you should have started taking this blog seriously sooner,”  and even the smaller everyday things like, “you should be looking put together every day”, ” you should only eat half the calories today”, ” you should be cleaner and more organized.” Now I’ve learned to be ok with imperfect! And on a bigger note, following your dreams and going against what everyone says you “should” do is 100% ok and I always encourage it.

As Osho once said, “once you give up expectations, you have learned to live”. Telling ourselves what we SHOULD be doing actually just takes away from us feeling present and reaching our goals because its a way of criticizing and rejecting ourselves which can create anxiety and stress.  I can’t tell you how much happier I am now that I’ve overcome always telling myself I “should” do this or that.

2. Celebrate your success and recognize your progression.

Don’t forget to savor every success (even the little ones) and look back to appreciate your progression. This is something my husband has taught me! When I was younger I wouldn’t celebrate anything I accomplished. Instead, I would just move onto the next thing and even be angry or annoyed that maybe I didn’t do as well as I wanted (again with the “shoulds”). John has taught me how important it is to take in the good and celebrate along the way.

Looking back at how far you’ve come also helps. When we take time to think about how far we have come (even if it means just cleaning a bedroom drawer) then we train our brains to remember the hard work it takes to succeed and the feel-good glow instead of only remembering failures. Always make time to celebrate and reward yourself! When it comes to my career, I started to learn to celebrate every little collab I got and milestone instead of focusing on why I wasn’t growing fast enough or why I didn’t land the dream collab yet.

3. If you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing NO ONE.

One huge lesson I’ve learned is to make sure I am happy above anything. It’s kind of like when you’re on an airplane and they say to put on your own oxygen mask before helping anyone else out. If you aren’t happy with yourself it will be impossible to make anyone else happy. I’ve learned that in finding my own happiness, I’m bound to make a few people unhappy. This really trickles into so many areas of my life.

4. Take care of yourself: Relax, Exercise, Do something just for you

This seems obvious, but having “you” time is crucial. Set time aside to be still with yourself and your mind. Get rid of all the outside noise. Exercise to release those endorphins that help you feel better about yourself, Do something JUST FOR YOU (like yoga, surfing, tennis, puzzles…whatever your thing is). Once I allowed myself to take time to do the things I loved like rollerskating, hanging with friends, or just relaxing, I started to feel happier instead of being angry at myself for not doing what I “should” have been doing. As a result, I treated myself better in general.

This can also trickle into eating those things you love like ice cream (Halo Top Birthday cake flavor, I’m looking at you). Having that feel-good snack instead of feeling shame or judgment can go a long way as well leaving you with those warm fuzzy feels. I know I’ve been heavily enjoying my Halo Top ice cream during these warmer days, especially since it’s dairy-free and has a great source of protein (you guys know I’m always on that dairy-free and high protein diet). Thank you halo top for sponsoring this post and encouraging me to think about this topic a little deeper! If you haven’t tried out this ice cream check it out next time you head out to buy some snacks or desserts.

To finish off this long one, I just wanted to leave you with this: remember not to do something because you SHOULD, but because you want to and you can. Trust yourself. The more you listen to yourself and learn to trust yourself, the easier it will be to create change. Eventually, this habit of self-kindness will trickle into more confidence in yourself.

*** POST  is in collaboration and sponsored by Halo Top Ice Cream