Changing My Self Image

"You can do it." I spent most of my early life not believing those four words. It took until I was past twenty, actually taking the first steps toward dealing with my anxiety, before the phrase meant anything to me. I never could figure out who first put the idea in my head that I looked dark and ugly, but whoever it was, the belief stuck with me for more than eighteen years.

Mirrors were an enemy. Every time I looked, I went hunting for flaws, and I always found them. Out of that habit grew an inferiority complex that only hardened over time. I got shy. I avoided anything that put me on a stage. By my college years I'd mostly stopped going out at all. The future didn't interest me because I didn't think I had one worth planning for, and I couldn't name a single skill of my own worth affirming. If you'd asked me then, I would have told you I was unworthy, full stop. The loop running through my head was always the same: I wasn't pretty like other girls, my skin was wrong, I was dark, I was plain.

When I finished my bachelor's degree, I had no idea what came next. Around that same stretch, a film came out back home in South India and became impossible to escape. Every street and alley was playing its songs. I'd heard the soundtrack for weeks without ever seeing a poster or knowing who was in it, so I hadn't thought much about the movie itself.

Then I caught one of the songs on television, and it stopped me cold. I'd assumed the hero would be the usual type: tall, striking, well built. Instead the lead was thin as a pencil, dark-skinned, and by the standards everyone had drilled into me, not handsome at all. How was that possible? Wasn't the film world supposed to be reserved for the impossibly beautiful?

Those questions sent me looking into him. He turned out to be a high-school dropout who'd done a handful of films already, some of them modest successes. I bought his earlier movies on disc and worked through all of them. The thing that stayed with me wasn't his talent so much as his confidence. He didn't seem to carry what anyone thought of him. He just did his best and kept winning in an industry where looks are supposed to decide everything. If he could do that, I started to think, maybe I had a shot too. Why not.

I sat down and took stock of my own life for the first time. I wrote out the kinds of work I thought I'd be good at, the things I genuinely liked doing. Around the same time I signed up for a placement training program my college was running for graduating students, meant to sharpen our soft skills and get us ready for job interviews. I had no clue it would turn everything around.

For the first time, I felt something like confidence. I'll be honest, on day one I was mostly faking it to cover the fear. It was a five-day program, and from the start I made myself talk to everyone and pay real attention in the sessions. To my own surprise, I enjoyed it. I was quick at problem solving. In the group discussions I realized I actually followed current events well and that I was holding my own at every stage.

On the second-to-last day, the trainer asked each of us to give a short public speech on a topic we chose. I was split down the middle. Part of me wanted to get up and speak; part of me wanted to shrink into my chair and stay invisible. I pushed through it and spoke on a current-events topic, keeping that young actor in my mind the whole time.

When I finished, the trainer asked my classmates to give me feedback. Several said I had a good voice, that my body language carried, that I came across as genuinely confident. A few pointed out mistakes too, but they did it kindly, trying to help. Then they clapped. It may sound overblown, but I felt something crack open in me, some old belief about who I was giving way, and I cried from happiness and plain relief.

Over the next few days I studied my own traits and landed on a decision: I wanted to become a personal trainer. If one college trainer could pull me out of my shell like that, how many people might I reach? The real reason underneath it was simpler. I loved doing it.

The years after that were good ones. I cleared the MBA entrance exam easily, finished the degree with distinction, and joined a training company. So far I've trained more than two thousand students, and I intend to keep at it for the rest of my life. These days when I look in the mirror, I take a few seconds to admire myself and feel glad about what I see. This is my face, and it's the face thousands of students have come to love and draw a little inspiration from just by meeting me.

The actor who set all this off kept climbing too. He's won a national award for his acting in India, crossed over into North Indian films, and kept pushing forward. Not long ago I watched a YouTube clip of him picking up a well-known award for a North Indian film role. He still inspires me, and I often think back on how his work is where my own recovery started.

People will try to make you feel small. They'll use words and actions to convince you you're not fit for anything. None of that touches the reality of how you get to live your own life. There's a line I love from Think and Grow Rich: "You are never defeated until you accept the image of defeat." It really is in our hands. Believe in yourself, study yourself, do the thing you enjoy, give it your best, and leave the rest alone.