Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Archives for January 2008

Self Confident men, Shy and Flamboyant

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“Life’s a bit like mountaineering – never look down.” So said Sir Edmund Hillary, who reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. He was the first to reach the highest point on earth, an achievement for which he was forever linked. He died yesterday aged 88.

Whilst around 2000 have since reached the summit, when Hillary and Tenzing Norgay did so it had been seen as beyond man’s capability, previous expeditions having ground to a halt. As Hilary admitted:-

“We didn’t know if it was humanly possible to reach the top.“

Whatever image you have of Edmund Hillary, remember two facts about him. At school, he was in a gym group for those lacking co-ordination and admitted to feeling a “deep sense of inferiority”. A few years later he was apparently so shy that he proposed to his wife with a message via her mother. [Read more…]

Do you suffer from gluckschmerz?

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Thought I’d step away from goals and resolutions and share with you two new words I’ve learned recently. Gluckschmerz, a German word that means feeling unhappy about the good fortune of others; and Schadenfreude – yes, you guessed it – also German, which means feeling pleasure at the suffering of others.

Sadly, the English language doesn’t always have the panache of other languages! We’re left with envy – perhaps the feeling does deserve such a short and ugly word. Does it affect you? If so, does it motivate you to work harder to achieve what the other person has got? Or, does it drag you down and undermine your self confidence?

Professor Richard Smith, University of Kentucky, said envy:-

“Occurs when we lack another’s superior quality, achievement or possession and desire it or wish the other lacked it. When we envy, we feel inferior, longing, resentment and ill-will to the advantaged person.”

Not holding back he goes on to say [Read more…]

Do you have a dream?

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future

I asked Are goals necessary? a few weeks ago, before the current wave of New Year resolutions (which for many are their only attempt at setting goals). Recently Mark McClure came back with an interesting rephrasing of the question – “Are goals necessary but not sufficient?”

My own reflections since writing that post have concluded that goals are necessary, and I have been very poor at using them! Recent research by Professor Richard Wiseman, University of Hertfordshire, looked at techniques people used for succeeding in last years resolutions. He found there were gender differences:-

Men were significantly more likely to succeed when they had been asked to set a goal for themselves: for example, instead of trying to lose weight, say by shedding a pound each week, they were told to focus on a measure of success, such as becoming more attractive to women.

Women were more successful when they [Read more…]