The Self: How I feel about myself

In our society, there is a lot of pressure on women to be fit and pretty. Our self-concept is very important, as that is how we can channel our confidence and feel good about ourselves. Girls highly compete against other girls with makeup and hairstyles. That is why I decided to add blonde highlights into my hair, because I though that this would give myself a boost of confidence as many other girls my age were doing it too.

It really did work, I was more confident and felt good about myself. Everyone would compliment me on my new hairdo and it felt good to be noticed. My self-esteem improved, and I found that I was comparing myself to others less as I didn't need the ego boost as I was already feeling good.

I found that my ideal self of being confident, happy and feeling pretty wasn't far off from my actual self, except for the fact that I'd had to change up my hair to find my confidence. As a girl, everyday is a constant struggle, we constantly use the looking glass self to go about our days by thinking of what others will think of us. We are constantly self-conscious about ourselves, when we do things a little differently or don't want to do what everyone else wants to do, we feel bad about it, but really isn't that what we should do, just do what makes us happy and not worry about what others think?

That got me thinking, does changing my hair really fill the void of increasing my self confidence and make me happier? Or is it just how I presented myself and acted that really made the difference. To see I dyed my hair back to its natural colour, and I've never been happier. I feel more mature and stable as myself, and ever since I dyed my hair back I have been caring less about what others think and doing more to make myself happy. It's all mind over matter, all it took was for me to realize what I liked about myself and to accept me for me.

We learnt all about this in chapter 5 of Consumer Behaviour. This shows that the concept of the self is quite complicated and varies from person to person. Whether it be through product consumption, or changing body image, we all seek to find a form of self in our own ways. Now that I know more about this, I look at the world differently. I worry less about the little things and focus more on what's important to me.

If there's one thing I've learnt from all of this, it's to always be true to yourself. Don't change just for others, do what makes you happy and that's what will make you the most happy.