Top 9 Ways to Feel Confident When You Have Acne

How to Keep Your Confidence With Acne

When it comes to health problems, acne might seem pretty innocuous at first because it's primarily cosmetic. But anyone who's experienced it knows that it can have a devastating effect on your self-esteem.

Confidence is one of those things you don't notice until it's gone. If you're someone who's either always been happy with their appearance or never given it much thought, confidence with acne can be tough to come by.

Whether your acne is a new development or you've been dealing with it for years, you don't need to remain self-conscious.

For tips to help you get your confidence back, read on.

Tips for Building Confidence with Acne

If your acne has you feeling down, take away its power with these tips:

#1 - Look Inward

Your overall confidence and self-worth go far beyond your appearance. If you're only focused on your looks, it's easier to take a big hit to your confidence with acne.

Instead, focus on feeling confident in who you are, not how you look. Try some meditation exercises designed to boost your self-esteem.

If meditation isn't your thing, just take some time to think about your personality-related strengths.

#2 - Learn a New Skill

Again, your self-esteem should come from more than just your appearance. In fact, this is a good life lesson to start learning now, because we all have times in life when we're not crazy about our looks.

One of the fastest and most long-lasting ways to feel better about yourself is to expand your skills.

Who wouldn't love to say they can speak an extra language or build a dresser from scratch? Look for a skill you'll actually enjoy learning - bonus points if it'll boost your career, too.

#3 - Don't Give up on Acne Treatments

As most people who've tried to lose weight can attest, it boosts your self-esteem just to be working toward changing the issue that makes your self-conscious.

It can work the same way when you're trying to regain your confidence with acne. It's just a matter of finding the right product that works with your type of acne.

Despite how you might feel, you haven't tried all the new acne products on the market. If you haven't found the right regimen yet, pick a product and stick with it long enough to give it a fair shake - at least a few months.

#4 - Experiment with Cover-Up Techniques

On top of all the other confidence-building strategies, there are direct ways to make your acne less noticeable.

Fire up YouTube and search for acne cover-up tutorials and you'll be amazed at how many videos you find.

Keep in mind that there are many types of pimples, so you might need different strategies based on each pimple's size, shape, texture, and coloration. Just make sure you maintain a healthy budget and don't overspend on makeup.

#5 - Make a List of Your Positive Features

Your skin is just one small aspect of your appearance. If you want to feel good about the way you look, there are plenty of positive places to look instead.

Look into the mirror and take notice of the parts of your appearance you really like. Have you gotten that 6-pack you wanted? Maybe you have great eyebrows or a perfectly-proportioned nose.

It's easy to think you can't find confidence with acne, but we promise there are plenty of great features for you to focus on instead.

#6 - Set Specific Goals and Work Towards Them

Have you set a New Year's Resolution or another set of goals and met them? Remember how amazing that felt?

Confidence in your appearance can actually be more fleeting than confidence in your skills and achievements. To give yourself something to feel good about, make a list of goals you can achieve and then follow through.

These goals can be about anything - how many pages of a book you want to read each day, how much exercise you want to get each week, etc.

What's important is that you set specific and frequent benchmarks so you get that accomplished feeling daily or weekly, rather than waiting months for it.

#7 - Ramp up Other Aspects of Your Appearance

If you're treating your acne, it's a matter of patience and consistency because it takes time for medications to work. For a confidence boost in the meantime, look for other ways to enhance your look.

Get a fun new haircut. Treat yourself to a new outfit. Work on your physique.

Whatever helps, just make sure you're doing it in a healthy way and that you're pairing it with internal confidence-building as well.

#8 - Remember That You're Your Harshest Critic

Part of the reason people lose confidence with acne is that they think it's glaringly noticeable. We each tend to zero in on our flaws when we look in the mirror, so your acne seems overwhelmingly obvious to you.

In reality, other people don't notice it nearly as much as you do - if they notice it at all. There's a phenomenon in psychology called the spotlight effect. The evidence-based theory says that people tend to think others notice them in social settings more than they other actually do.

Actually, most of us are more focused on ourselves (making sure we aren't doing something silly, wondering if we look okay, etc) than on the people around us. While you're worried about what others think, they're worried about what you think, which leaves less time to focus on your acne.

#9 - Avoid Obsessing

We know this is easier said than done, but simply distracting yourself can work wonders. Get a new hobby or spend more time on your schoolwork or your job.

However you do it, just spend less time looking in the mirror obsessing over your acne. This will help you in the long term as well as the short term. If you're not obsessing, you're also less likely to pick at your acne. Picking can lead to worse acne and/or more scarring down the line, so distracting yourself is a win-win.

Having a Better Life with Acne

You don't have to wait until your acne disappears to be happy. Instead, combine practical actions with self-esteem boosters.

Master the confidence-builders above, and in the meantime, shop for new acne products to take steps toward clearer skin.