Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Archives for April 2007

Have a dump to build confidence

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We all have experiences we would rather forget about. Times when we made a fool of ourselves, died with embarrassment, did something that we never want to go through again. But we do – it seems so easy to recall these events in our mind and replay them over and over.

Moving on from bad experiences is important if we’re to feel good about ourselves. One technique is to literally “dump” the experience. Write it down, draw it, or get some other physical representation of that memory. Then dispose of it – screw it up, tear it up, bin it, burn it, flush it – the choice is yours.

Doing something symbolic is our way of telling ourselves that its time to move on. If the experience tries to creep back into our memory – we can shut it out quickly by recalling how we dumped it and move on.

How childhood can impact on confidence

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Initially we learn to value ourselves, or not, through our childhood experiences. If we are treated well, and those experiences leave us believing we are loved and valued, we see ourselves as being worthy of love. In this situation we learn to love ourselves.

The opposite holds that if we are neglected or abused we see ourselves as unworthy. We then learn to dislike ourselves.

Other childhood experiences can affect our self confidence. If a child only receives love or attention when successful – such as getting top marks in class, they will strive towards perfectionism in adulthood.

If other behaviors are also similarly rewarded – such as looking after younger siblings – there is also a knock on effect on how they later perceive themselves (“I am only worthwhile if I look after others/please others”) and subsequently act (don’t see themselves as worthwhile, put the needs of others above their own.

Whilst I made reference to abuse and neglect above, it doesn’t take such extremes to have an impact. As parents we are not aware at how much negativity and “conditional” love we impose on our children. There are many adults who did not suffer abuse or neglect, but constantly undermine their self confidence by striving for perfectionism, worrying about what others think, seeking approval or by having other forms of rigid thinking. Fortunately these things can be changed.

There’s no comparison

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Do you find yourself comparing yourself to others all the time? Are you being fair on yourself – it’s easy to under value your achievements in comparison with others. If you look you can always find someone who can do something better than you – so why look!

In any field of human endeavor there will be experts who specialize or train to such a degree they are at the very top. But it would be a sad, dysfunctional world if no one else bothered. Many thousands achieved a huge amount by completing the marathon on Sunday – I hope none belittled their achievement by comparing themselves to the race winners.

Telling yourself that anyone could have done it is also self defeating. Are you sure? Does it matter? What matters is – YOU DID IT.

Great self confidence from praise

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A chapter in the excellent Happiness Toolkit is devoted to praising yourself. The author Jennifer Summers states:-

Most people have no qualms about putting themselves down when they’ve not done something as well as they’d hoped or wanted. People put themselves down for all sorts of reasons, examples can include: being late, messing up the baking of a cake, scratching the car, quite often even injuring themselves can provoke a reaction, “I’m so clumsy.”

The opposite reactions can be experienced when you praise yourself, and tell yourself you did well. This shouldn’t be reserved just for big events – like running a marathon!

Recognize that most of what you do each day is positive

To do this Jennifer suggests listing 10 positive things you did today, and describe how this makes you feel? This ensures you focus on the mundane, as well as the special. The Happiness Toolkit includes a worksheet to help with this exercise, although any form of diary or notebook would suffice. Give it a try.

Confidence marathon

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As I write this 34,000 people are competing in the London Marathon – many running 26.2 miles for the first time. Whatever their reasons for entering (millions of $/£’s are raised for charities) completing the race is a tremendous achievement.

I was part of the crowd last year supporting my daughter who did her first marathon, aged 18. An extreme method of building self confidence? There is little doubt that stepping outside our comfort zone and achieving a goal that needs a lot of hard work and commitment is a great boost to anyone’s self confidence.

I did the race in 1998 and one big factor is that you are competing in the same race as the “elite” runners. The 2007 Women’s winner has just finished in 2hours 20 minutes – she’ll be having lunch back at her hotel when most of the other women are finishing, but that won’t worry them! You are all part of the same event.

Running may not press your buttons, but there are equivalent endeavors we can all achieve – it just takes commitment and hard work.