self confidence

While some people have preferences for true crime or comedy, I prefer self-help, wellness and lifestyle podcasts, which always leave me feeling so much better than before I hit play. Here are a few of my favorite podcast-ers that help me feel like I have my life together. 

Not only was my college journey stunted by the arrival of a pandemic, but I felt that I was stuck in my middle school body. My height, paired with a natural baby face and now the braces, made me feel like I was never going to get this dream college glow-up that everyone else had. 

Establishing a positive relationship with food and creating a routine around grocery shopping has allowed me to apply that same way of thinking into other aspects of my life. Instead of second guessing every decision I make based on others’ opinions, I remind myself that I know myself better than anyone else, therefore I’m equipped to make the choices that are best for me. 

It’s natural for me to focus only on what I’m bad at. The issue of my low self-esteem isn’t the thoughts that I had. It’s that I genuinely believed them.

Although November is the time for Netflix specials and winter-themed coffee drinks, it also brings around the most intense time of year: internship season.

As much as I wanted to cherish my full Korean name, I felt that my name was weighing down my confidence and hindering me from being myself while in the United States.

Just like Aly, I, too, feared attention of any form: class presentations, piano recitals, popcorn reading.

For so long, I wanted to be the “hot girl” we see on TikTok and Instagram, but I couldn’t be, or I simply wasn’t. But why?

As I lay on my bed scrolling through the 40 photos I took, my eyes filled with tears, and I threw my phone at the mirror. I looked nothing like the photoshopped pictures online. I was upset that I was trying so hard to be someone else.