Confident Women (Extract)

Chapter One

“How to Be a Confident Woman: A Step-by-Step Guide to Boosting Your Self-Esteem”

 by Olivia Bright

 #1 Buy a bra that fits. Stop stuffing your boobs into Primark-sized underwear just because it’s cheap.

 #2 Try your dream job. Volunteer on the side and then you’ll know if it’s really your dream. If it isn’t, you’ll have more confidence to succeed in whatever role you choose.

 #3 Ask for that pay rise you were promised in your current job. Confident women do not earn minimum wage for fear of telling their boss they’re worth more.

 #4 Throw away old clothes and accept that you aren’t going to get into those tiny leather trousers again. Be confident about the way your body looks now, not how it used to look.

 #5 Ditch the takeaways and learn to cook something tasty yourself.

 #6 Ask a guy, who you think is way out of your league, out on a date. You might be surprised.

 #7 Do something that scares you every day. You’re a confident, independent woman. You don’t need to buy a new dress or scoff a whole box of Krispy Kremes to cope with rejection or failure. 

I stare at the pictures of beautiful, smiling women who ooze confidence. The confidence that following Olivia Bright’s words is supposed to give every reader. 

I don’t normally take notice of such guides. Not even the ones written by my favourite magazine writers.

But something about Olivia Bright’s article seems oddly familiar. It could be a friend or someone I know making these suggestions. And that’s compelling to me to give it a go.

After all, some days I wish I had the confidence to ask somebody at work how exactly to load the paper into the photocopier so that it doesn’t jam.

I started my job as an admin assistant for the HR department of a Leeds window company started about eight months ago. I work there with three women who more than make up for my lack of confidence. There’s Nora, my boss, Helen, my superior, and finally Scarlett, who may not be any higher up than me career-wise, but she started a few months before me—leaving me with the dreaded “new girl” status.

I can’t imagine any of them taking this stuff seriously. Even Scarlett, who hides celebrity gossip magazines under the piles on her desk so she can sneak a look at them when Nora isn’t watching, would laugh off the article.

Why would a girl who waltzes in to work every day wearing six-inch heels have any trouble asking a man out? And it’s not like Scarlett needs to worry about throwing away clothes that are too small for her. The only clothes that are too small for Scarlett are those made for seven-year-olds. 

I flick the pages, idly scanning stories of celebrity scandal and checking my horoscope. But I soon turn back to“How to Be a Confident Woman” and read the list again, mentally running through how attainable each one is.

Buying new underwear is easy. And I’m sure I could be a bit more ruthless with my wardrobe if I tried.

But what about the things that require a certain level of existing confidence? My palms feel sweaty against the glossy paper just thinking of speaking to Nora about a pay rise.

“Interesting read, Megan?” Helen peers over my shoulder as she passes through the tiny kitchen. She’s smirking in a way that makes me want to “accidentally” forget to take the tea bag out of the cuppa I’m about to make her.