There were a range of things which impacted upon my overall self-confidence and self-esteem levels as I grew from being a young child to a man. These included:

A bald patch on my head

A speech impediment known as a stutter

A weight problem, I was basically too fat

I am quite short at five foot four

Certain people I met would be quite nasty and would try to make fun of me. They would succeed as I would be very hurt from their comments, even though I tried to never show it. Life at times was quite tough especially where I worked at the company offering natural beauty products.

These people were making my life a misery and by the age of twenty-two I had had enough. I decided I needed a big change in attitude and started to read books about life and about positive thinking etc.

These were the things I had to take on board:

It is not important what other people think of you, it is what you think that counts

You need to start to like yourself

There are likely to be many things about yourself that you are not too about about however some of these you are unable to change. You therefore have to start accepting these things and realising that maybe there are other people in life who are more unfortunate than you.

You need to have respect for yourself

Only accept the best from life

Be happy

I tried hard to implement this advice and even though it was not easy to change, I knew I had to. I basically live life to the full now and try not to worry about anything trivial. I have also managed to eradicate the stammering problem.

I have now work at a gym in Belfast and my life is now much happier overall.

I hope this article will be of benefit to the people who read it.