Developing and Nurturing Self Confidence in the Sex Work Industry

The Impact of SW on Self Confidence

The online content creation industry really can have some real extreme impacts on your overall self confidence and self esteem.

For some people it gives the self image boosts, self assurance boosts, and overall raises them up to a level where no one and nothing can bring them down. Some people can experience the exact opposite with feelings of self doubt, body dysmorphia, and being brought to new mental/ emotional lows. If I know anything to be true, at least for myself, we are all guaranteed to experience both at least once through our career, but can expect it to regularly vacillate.

For myself personally I have found that where I am on that spectrum is hugely dependent on how overall business is doing. Which is not always something that we can always control. So, what can we do when things outside of our control (trolls, personal life factors, sluggish business, etc) start to affect our self confidence and self esteem? Let’s talk some of the strategies I employ and some that are tested and proven to be tried and true.

I am not a mental health professional. If you are experiencing mental health struggles please consider reaching out to friends, family, or a mental health professional. This post contains mental health resources you can reach out to. You don’t have to be in this dark place alone right now, you can let someone come hold a flashlight with you ♥

Lets Talk Strategies!

Track your day to day accomplishments

In the Discord server Creators Resource Chats, a friend of Creators Spicy Tea and my online family of creators, we have an entire channel called achievements. We all share and celebrate achievements big and small and I have found it to be a huge factor in maintaining my self confidence on slow days. Because, listing out what I did achieve in a day, rather than what I didn’t, forces a change in perspective. You are forced to focus in on the successes rather than the losses.

A example of this came up for me not long ago. I had a couple days in a row there that I was only hitting my minimum goal rather than exceeding and it was making me feel a bit frustrated with myself. So I went to the Achievements channel and listed the things I did rather than didn’t. It turns out in that one day what I hadn’t allowed myself to see was I had shot, edited and scheduled enough content to schedule one two months out on my first Telegram channel, one on my first, and a month and a half out on promo. That is a shit load of work, labor, and successes that I wasn’t focusing on that I should have been celebrating. Listing it out, and then having others celebrate with me, made me see that my time wasn’t wasted, I was just given the opportunity to batch create content for a few days to really give me breathing room for a while. I stopped being so down on myself, but rather grateful for what I had done and the lull I was given. It was an immediate self confidence boost.

Set attainable goals

Recently we had a full resource on setting goals if you want to brush up, it can be found here. The gist of setting attainable goals is, if you set goals that you cannot feasibly reach, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Challenging goals are admirable to set, but make sure challenging isn’t going to actually be impossible. And your goals can and should fluctuate on a multitude of factors (like mental and physical health, personal life interference, outside responsibilities, etc) on a day to day basis. I usually have a minimum goal that I expect myself to reach per day and will work my ass off to reach it hell or high water. That being said, that goalpost is not screwed into the ground. Some days I know I’m kicking hard and will raise that goal. Others, if I am not feeling it, or cannot dedicate the time required, that goal will go away entirely and I will be happy with whatever comes. This prevents my sense of accomplishment from not being fulfilled that day. Even if the only goal you can imagine being able to accomplish today is to brush your teeth, then set that goal and meet it with pride. Your goals don’t always have to be seen as difficult by others to be hard for you that day. And things you may be able to accomplish one day, you can’t do the next. The important step you can take to protect your self esteem on these days is to move those goals to attainable at-that-moment distances.

Hear and accept praise, and decide who to accept criticism from

If you are like me, getting compliments can make you uncomfortable and want to melt into the floor a little bit. I get that. But, really listen if you can. If someone you knew was kicking ass and taking names, you would tell them right? Let others treat you with the same kindness! This is easier said than done I know. What I did at the beginning to try and change my perspective on praise and compliments was to look at them as a business review on Yelp. These are clients telling me what they like about my business and the way I conduct myself and I can use that to pull in more clients from the same demographic. If that is all you are able to ever frame it as, then at least you are hearing it. But hopefully, like me, after a while of hearing it from such a wide array of folks, you start to believe, and that self esteem can really benefit.

When it comes to criticism, you need to decide if this person is worth enough to you to allow their words to impact you. Are they a good repeat client who has supported you and been respectful thus far? That may be worth a listen. That dumb ass who is calling you a OnlyFans whore in the comments is very literally not worth a second thought. You are the only governance of your own standards and self acceptance. You guard the entry to whose words will affect you.

Set boundaries and enforce them. Demand respect as it is innately due to you

Setting your boundaries can feel difficult, especially defining them. We went into depth on setting boundaries in this resource and I strongly suggest giving it a read. I can easily and honestly say that these days I never feel more confident than I do when I am enforcing my boundaries. That was not always the case. I used to not even have a clear definition to myself of what my boundaries were, and felt uncomfortable enforcing the ones I did. Once I switched my mindset from setting and enforcing boundaries is going to cause a scene and isn’t worth losing a sale, to I have set my boundaries and you will respect them or I will fire you, my confidence has never been stronger. I now demand to have my boundaries heard and respected without excuse in my content business and my personal life. My clients all know and respect the hell out of me for it. Which is absolutely mind-blowing even to me. Setting your boundaries is self love, enforcing them is self care. The number one person who can raise your self esteem is always going to be you, and this is a damn good place to start.

Change your internal language, or at least catch it when you can

The way you speak to yourself will manifest. I used to, out loud, call myself stupid, dumb, and idiot etc. Never mind the language I used internally…. To the point that even my clients would speak out against it. It would subconsciously drag me down and it changed my perspective of myself. So, after hearing, and deciding to listen to criticism from enough people, I began changing my language. I still sometimes slip and berate myself, but I always apologize or even say ‘hey now’ or something else to remind myself I don’t talk that way anymore. This change has been far and beyond the number one thing responsible for my change is self esteem and confidence. I am willing to say that once I got good enough at doing this, everything else snowballed into place on this list. It was not easy at the beginning, and even felt fake. But it really is a case of fake it til you make it y’all.

Give yourself the permission to be a work in progress and learn anything you can whenever you can

You are not a fully written book right now. You are not ready to be published yet. Allow your character to still develop, and your story to still play out. You cannot expect yourself to be perfect right now or ever because you cannot know what is coming next. Which means you cannot always be prepared for what comes and will make mistakes. Give yourself the permission to do this, and to learn from it. As a character still on their vast adventure and completing side quests, allow yourself to still grow. In our industry especially you have to forgive yourself for the mistakes. We all accidentally let a client talk for too long without paying. We have all fallen for a scam or two. But we learn from that and we evolve from that.

Have a self care routine

For some people this looks like a killer exercise routine. For others it’s a meal so nutritious you lose count of all the super foods in it. For me personally it’s my twice daily six step skin care routine and true crime podcasts. Maybe for you this is taking a regular walk, or a solid cup of coffee in the morning with a book. Have something in your day that is dedicated to you and makes you feel either physically or mentally centered and healthy. This is an act of self love and enough of that love will help translate to a boost in self esteem.

Nurturing your self confidence and self esteem is not just about having thick skin. It’s about having enough self love and self respect that that becomes the only thing you allow from yourself and the world around you. I know it can be a daily battle to keep these up, but try out some of these strategies and maybe one will stick with you.