Guest column by   Jill Cohen, LCSW

How can you be a confident young woman? Follow these tips below. These are essential lessons and skills for any young woman to learn and they are not taught in school.  Here is how you let your Swag Flag Fly High. When you are in control of your anger, when you know how to manage stress, when you have high self-esteem, and when you have a list of positive coping mechanisms nobody can stop you.

1)    The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping.  Dale Carnegie

Value yourself: The most important thing I want to say to you is to value yourself.  You have value and self worth just because you are a human being.  Always keep that with you.  If you don’t value yourself how do you expect other people to? If you put your self-esteem in the hands of other people you will sometimes be way up, and sometimes very low.  Needing other people to validate your self worth is like living on a roller coaster and who wants to live like that?

2) Anger is natural. It’s part of the force. You just have to learn to hang out with it. Tori Amos

Dealing with anger: I want to tell you that it is ok to be angry.   It is ok to be frustrated.  It is how we deal with our anger that matters. Feel your anger, identify the source, and at times let it mobilize you to make changes in your life.  However, don’t let it control you.  I think ultimately, we need to detach from our anger after we have processed it.  It just hurts you to keep anger with you for too long and not let it go.

Tips For Dealing With Anger:

Rate your anger on a scale of one to five.  If you are at a five you may say to someone, “I would like to talk to you as soon as I am able to, but first I need some time to myself.”  You are entitled to this.  Obviously, that is not always possible.  So think of the consequences in your head if you say something you are going to regret.  Picture those consequences in a bubble.  This often can help people avoid saying something they feel they are going to regret. Also, refer to the list of healthy coping mechanisms at the bottom of this article.

3) Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you? Unknown

Feeling Overwhelmed:  Make a list of things you can control versus what you can’t.  Start with this.  “I can’t control what other people do, but I can control how I respond.  I can control the person that I choose to be.” Write a list and in one column put “what I can control” and in the other column put “what I can not control” and write it down.  This exercise is very useful when you feel you are under too much stress.

4) Coping with Stress

Make a list of healthy ways to cope with stress.  This will help you for the rest of your life.  Over time this list may change, but it is essential to have this list.  Here are some of the things that help me, my clients and the people I know personally.

1) Healthy exercise  (Yoga/Pilates) 2) Singing   3) Dancing 4) Using your imagination and creativity 5) Imagining a cool breeze running through your hair 6) Think if what you were feeling right now had a color and shape what would those be? 7) Journaling 8) Painting 9) Spending time with animals 10) Learning to use clay and work with pottery   11) Do activities that feel like play! 12) Breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth at your own pace while picturing a safe and peaceful place. The list can go on and on.  I find that different things may work for different people.  Pick things that work for you.

If you follow these tips you are on your was to a happy life and you are going to feel like you have the skills to manage what life throws at you!  This is the key to confidence.