Girls and women with lots of self-confidence and swagger, get more of what they want out of life and have more fun doing it.  As you get better at recognizing your own talents and feel more comfortable using them, you will become less self-conscious and less susceptible to the message that you should hide your gifts in order to avoid making someone else feel uncomfortable. You will feel better about how you look and remember how to take joy in your body and the way it takes you on adventures and allows you to feel the sensuous joys of this life.

Girls and women with swagger figure out their purpose and use their confidence to fulfill it and make a positive contribution to the world. Without enough self-esteem, women may keep their voices quiet and their potential contributions are forever lost to the world.

How do you get Swagger?

Over the past two years, 240 women have responded to a survey I conducted about their swagger. Just over 40 percent said they were born with swagger, while 52 percent said they faked it or are still faking it.  Many of us started out by pretending to be a little more or a lot more confident than we are. Others were born into families of women who swagger or have confident friends or role models and learned by watching.

Remember feeling full of joy as a child? I loved to be outdoors, climb trees, play in the creek, run, and laugh. There is a home-movie of me bounding into the room and clapping with sheer happiness. Somewhere along the way I was told to be quiet, sit still, and not ever mention my own accomplishments.  Some of that joy and swagger faded away.

“Girls self-esteem peaks at nine years old and then takes a nose dive,” says clinical psychologist Robin F. Goodman at New York University Child Study Center. Images from magazines cultivates dissatisfaction with their bodies and girls experience pressure about dating and sex at ever earlier ages points out Anita Gurian,  in her article How to Raise Girls with Health Self-Esteem: read the article here.

So, even those born with swagger may lose it and have to find ways to recover it as they grow up. As we get interested in boys, we may lose some interest in the things that have given us confidence as children. Isn’t it possible that we can continue to enjoy school and sports and also have relationships? Isn’t it possible that bringing higher confidence and self-respect to our relationships will improve them and make them more satisfying for us?

Join us in the Swagger movement as we pursue growing our own confidence and supporting other girls and women who are doing the same thing.

Cindy Brown, founder of The Girl’s Guide to Swagger