CLIQUES AND WHY TO AVOID THEM

Cliques are groups of friends, but not all groups of friends are cliques. A clique is a group of friends that pick and choose who is in their group and they leave certain people out on purpose.  When you are around others and start to notice that you are no longer yourself or you stop voicing your true opinion then you are probably in a clique.

Every young girl wants to be respected and liked by her peers. Joining a clique may be a way in which a girl seeks approval but being in a clique can be detrimental to her self esteem and self worth because a lot of the time it’s centred on control. You can’t talk to certain people. You can’t wear certain clothes. You may even laugh at jokes that are not funny just to belong. Listed below are reasons why you should avoid cliques.

LOSS OF IDENTITY

When you join a clique there is always a stronger personality or a few others that want to control you and dictate the rules. And because you want to fit in and be accepted, you may find yourself not being authentic. In other words, you are not keeping it real. You won’t speak out. You won’t say what you really mean. You will agree with everything that the clique leader says, just to fit it. Stop it. Be your own person. Find your own voice and have your own identity.

LOSS OF SELF RESPECT

When you join a clique because you have given all your powers away, you may lose your self respect. You lose respect when you are no longer yourself and you become a puppet. You may also lose respect when you try and voice something that is important to you and you get shut down. Stop it today. Get your respect back by knowing that you are just as important as the next person and you deserve to be heard.

YOU DON’T SPEAK UP

This is the worst part about being in a clique. You don’t speak up. Even on matters that are important to you. Jackie was in a clique and a friend of hers was being teased by the other members. Jackie said nothing but felt bad for her friend. Instead of standing up to the clique bullies, she allowed them to make fun of her friend. She later called her friend outside of the group to ask if she was ok rather than standing up to the group. Jackie has no control of her life. Is this how you want to be? I don’t think so.

YOU RESTRICT YOURSELF

If you belong to a clique you will find that you avoid making other friends. You may even become obsessed with the clique to the point of doing negative things that you normally would not do. Then when you leave the clique you will have to go through a painful journey of regaining your own identity and making new genuine friends.

Groups can be a great way of finding others who share common interest. Groups build each other up. I do encourage young girls to join groups but leave the cliques for those who do not have a strong self worth. You are valuable.

Note To Parents and Guardians: 

Let's teach girls to value and respect themselves. Let them know that they don’t need the approval of others. Teach them to have a wide network of friends, so that they don’t rely on one group. Remind them that being in a clique will lead to a miserable life of approval and conforming. Every girl should stand up for herself and know she is valuable.

FEEL THE FEAR AND BE CONFIDENT ANYWAY

It is my wish that every girl will become more confident in herself. A confident girl is comfortable with who she is and is unafraid of how others may perceive her. The tools below will help improve a girl’s confidence.

Face Your Fears

Everyone has fears but fears should not stop a girl from stepping out and doing what she wants to do. There is a saying, “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. Most fears are just our imagination playing tricks on us. You will be surprised at what you can do when you step out and face your fears. Ada faced her fears. She was scared of singing in public, even though she had a great voice. Then one day she faced her fears and sang in her school concert. She blew the crowd away and actually enjoyed being on stage. Now she sings professionally. Can you imagine how miserable Ada would have been if she had not faced her fears? She would have also missed opportunities that will move her forward in life.

Know What Is Important

At some point in your life you have to know what is important and what is not. Too many girls focus on day to day drama. When you go through life knowing what you want to achieve, it will make you become more focused and more confident. Keno was sick of the drama. She was just having one problem after the other with a group of friends. So she decided to take a break away and focus on her studies because she was in her final year of university. Thankfully for her she came out with 2^nd class honours.

Prepare For Success

Failing to plan is planning to fail and the same can be said for preparation. If you have a task to do then just do it. When you have prepared and done your best then you can relax and wait for the fruit of your labour. Emua knew about this. She had been preparing for a while to get into an Engineering firm. She sent off her CV to several firms and practiced her interviews techniques with a mentor. She suddenly got a line up of interviews and was offered a job at the company of her choice. You can imagine how this helped her confidence. She knew hence forth that if she put her mind towards anything and preparing, she could achieve great success.

Mistakes Dont Kill

Don’t take mistakes as failures and don’t allow them to knock your confidence. See them as lessons learned. When you learn the lessons, note it in your memory so that you don’t make the same mistake again. And even if you do it is not the end of the world. Bisola made of few mistakes with her career. First she wanted to study medicine, then half way through she changed her mind to study nursing but then she finally decided to study psychology. She did make a few mistakes of chopping and changing courses but it was not the end of the world. She finished with psychology and is training to be a life coach.

A GIRL CALLED VALUABLE

Once upon a time there lived a girl called Valuable. She lived in a two bedroom house in the rural part of town with her parents and two sisters. It did not matter that she shared a bedroom with her sisters, she knew she was valuable. 

Before she went to school she brushed her hair, cleaned her teeth and made sure that her uniform looked clean and ironed. Valuable’s parents’ did not have much money but she did not mind because she knew the most important things in life were free.

Valuable did not stress her parents out for all the latest items that her friends had, because Valuable had learnt to be grateful for what she had.

School was not a problem for Valuable. She did very well. She spoke up in class but if she didn’t understand a question she was bold enough to ask for help. She surrounded herself with friends that loved and appreciated her. There were no issues with bullying because Valuable stood up for herself. Valuable did not seek or need validation from her friends because she knew she was valuable.

Sometimes during break she chose to be on her own and walked around the school by herself appreciating nature.

She cultivated such an inner strength of confidence and was not easily swayed by what others thought about her. Valuable was a pretty girl but she didn’t let that get to her head, because she knew that what is in the inside, is what mattered.

So what made Valuable feel so valuable? She said “ I didn’t always feel like this. I used to doubt myself until one day I started believing in myself and my own worth. I know I am as valuable as anyone else. I know who I am and who’s I am so I just decided to be the best me possible and to thank God for making me, me.”

THE END

Authenticity and the Girl Child

As a girl grows older she will hear the word authenticity.  In a nutshell, it means the qualities of being genuine or true to oneself. It may come from her mum, her dad, her aunty, her teacher and even her friends. They will say, “Be authentic”. “Be real and Be yourself”. The truth is, many older girls struggle to be authentic.  Hopefully the tips that I share will stop girls from falling into the trap of being fake.

Don’t Lie To Yourself

The worst habit a young girl can do is lie to herself. Once you start lying it becomes a habit. The lie becomes real because the more you keep lying the more you start believing it. There is nothing worth lying about anyway because sooner or later the truth will be revealed.

Don’t Lie To Others

Never make up stories about your identity and where you are from or other fake stories.  People’s memories are very sharp and when you start lying you will be caught out. I remember a young girl in one of my clubs who made up fantastic stories about all her travels. She was only 8. I knew she was lying and wondered why at 8 years old she was trying to impress others with such false stories.

Accept Yourself

As a girl becomes older she will become more self aware. She will know her strengths and her weaknesses. As she becomes stronger in confidence she will focus more on her strengths. She will not cover up who is or pretend to be somebody that she is not. That is the ideal. Unfortunately many grown up girls struggle to be real. They pretend to be what they are not. They wear a mask hoping that no one will notice the imposter.

Don’t Be Proud

An authentic girl doesn’t care about her ego. There are no signs of pride whatsoever.  What you see is transparency.  She doesn’t care if you can read her because she has got nothing to hide.  Even authentic people fall short every now and then because they are human. It is better to work on being true to oneself than being fake. A truly authentic girl is confident and free to be herself. What you see is what you get.

Spot a Fake

Let me tell a little secret to girls who read my blog. When you are being fake everybody notices. Most will just not say it to your face, so what’s the point?  I want girls to realise early that nobody is perfect. It is ok to have flaws. Just dont magnify them, be yourself. It must take a lot of work to be fake unless you are a seasoned actress but even then, is it really worth it?

To the girl child growing up in a society where there is so much pretense, I would say be your authentic self. The added bonus is that it is healthier.  

ARE YOU A QUEEN BEE?

QUEEN BEE

She is always the centre of attention. If the focus is not on her she becomes so insecure. She sulks when she doesn’t get her way and can even go to extremes to seek revenge. She has a bunch of YES friends that do everything she says.  The Queen Bee has not learnt the art of treating others the way she would like to be treated because she is too focused on herself. It may take her a while to learn new habits of thinking more about others but she can learn them and then she maybe truly worthy of the throne.

WANNA BEE

She wants to be anything but herself.  She is a people pleaser to a fault and wants to be liked. She lacks assertiveness and she struggles to say NO. She needs to step back and get to know herself more and try not to be too concerned with what others think. She has to realise that you can’t please everyone and she does not need to please everyone.

TRUE BEE

And the winner is True Bee. Her other name is Free Bee. She is on the road to finding herself and really just wants to be happy. She doesn’t bother too much about other people’s opinion because she knows who she is. She has empathy and is always available for her friends. A True Bee can be a role model to those who don’t think enough of themselves and to those who may think too highly of themselves.

ADVISE FROM OLDER ME TO YOUNGER ME

1. Accept yourself
2. Don’t be a people pleaser
3. Stand up for yourself
4. Master your gifts
5. Speak up
6. Don’t own other people’s issues
7. Don’t take in the negative things other say about you. It always comes from a place of jealously and insecurity
8. Don’t compromise your values
9. Say "No" when you want to
10. Don’t allow anyone to control or manipulate you
11. Other people's opinions are not facts
12. Be grateful
13. Be thankful
14. Be yourself
15. Do your best
16. Be your best
17. Be humble
18. Feel the fear and do it anyway
19. Don’t let an opportunity pass you by
20. Your confidence comes from God - stay close to HIM

BELIEVE YOU ARE VALUABLE

Every belief we know, has been taught, either through something we learned or heard. Believing in oneself is one of secrets of being confident and feeling valuable. It doesn’t matter what anyone has told you about yourself, you have to believe in yourself. The following tips will help.

WATCH YOUR WORDS

Girls have to be careful about what they say about themselves. Some girls believe that are not bright enough, not good enough, not intelligent enough, not pretty enough and they say this out loud. The more you speak negative words, then the more you will believe it. So watch your words and don’t say anything bad about yourself.

BELIEVE GOOD THINGS

Believe that good things will happen to you. Be expectant and look forward to tomorrow because where there is life, there is hope. Believe that you can do anything you set your mind to do. Believe that you can get that A grade that you are looking for. Believe that you can get into the school of your choice and believe that you are just as good as the next person.

HAVE A JOURNAL

Write down what you are believing for. Look at your goals daily, so that they become your reality. Maybe you want to get into that science group in your school. Or maybe you want to represent your school in a debating contest. You have to believe you will get in first before it can become your reality.

BELIEVE FOR BIG THINGS

Believe and stretch your goals for bigger things. There is nothing impossible to those who believe. Believe on things that seem impossible and watch your dreams unfold. As we know, the Williams sisters are international tennis players but even as they were growing up they believed that one day they would win. They were in it to win it from the start of their careers.  As we can see their results speak for themselves. They believed.

BELIEVE FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

Finally girls, fix your eyes on the good things about yourself and also believe that no matter how today went, tomorrow will be better.  

Note for parents & teachers

Adults have a lot to play in a girl’s belief system.  If we don’t believe in our girls, then its more difficult for them to believe in themselves. As much as possible refrain from saying negatives things to girls. Don’t say things like, “You will never be able to get into that school”.’”You will never be like your sister or brother” “You can never pass that exam". Rather speak encouraging words that help girls feel better about themselves. Say something like this, "Believe you can do it  RiRi, believe it". 

Then watch her FLY!