Hello everyone, welcome to my channel today. If you're new, my name is Emily, I created Definite
Hearing as a way to increase awareness for the deaf and hard of hearing, I'm hard of hearing
myself. I wear hearing aids and I love them so much. People who have watched my videos for a
while, know that I am pretty like extroverted, I am a very happy person I love being around people.
And so definitely people are surprised to find out that I am hard of hearing, I have just had
some people lately reach out to me and say, "How are you so confident? You know, I really struggle
with my hearing loss, and I want to know how I can be more confident." This is an excellent question,
and I am so excited to talk about it in today's video, if you haven't already please like this
video and subscribe to my channel. I look forward to making more great content for you. All right,
so I am just going to start by saying that I feel like I have always been, naturally outgoing,
I feel like my hearing loss has never held me back I definitely had some phases in elementary school
where I did feel different. I felt like I didn't quite fit in, I had some instances of bullying in
middle school but I did meet a good friend in middle school and through high school by then,
I had really established myself and my personality and who I was and I wasn't going to take
any negativity from anyone. Until I felt like that evolution of awareness in elementary school
confrontation in middle school and then really owning it in high school, took a lot of time. So,
my first recommendation for anyone struggling to feel confident with hearing aids is don't be so
hard on yourself realize that it is going to take time. It takes time to adjust to your devices,
whether or not that's you've worn your devices forever, you just got them, or maybe you are in
a new work environment and people are starting to notice. It is going to take some time to feel
comfortable again, and you might have ebbs and flows of times where you feel comfortable in times
you don't. That can be determined by what kind of environments you're in, or the people that you're
around, so be patient with yourself. That leads into number two: be self-aware what I mean by
this is if you're struggling feeling confident, usually your mind will pinpoint that as you are
not cool enough, you're not good enough, you are not normal enough, because of your hearing loss.
And that is really hard because you have mental battles going on, emotional battles going on and
that migrates into physical battles, because all of a sudden, you're not satisfied with your body,
and who you are and that can be really difficult to work through. So you need to be self aware.
What are some ways that you can be self aware? You can take time to just meditate, each day,
take time to do something you love or something that you're good at, these are some ways to take
time to be self aware, to reconnect with who you really are your hearing loss does not define you.
But it can definitely help you stand out, but you need to be able to wield that in a good way. I
feel like I'm giving so many caveats here. But, so, there are the first two things. Number three,
have joy. How can you have joy? Well, having joy is being happy and satisfied with where you're at,
you know, sometimes we have things in life and I've been dealing with this a lot lately
where like, I feel like I might not be getting paid enough, I feel like I might not be like,
focusing my time on things that really benefit me or will pay off in the long term or I just
feel like I'm not eating right or exercising, so it is important to recognize that, you know,
life will always be perfect, but you can have joy through being grateful. Being grateful for
what you do have, it might be really simple as something nice that you said to someone,
you just are grateful that you were nice to someone that day, or it might be something
that someone did to you that was simple you say thank you for that. And as you become grateful
for what you have you don't necessarily want other things, and this ultimately builds your confidence
in yourself, increasing self confidence requires action. This action can be manifest in a bunch of
different ways, like I said, realizing that you need to take time building your self awareness,
and then having enjoyed it requires a mindset reset, it could be something as simple as you have
a negative thought comes into your head like, "Oh, that person didn't repeat what they said because
I have a hearing loss," and you just have to stop right there and say, "but because I have a hearing
loss, I'm the incredible person I am." You just have to spin it you have to catch those negative
things right away because the negative things always lead to "because I have a hearing loss,
I couldn't do this and because I can't do this I am worthless and hopeless. And because I'm
worthless and hopeless Why does it matter that I just keep going on?" It's just this downward
spiral, and it just eats at you, and it does you no good, but you can do good to yourself and
others by building your self confidence. So there are some ideas to build your self confidence,
which ideas do you like? Did you come up with any that you might try to implement in your own life?
If so, I would love to hear in the comments below. I work hard every day to build my self confidence
in a bunch of ways, I take time to read, I take time to say prayers, I pray to God, I take time to
be in touch with those that I love: friends and family. I do take some time to scroll on social
media and see what other people are up to, and share uplifting messages, I take time, I take time
to do what I love, I take time to be grateful and feel joy, and all of that builds up over time to
the self-confidence that I have now, like I said at the beginning of this video, it takes time,
it takes your time and it takes time to build that self confidence. Do not get discouraged,
do not give up that said that means there will be hard times there will be things that stink,
there will be days where you feel like you want to cry, but you will be such a light in the lives
of those around you, and you will be able to utilize your hearing loss to help others hearing
and hard of hearing or deaf alike. I absolutely love having confidence in my hearing loss.
I love that I can wear these white hearing aids, and show them off to the world. I
love that they can be conversation starters and I love that I can help with other people who are not
feeling as confident. We live in such an amazing world where hearing devices, and other assistive
technology are available. I feel so grateful that I'm hard of hearing, at this point in time in the
world's history, because I have so many options, I can choose to use all these assistive devices
or I can choose not to, and it is amazing to be able to have that ability to choose,
I choose tois self confident myself every day, and I know that you can too. Thank you so much
for sticking around to the end of this video. I really hope you enjoyed it. If so, please hit
the like button and don't forget to subscribe to my channel. If you have any other video questions
for me, please leave them down in the comments below. This video was inspired by someone who
commented in my posts, they asked me if I could do a video on self-confidence. And so here it is.
I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any other questions, please let me know. Have a great day!