Back when you were a child, you never gave your mind a chance to think twice about other’s opinions and thoughts about you. This is the reason why children don’t have overwhelming standards for themselves simply because in their world, there are no standards.
Your potential and intelligence are blinded by other’s judgements. You tend to overthink whether doing this or that will please someone or embarrass yourself.
These stages of life unfortunately develop overtime depending on your surroundings and environmental factors such as: people around, your background, and social status.
My first stage of struggling with self-esteem occurred before I entered elementary school. It happened in the park where I used to enjoy my childhood in the playground. The first time that I went there, all I focused on was how do I get to one of these swings? Which playground is fun-ner, this or that pirate one? Little did I know it was about to change all around. I hated being alone without my brother or anyone to play with, because I couldn’t escape the kids that made fun of my nationality, Asian. Every time I made an eye contact with any kid, they would take the chance to mess around with me, kids did not want to get near me, boys threw foolish words on my face; Ching Chong, ling long, *imitates my Asian eyes*… list goes on. This made me feel like an outcast, especially that I was already a shy kid, I wanted to hide, forever. As time passed, my focus shifted to: do not have eye contact with anyone, do not talk to anyone, do not let your face revealed, keep your head down, let’s play here because no one is here… this was when I was as little as eight. Despite the chaotic rules I set in my mind, I still let myself go to the playground, because all I wanted was to simply have fun. It was all I knew; I just wanted to make friends and play with others like I was no different. But that wasn’t the case.
The playground marked my first stage of low self-esteem and unnecessary social awareness.
I can’t remember much what happened after, but I know I stopped going. Not sure whether it was because of the playground bullies or I was simply not interested anymore.
To this day, I still struggle with devastating battles in my mind.
Perfectionism, social anxiety, academic stress, food disorders, body dysmorphia, most importantly not feeling that I am enough.
I don’t want to admit that the a-holes in the playground helped me strengthen my mind, but they really did. Asian racism that I get nowadays does not even move me a little. Because I was too used to being mistreated like that. Familiar with all the expressions they had every time they saw me, yeah, I was ready for anything they had to throw on me.
I’m in high school right now, about-to-be senior kid. I have come a long way with my struggles, and I won’t lie; it was interesting. I have achieved things that I couldn’t imagine, exceled in my academics with high GPA, impressed the vice principal with my morning speeches, made amazing friends, and most importantly, I became confident in my own skin.
How did I get from being an insecure little kid to one that
Simple: I thought like a child every time I wanted to achieve a goal.
Remember when I told you my focus when I first entered the playground? “how do I get to one of these swings? Which playground is fun-ner, this or that pirate one?”
Well, when you think this way, you forget all the surroundings and shine the spotlight on your target, which in this case was the “swing”.
Children do whatever they can to get to where they want; for instance, babies walk and fall but they never stop trying because they are blind to their judgmental society.
So where did it all go wrong? Why don’t we think like we used to when we were babies? The truth is…no one is born ugly, untalented, or unintelligent, we just happen to be born in a judgmental society.
To all the people out there who are in a place of self-doubt and low self-esteem, I assure you that thinking like a child will not only earn you confidence but it will also help you achieve everything you wanted with the absence of self-doubt, hesitation, and overthinking thoughts.
