This is for all of the girls out there who have ever woken up to a new morning’s sunrise, and felt like they don’t want to get out of bed, because they don’t measure up. The girls who have wished that they could wake up as someone else for a day… anyone else. The girls who feel like they’re somehow less than what they should be. The girls who don’t even know how to begin loving themselves. This is for all of you who have been led to believe that your beautiful souls are not enough.

Not pretty enough. Not smart enough. Not popular enough. Not hard working enough. Not talented enough. Not thin enough. Not curvy enough. Not loud enough. Not mellow enough. Not brave enough. Not funny enough. Not experienced enough. Not innocent enough.

Never enough.

Have you ever woken up in the morning not knowing who you are? Why you’re here? What the point of all of this is anyway? Well, I have, more times than I care to remember. We’re all just fragile human beings, carrying breakable hearts and more feelings than we know what to do with. Sometimes, we’re all a little unsure. The truth is, we all will have our great days and our not so rosy ones. No woman wakes up every single day feeling incredible about themselves; that’s simply not reality. That being said, the good days should, without question, kick ass with the crappy ones.

I’ve come to realise that the most genuinely beautiful women who grace this earth are the ones who believe that they are. They don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks, because they realise that the only person they truly need to impress is themselves. And that thinking in itself is where your true beauty can be found. It can’t be found in the pages of that self-help book, or in the shower of compliments from the cute guy you met in the club on Saturday night, or in the eyes of your partner whose unwavering adoration for you radiates through.

You were always meant to be your own saviour all along.

Please don’t be the girl who waits for some guy you barely know to come along and tell you you’re beautiful, before you start believing it. He might stick around, and he might not; but either way, he does not have the power to change how you truly feel about yourself, deep down. Not really. No one does.

You are what you believe. You are the voices in your head that you choose to listen to or disregard. You are as good as you allow yourself to be. You are anything you dare to dream possible.

You are the only person who has the choice, each day, to wake up and decide that you are beautiful.

The choice, if you’re feeling a little bruised, to get up anyway. To blast your happy song as loud as you please, sing along to it with everything you’ve got while taking a glorious invigorating shower; to pick out your favourite summer dress and apply that bold scarlet red lipstick like you mean it. The choice to make yourself feel better, the choice to get up and keep moving forward, to keep choosing yourself.

If no one told you that you’re beautiful today, I want you to look at the reflection staring back at you in the nearest mirror, and tell that girl she is beautiful. Be sure to say it like you mean it. Your freckle clusters, your corner-of-the-eye creases, those gappy teeth, or your slightly off-centre nose. Your child-bearing hips, your invisible thigh gap, or those slightly-wider-than-you’d-like ankles. All those parts of you that you believe to be flaws, only appear that way because you’ve been convinced to view them in that light. Think of them as your beauty spots. They make you, you. Why would you want to try and be anybody else? Don’t compare yourself to a hot stranger on Instagram. Don’t hate the girl you think is your competition, because she’s really just a soul sister in disguise. The world already has a beautiful her, and her, and her… what it doesn’t have yet is a beautiful you.

You harbour more potential and possibility and greatness within you than you can even begin to imagine right now. You hold a gift that is unique to you – no one will possess the same one; not now, not ever. And in knowing this, how could you wish to not be you?

How could you not believe in that incredible woman that you see staring back at you?

You may not be able to see it right now, but you have your very own one-off flavour of sparkle. And your sparkle has more than enough light to shine fiercely all on its own. You simply have to find it, continue to fuel it, and never allow it to go out.

Feeling beautiful will always begin, and end, with you.