Redefining Beauty & Confidence

“Beauty has nothing to do with looks. It has everything to do with how you are as a person and how you make others feel about themselves.”

I looked up the definition of beauty, beautiful, and confidence on google and this is what I found…

Beauty:

1. a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.

Beautiful: 

1. pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically.
2. of a very high standard; excellent.

Confidence:

1. a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.

It’s all about the inner person, how can I make myself look more beautiful or confident?

Now bear with me on this. Have you ever met someone for the first time, that based on outward appearance alone, you considered them to be good-looking, attractive, or pretty? I bet we all have. But, once you get to know them, and they start talking badly about other people, don’t say the most uplifting words, or are just straight-up rude, you automatically lose attraction to them? This is one of my main arguments for people that say that beauty is just based on outwards appearances.

Someone can be considered “attractive” or “beautiful”, but the second they start talking negatively about others or never say the nicest things, they instantly don’t seem attractive anymore. This proves to me that beauty really does come from within. Just like the quote, I shared at the beginning, beauty really does have everything to do with how you are as a person and how you make others feel about themselves.

You can be considered the “hottest” person, but if you are known for being rude and constantly putting others down, that instantly becomes unattractive. So, instead of spending so much time worrying about our outward appearance, and making sure we are keeping up with all the new trends and styles, let’s focus on our inner beauty.

Let’s focus on making ourselves beautiful from the inside out. If your personality on the inside is beautiful, then you will be beautiful on the outside as well no matter what you look like. I’m reminded of the verse from 1 Samuel 16:7, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

The definition of “beautiful” that I found on the internet was: pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically. My question would be, what is the “standard” for what is considered “aesthetic” or pleases the mind? Who sets these standards that we feel we have to achieve so badly in order to be looked at as beautiful?

Do celebrities set these standards? Social media influencers? The “cool kids” in our school? I mean to me this definition gives me the permission to make whatever I want to be aesthetically pleasing. This gives me the permission to wear and style my hair or clothes however I want to! No one else can dictate what is considered cool or acceptable. I get to make “cool” whatever I want it to be.

Confidence. I realized a few years ago that I was going about confidence all wrong. I started to become more confident in myself and around other people, but I was going about it the entirely wrong way. The way I was making myself feel confident was by putting others down in my head.

As terrible as it sounds, I would tell myself well “at least I’m not as ‘blank’ as her” or “I look good compared to everyone else.” Believe me, I’m not proud of these thoughts. When it was just in my head the thoughts didn’t seem as bad. They would come and go very quickly.

I realized that the way I was becoming confident was by making myself feel “better” or “superior to others.” This my friends is called pride. What’s funny about pride, is you don’t even realize that you’re struggling with it. No one wants to admit that they are selfish and think of themselves more highly than others.

I think a lot of us struggle with pride more than we think or realize. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but something we should become more aware of. Pride is of the enemy and only comes to kill and destroy. The opposite of pride is humility. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

Let’s not find our confidence in how pretty we look compared to everyone else. Let’s not find our confidence in how aesthetically pleasing we come across as. We need to find our confidence in WHO we already are despite our outward appearance.

God made us look exactly the way we are, for a reason. He made us have the exact personalities we have, for a reason. It’s so easy for us to pick apart everything about us that we don’t like or we think needs to change.

It hurts when someone judges you about your personality. Something you feel like is a part of you. When someone says: you’re too much, why are you so crazy, why do you not like to have fun, why do you stay home so much, why are you so quiet, why are you so loud, why don’t you speak up for yourself. The list can go on and on.

This is why we have to be confident in WHO we are. When these types of judging comments come our way, we can remind ourselves that God made us this way for a REASON. We look the exact way we look, for a REASON. We aren’t going to be loved and accepted by everyone. But, we will always be loved and accepted by God. And that is what ultimately matters.

God never makes mistakes. We just have to be obedient and follow where He leads. God says you are chosen and not forsaken. God says you are loved, cherished, cared for, strong, courageous, forgiven, gifted, and so much more. Let’s find confidence in that, and not in what other people think about us.

- Kayla Milligan