by David on March 15, 2008
Do you look confident? If I spotted you are a social gathering, what would your body language say - “Go away, I don’t want to be here” or “Come and meet me”? I’ve read different statistics, but its fair to say over 70% of our communication is transmitted by our body language.
So how do you change your outer appearance, even if your self talk is still struggling to get over negative thoughts. Here are a few tips to practice:-
Start off with your feet at least 12 inches apart and have your weight even distributed between both feet. Also have your soles of your feet evenly planted on the ground - think of the ball of your foot, the heel and a point just below the little toe as a tripod, supporting the rest of your body. [click to continue...]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
by David on December 31, 2007
Today is the last day of 2007. Many people are busy setting New Years Resolutions like “I will lose 20lbs”, “I will stop smoking”, “I will go to the gym twice a week”. The sort of resolutions/targets/goals - whatever you want to call them - that have often fizzled out by the end of January.
Two posts I wrote recently (Do you have passion or desire?, are goals necessary?) have highlighted my uncertainties about goal setting. Its something I have been studying - partly because I have seldom got it right myself. I’ll come back to this in the next posts. But there are two things I have always got right.
One, January 1st isn’t the only day you can start new goals. In many ways its a poor day. Many set goals, like those above, based on consuming less - be it food, smoke, alcohol, money. This reflects a holiday season of excess rather than any real motivation to change.
[click to continue...]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
by David on December 15, 2007
Since starting this blog I have reread some of my own books on self confidence and personal development, and generally researched and followed up links on the topic. Some I have made reference to, or quoted. I have paid particular attention to any source that has given exercises to build self confidence.
My aim is to build a resource that will be useful, not just interesting or entertaining. Reading books on any aspect of personal development I always feel they have a major drawback - when the reader is presented with an exercise to carry out, its so, so easy to turn over the page (promising ourselves to return to it later!).
Personal development involves change, and you won’t change by just passing by. If you do try to follow some of the exercises you come across another problem - changing habits usually involves effort, some discomfort, and will power. Surprisingly, few books even mention will power, suggesting that just once someone has embarked on a new course of action keeping going is simple. [click to continue...]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
by David on December 11, 2007
I’ve written a lot recently about thinking and self talk, in particular how we tend to automatically focus on negatives. This applies just as easily to confidence. If asked, most of us can list things we cannot do, areas we lack confidence without too much searching.
So lets start at the opposite end. How often do you remind yourself of what you are good at, or remind yourself of times when you felt totally confident? What we think about has a direct bearing on how we feel, our emotional state. And, yes its that habit word again. Getting in the habit of feeling confident is one simple way of raising your general expectation of yourself. [click to continue...]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
by David on December 3, 2007
This post and Distract Yourself from Self Talk was inspired by a previous comment saying “how am I supposed to stop caring about what people think? It’s not a switch I can just turn off…”
I said there were two techniques, one - “distraction”, which featured in the Distract yourself post, and two - positive challenge. This second technique is equally simple in practice, you challenge the negative thoughts you are experiencing and come up with positive alternatives.
It is useful, whichever technique you use, to monitor your thoughts. keep a rough diary of what thoughts you get. The underlying principle is to get on top of what automatic thinking habits you have got. You may find all you negative thoughts center on just one problem. [click to continue...]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
by David on November 26, 2007
I’ll start with a postscript to my recent posts. My wife and I have just returned from a weekend visiting our daughter in Yorkshire. Whilst there we visited the Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford.
One exhibition had a large display of news photographs - including one from the Albert Hall, London in 1930. A public meeting was held by family, friends and other supporters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, five days after his death. The photograph depicts an empty chair, left vacant for Conan Doyle in the expectation he would communicate with the meeting in some way. He didn’t.
My other point relates to my last post about the manager of the England football team. Apart from speculating about Britney’s suitability, I mentioned how the sacked manager, Steve McClaren was being vilified in the media. The main thread of the post was “You can’t really care what others say“. Since writing the post I read one of the more reasoned articles that looked at why McClaren had been a poor manager. [click to continue...]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
