Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Do You Use the 5 Hour Rule?

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bill gates

 

http://www.inc.com/empact/bill-gates-warren-buffett-and-oprah-all-use-the-5-hour-rule.html

The author of this article states “Many of these leaders, despite being extremely busy, set aside at least an hour a day (or five hours a week) over their entire career for activities that could be classified as deliberate practice or learning.”
Is this what you do? She goes on to reflect that this “learning” can be subdivided into:-
(1) Read
(2) Reflect
(3) Experiment

Do you think this is useful?

photo by Claudio Toledo on Flickr

7 Practical Tips For Boosting Your Self-Esteem

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I’m forever coming across short articles or blog posts with seemingly useful tips.  But can such brief tidbits of information really do any good. For instance, with this article will any of the tips really “boost” you self esteem?

7 Practical Tips For Boosting Your Self-Esteem

by Ricky P O’ Shea

Having healthy self-esteem is the building blocks for happy, vibrant living. It means you have confidence in yourself and your abilities whereas as having low self-esteem can mean you lack confidence in yourself and never reach your true potential.

The good news is that if your self-esteem could do with a boost then there are small changes that can make a big difference. It all starts with reprogramming your beliefs and weeding out the negative inner-dialogue. To help you get started, consider the following tips for boosting your self-esteem.

Selective ignorance

The feedback and solicitations from others can greatly impact your own state of being. Choose to source your information wisely, limiting negative media in place of more positive media such as seminars or educational activities. Surround yourself with others who are positive and bring out the best in you and avoid allowing the negativity of others to affect your own judgement.

Comfort Zone

If we don’t push ourselves outside of our comfort zones then we have nothing to build on. You’d be surprised what you can achieve if you put your mind to it so take the plunge once in a while and take on new challenges. In doing so you’ll naturally grow in confidence and give your self-esteem a much-needed boost. [Read more…]

Skills to build self confidence

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When researching my recent post build self confidence, I came across other articles and blogs on this theme. But as I discussed in my post, some of the tips and steps suggested elsewhere are somewhat dubious.

With a title 7 Smart Ways to Build Self Confidence, I thought Mohamed Tohami in Lost-Media.net may buck the trend.  Well, the result is very mixed. Here are his “smart ways”:-

Fire walking, skills to build self confidence
Building self confidence? dadjanda (Flickr.com)

1 Travel

2. Walk on Fire

3. Express yourself

4. Join a Toastmasters Chapter

5. Learn one new skill every year (at least)

6. Break a Record!

7. Study Self Confidence.

 

I think the last item is somewhat ironic as by studying self confidence you will have to wade through a swamp of contradictory advice! You’ll most likely end up confused rather than more confident. [Read more…]

Build Self Confidence

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This blog has many tips on how to build self confidence. I wrote a post 20 ways to build self confidence some time back. I now find there is even a video based on an article I discussed in that post!

My main criticism remains – walking faster and sitting in the front row are rather weird suggestions and hardly likely to have the desired effect.  If you lack self confidence you will feel very self conscious sitting in the front and feel worse.  There is no guarantee you will eventually get over that and feel more confident.

Feeling the fear and doing it anyway – as in Susan Jeffers book title – doesn’t work for everyone.  If you go along this route its about coming to terms that we have learnt to feel fear and associate it with that activity.  And, unless you are short sighted or hard of hearing, what actually do you achieve by sitting in the front? [Read more…]

Steve Jobs Living Each Day

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The theme of this post is don’t wait for a life changing event to kick start you into action. Apart from self confidence, living each day more deliberately can infuse your life with more meaning and focus.

Steve Jobs  Stanford University in 2005

This “commencement address” is now well known. I want to focus near the end; At 9:10  Steve says:-

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

steve jobs confidence
steve jobs – never forgotten

Steve, of course, has now had his last day at the age of 56.  When I started to write this post the papers and internet are full of stories about the death, at 48 , of Whitney Houston. This final part of Steve’s speech hammers home the fact that we are all mortal; You need to have the confidence to live the life you want – not what someone else wants:-

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life… Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice… Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” [Read more…]