How to Have Killer Confidence on Spring Break
It’s that time of year: With the exception of spring training and March Madness, sports are over. The weather has been dreary. Work feels boring. Cue spring break! There are plenty of reasons to be excited about a getaway (with some besties or with your boo), but there are also some understandable reasons to be a little apprehensive — reasons that start with “b-” and end with “-ikini.” Your vacation is the last time you should let body self-consciousness get you down, so we chatted with Morgan Sheets, a certified well-being coach, for some ideas on how to feel your best on break.
Sheets believes in realistic steps toward feeling comfortable in your own skin. Her tips are centered around tangible, measurable ways to help yourself feel as beautiful outside as you feel on the inside.
1. Find a confident stance. “Explore and uncover how you stand and hold yourself when you feel confident,” Sheets says, “then practice walking around your home or work in your everyday clothes.” In this way, you can emulate the same confidence whenever you’re in a less comfortable situation. If you don’t already feel this sure of yourself, Sheets recommends “trying on” confidence; literally walk as if you were Beyoncé (or, as Sheets says, your favorite movie character who you wish to be like).
2. Pick an awesome swimsuit. Swimsuits certainly aren’t the only factor that induces anxiety when it comes to our appearance. However, they’re a staple of spring break, and therefore tend to be associated with fear of revealing the parts of our body we’re not so in love with. That’s why Sheets recommends finding a swimsuit that excites you and makes you feel comfortable. “When you go swimsuit shopping, have tons of patience with yourself and try on styles you may not usually.” She also has an important reminder: “When we’re shopping, clothing that doesn’t fit well can make us feel bad in our body if we let it. So anytime you try on something that doesn’t fit right or doesn’t look good, remember it’s the swimsuit — not you — that the problem lies with.”
3. Feel “as if.” And we don’t mean the Clueless “as if.” Sheets explains that feeling “as if” refers to her version of faking it until you make it: Imagine the way you feel about your body in your ideal world on spring break. Then, choose to think about and envision your spring break experience from that place. “If you focus on how you want to feel and choose to let yourself have these feelings, no matter what you think you should look like, you’ll be able to feel as you desire to,” Sheets encourages. “It will take practice and may feel hard, but if you can allow a thought about yourself to make you feel bad, you can also choose to think a different thought about yourself that makes you feel good.”
Maintaining a positive body image is much easier said than done. However, with these tips, you’ll be armed to make the most of your spring break — because every bod is a “spring break bod.”
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(Photo via Getty)