Boost your beauty confidence

Laura Moore is a life coach. She knows stuff. Lots of it.
In fact, she can sort your life right out and quick smart too.
We like that. A lot. But you know, baby steps and all. So we asked Laura to help us sort out our beauty routine first.

I want to look good for work, but I never seem to have the time to apply makeup and do my hair. Please don’t tell me to get up earlier. No really … don’t.

“If doing your hair and make-up for work is important to you then you simply have to make time. Have a look at what else you do in the morning and rate its importance against that of your image. Perhaps you can bump something down the list of priorities to make room for your beauty regime, or maybe you can delegate something to clear some space. Failing that there is always the option to get up a little earlier.

If the way you look is going to have a direct impact on your day it is important to recognise that and allow yourself the time you deserve to get it done. Perhaps you can buy yourself time somewhere else to allow this to happen – if you do indeed have to get up earlier then go to bed earlier too. Maybe that doesn’t seem possible? You’d love to but you have too much to do? I bet if you sat down and listed every single thing you do in the day you would be able to get at least one hour back by cutting out the things that are not essential to your values and goals.

Check in with these and prioritise the activities in your day to ensure they’re in line with what is really important to you and what really matters. If looking good is one of these then make it a non-negotiable and bump something that’s not.

Perfect hair and awesome makeup. Yes you can. Really. Laura says so and life coaches don’t lie. Images: Lucas Dawson for Myer.

I worry I don’t do my hair and makeup right … To that you say?

“What is your definition of ‘right’? ‘Right’ according to whom? It sounds like you may be creating standards for yourself based on what you think others think, however we will never actually have any way of knowing what is truly going through their minds. Therefore, you will find yourself constantly striving for an ideal that quite possibly doesn’t exist, and so consequently you are likely to continually feel like a failure because you will never be able to achieve this magical ideal as it is unachievable.

As a result it is probable that your self-confidence and self-worth will take a knock, so you worry even more about how you look, and thus you enter into a perpetual cycle of never feeling good enough and beating yourself up for it. What you could do instead is remember to focus on the things you can control and let go of the things you can’t. You most certainly cannot control other peoples’ thoughts but what you can control is what you think about yourself and what you want your hair and make-up to look like.

If you feel good, that’s all that matters and stuff what anyone else thinks. Self-confidence is actually the thing that will make you sexy, the hair and make-up is just the pretty bow on top.

I would love to cruise the beauty department counters but I get nervous. Advice?

“Firstly check in with yourself and ask what it is about cruising the beauty department counters that makes you nervous. Be prepared to dig deep here and be really honest with yourself. I suspect it’s similar to the problem above and you’re worried about what others think. As I said before, you will never be able to control others’ thoughts so rather than trying to and getting hung up on it, focus on what it is that you want and just enjoy the experience.

A big part of the problem here is the act of judgement – my guess would be that you’re intimidated by the beauty girls because they are all immaculately made up and so you sub-consciously think that they must be better than you in some way. On the flip side, you think they are judging you because your hair and make-up is not at a similar level to theirs.

This is judgement at its best. You actually know nothing about these women and they know nothing about you, so why not view and treat them just like anyone else and get curious about how they can help you, that is after all what they’re there for.”