How to Hold Your Confidence in the Face of Peer Pressure ; Heal & Be Powerful ⋆ Earth and Water

Our susceptibility to peer pressure isn’t a personal failing, but rather a deeply ingrained evolutionary trait. From the dawn of humanity, cooperation and acceptance within the group ensured survival. Isolating oneself often meant facing danger or even death. This primal need to belong is embedded in our subconscious, making it difficult to resist the urge to conform, even when it goes against our individual preferences or morals.

This innate pressure to conform is further amplified by the influence of social reward systems in our brains. When we receive positive reinforcement from our peers, like laughter, approval, or simply a sense of belonging, the brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward.

This positive reinforcement loop incentivizes us to repeat behaviors that gain us acceptance, making it challenging to resist the allure of conformity, even when it conflicts with our inner voice. Understanding these biological and evolutionary underpinnings can help us navigate peer pressure with greater awareness and self-compassion.

We’ve all been there: the moment a friend suggests something we’re uncomfortable with, the pressure building to conform to the group. Navigating peer pressure can be tricky, especially when your confidence takes a hit. Here are some strategies to help you stand your ground and maintain your sense of self:

Know Your Values: Take time to reflect on your values and beliefs so that you know where you stand on things before you find yourself in pressuring situations. What truly matters to you? What kind of person do you want to be? Having a clear understanding of your core values serves as a compass, guiding your decisions and boosting your confidence when faced with external pressure.

Practice Saying “No”: It may seem simple (or cliche even), but mastering the art of saying “no” is crucial. Start small, practicing in low-pressure situations. The more comfortable you become with declining requests, the easier it becomes to do so confidently when it truly matters. Remember, “no” is a complete sentence, you don’t need to justify your decision or explain. Keeping it simple with a “No thanks!” or a “Nah, not this time.” with no further intel keeps the power exchange on your side.

Seek Support: Surround yourself with positive and supportive individuals who respect your choices and encourage you to be your authentic self. Having a strong support system can provide a sense of belonging and empower you to resist negative peer pressure. For one, you’ll find yourself in less peer pressure situations when you stick with people who respect you. Secondly, if you know you have your support system behind you, it’s much easier to stand in your power when you need to.

Communicate Effectively: If you find simply saying no difficult, explain your reasons calmly and assertively. Expressing your concerns and letting them know where you stand demonstrates respect while remaining true and loyal to yourself and your decisions. This often opens up the floor for problem solving and collaborative discussion. If they continue to try and pressure you, recognize whether or not it’s an over step of your boundaries and adjust appropriately. If you’re not comfortable, remove yourself from the situation.

Everyone faces peer pressure at some point. It’s important to remember that you’re not alone in this. If you’re struggling, reach out to a trusted colleague, authority figure, friend, family member or therapist. They can offer guidance and support as you navigate these challenging situations.

Ultimately, your individuality is your strength. Don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd. By staying true to yourself and your values, you inspire others to embrace their own unique identities, creating a more inclusive and supportive environment for everyone.

Standing up to peer pressure requires courage and confidence. By implementing these strategies and prioritizing your well-being, you can navigate these situations confidently and emerge stronger, fostering genuine connections and building a foundation for a future where you can always be your authentic self.

Beginning –

Building confidence is often a whole journey. Very rarely is someone just born with it or unaffected by external factors that harm our self image and esteem. Sometimes it’s easier to stay stuck and miserable than doing the work to heal.

We self sabotage our progress, often subconsciously, by telling all of these stories both in our heads to ourselves as well as to other people about why we can’t start yet. It’s a form of procrastination due to the awareness that it is a lot of work and we’re comfortable in the familiar discomfort we’re currently in because it’s all we’ve ever known.

We become trapped in the same patterns we gathered as children which becomes our default system on what to say, think and do. Going against that programming is how we create a different reality for ourselves but that requires responsibility for what we choose moving forward.

We’re trained for external validation which leads many of us to people pleasing. This makes changing our patterns to find ourselves and our confidence even harder because it means making other people uncomfortable. Everyone in our lives has become accustomed to what they expect us to be and if we start acting out of that character they’ve identified us as it shakes up their world and they don’t like that.

If we start changing the way we’ve always interacted with certain people, they’re most likely going to perceive it as an attack or a falsity. They don’t realize that the true falsity has always been the show you’ve put on to keep them happy. If you choose to end that charade, their confusion is going to lead them to respond and it may be a positive response or it may not. It’s important to remember to hold onto your boundaries and clarity in why you’re choosing this alternative path.

You don’t have to “wait until” anything. There is no such thing as a “perfect time” and the sooner you decide to begin, the sooner you can start to see progress. True healing occurs every moment of every regular day. If you’re serious about healing and stepping into a new reality for yourself, that reality exists on any given regular Tuesday.

Make it messy and do it scared. That’s what’s real. Perfect isn’t a real thing anywhere for anything. It’s an abstract, relative thought that morphs between person to person. It cannot be caught or expressed outside of your perception.

True healing takes trying and then failing so that you may learn and grow. It’s never going to be any kind of perfect because the very nature of life is messy and nonlinear.

10:13 –

You have to question yourself and everything you do, say and think. Instead of looking at life as things happening “to” you, identifying what enables you to progress and what enables you to stay the same.

Questions to ask yourself:

“Is this helping or hurting me?”
“Does this get me closer to my goals?”
“Am I picking short term, false comfort over long term happiness?”
“Am I choosing other people’s comfort over my own?”
“Where does this thought/habit originate from?”
“Am I procrastinating my progress?”
“Is the story/belief I’m holding onto true?”

We’re all afraid. If you can overcome that fear and do the thing anyway, you’ll find a sense of gratitude and accomplishment on the other side that’s unbelievably rewarding.

You can choose to do the thing scared. It’s mind over matter. The hardest part of most things is showing up to do the thing in the first place. Once you show up you generally get swept away in a cascade of events that lands you in the path of least resistance of doing the thing.

Often times it’s easier to do the thing we’re afraid of than it is to disappoint someone we love. Peer pressure can be downright dangerous.

18:35 –

External validation may be the number one thing that impacts those of us with anxiety and confidence issues. Comparing ourselves to others can also be a trap. You never ever want to compare yourself to anyone other than a previous version of yourself. There are too many factors at play that you couldn’t possibly understand and people only show us what they want us to see.

We’re not for everyone. Some people are going to love us, some are going to hate us. That’s a fact that we HAVE to learn to accept. When you do, you can effortlessly start to be yourself and things become easier. When you step into your authenticity, there’s always room for you at the table that accepts you. And if there’s no table to be found, you make your own table.

If it’s exhausting you, it’s not you. If it’s exhausting you, it’s unsustainable and unhealthy. It takes a lot of experimentation to figure out who “you” really is. It’s a process that takes time. Historically we needed to fit in with the village in order to survive. Not only is being ourselves a new (SAFE) concept but it’s important these days to figure out who we are so that we can find our place amongst the village.

There are levels to confidence. You have to find the confidence in being yourself with yourself before you can cultivate being confident around other people. Practice with yourself in the mirror, try things out around your safe people. Whatever helps you step stone your way to confidence.

Like attracts like so if you’re around people who don’t make you feel comfortable and safe it’s highly likely that they also don’t feel comfortable and safe in who they are. When you show up as yourself, it’s going to trigger people in either a direction of growth or stagnation. That’s up to them but it is going to create resistance and friction. You have to pay attention to what YOU are feeling. Ignore them. They’re projecting.

It’s all subconscious. They don’t realize that’s what’s going on. You have to hold onto compassion for them. Confidence energy can sometimes come off as mean girl energy. Be careful, stay humble. Our society these days is too quick to cut people off. That is exactly how you end up with no one. You have to be intentional and learn discernment between those who mean well and don’t know any better versus those who are toxic and happy to stay that way.

33:12 –

Not everyone is on the same journey as you or in the same place as you and they may never be. You have to decide if they’re worth finding middle ground with. You may have to be conscious about avoiding certain topics with them. No one’s perfect. You have to find your external validation amongst peers and know who isn’t a safe space for certain topics.

Boundaries is about keeping people in your life, not out of your life. Intuitively, we think boundaries means throwing up walls but it really means knowing where your limits are so that you can keep well meaning people in your life that just don’t understand where you are or what you need.

You don’t know what you don’t know so you can’t even search for what you need and want if you’ve never been introduced to the concept of it. The internet is brand new and we can’t blame our parents for their lack of understanding and knowing.

39:15 –

Many struggle with confidence because we have to spend our lives masking in order to be accepted. A trap of alcohol is that it allows the mask to slip away more easily. Alcohol is a common way to numb reality and avoid life.

We can very easily get so use to suppressing certain emotions that we forget that we’re even suppressing them. They can then manifest as unsolicited panic attacks in your down time that come out of no where and speak no rhyme or reason for the moment.

When you get still with your thoughts, suppressed energies see their opportunity to be processed and released. Some of these can be overwhelmingly large. Coming out of no where, years after the initial event can be a really powerful and terrifying experience. Learning breathing and relaxation techniques can help you to ride them out to the other side to be free of them.

WHIRL POOL ANALOGY!!!

About Our Guest:

Amanda Yoa

Podcaster / Speaker / Community Leader

A powerhouse straight outta Philly PA, Amanda calls herself the hype woman for the glass ceiling breaking, next level livin’ women in the makin’! Amanda’s a goal driven Mompreneur who brings all things inspo with humor, class and stand out content, using her life experiences to hype unstoppable women to shatter glass ceilings and make those next level moved in this life/biz to not just fit in but stand out!

https://linktr.ee/amandayoa