David – Page 3

Self Confidence more useful than Self Esteem?

March 27, 2011 by David

The title of this post is similar to a recent one at Herald-Net, which appears to be an on-line newspaper in Washington, USA. I’ve added the question mark! Their post has a sports focus, so its unsurprising that the argument is very much in favour of self confidence being the key factor.

self esteem — Who Cares about Self Esteem then?

The author James McCusker states that coaches preparing teams for games know that the enemy isn’t the opposition, but a lack of self confidence. And, as in other aspects of life, self confidence is frequently the key to success. He throws in a great quote:-

Automotive pioneer Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” That is what self-confidence is all about, the belief that you can do what needs to be done, that you can succeed.

Self Confidence not same as Self Esteem

Unfortunately people interchange “self confidence” and “self esteem” as if they are the same thing. Mr McCusker gives a neat definition of the difference:-

“Self-confidence is built on achievement; self-esteem is built on opinion.”

If you have a good opinion about yourself, if you believe in your worth as a person, you generally have high self esteem. If you depend on the opinions of others to feel good, then your self esteem has a very shaky foundation.

[Read more…]

Self Confidence in Leadership

March 16, 2011 by David

Marshall Goldsmith is an author, professor, consultant and executive coach. He has an entry in Wikepedia and searching his name on Google gets 272,000 results – enough to give anyone self confidence! Whilst his field of excellence covers business and management, he appears to have guru status in Leadership. Unsurprisingly, when he coaches CEO’s (and potential CEO’s) he rarely encounters problems with self confidence.

But Marshall didn’t get where he is today without being able to give sound advice on this topic. After all, if you spend your working life surrounded by confident people you should pick up a few tips. And you won’t have to buy one of his many books, as Marshall sums it all up in two sentences on his rather unassuming blog:-

You won’t get to the top without self-confidence; to build it, you have to believe in yourself. Don’t worry about being perfect — put up a brave front and do the best you can.

Whilst its written with a business slant, its worth reading his blog post. But in summary he expands the above into 5 points.

Don’t Worry about Being Perfect

Perfectionism is something that has come up several times in past posts, linking to setting yourself impossibly high standards and never feeling what you have done is good enough. [Read more…]

Say Thank You

January 29, 2011 by David

In the UK we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but to me it seems a great idea – a day set aside to say thank you. That seems more meaningful than having an extra day holiday to celebrate a Royal Wedding, one participant of whom may by accident of birth be set to “rule” us!

Some people keep a gratitude journal or diary, which at first seems a bit woo~woo or bound with religious practices. However, research has shown that such an activity does help. A study carried out at the University of California, Davis found that:-

In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

Research has also found “gratitude” benefits in goal attainment, grade scores of students, lower blood pressure and improve immune function. In fact Professor Emmons, co-author of that research and other experiments on gratitude says

“The evidence that cultivating gratefulness is good for people is overwhelming…gratitude enhances nearly all spheres of human experience”

[Read more…]

Stop Worry, Start Writing

January 16, 2011 by David

Stop Worry

Are you a worrier? Worry generates stress, dampens self confidence and makes you feel bad. Can you stop worry? What it doesn’t do is solve problems – in fact worry doesn’t do anything useful as far as I can see.

Worry comes under the umbrella of anxiety. And we expect it to be at its worst in pressure filled situations, where we are most desperate to perform our best. So for a presentation, exam or a race we can caught in a see-saw between confidence and worry as the consequences of performing badly are difficult to dismiss.

I have two daughters currently going through important University exams whose normal self confidence seems to be hiding away somewhere. They were both revising throughout the Christmas holidays, yet are now gripped by fears of doing badly. Telling them they may do worse by worrying won’t help either! [Read more…]

People are Awesome

October 30, 2010 by David

Peak Moments

Take 60 seconds and write down the peak moments in your life. Chris Guillebeau, on whose excellent blog that suggestion came defines a peak moment:-

… as a fixed point in time that has strong, positive memories. You summited the mountain! You achieved something monumental! Things will be different now.

Apart from the obvious landmarks, like getting married or having children, most peak moments are time when we stepped well out of our comfort zone. I wrote about one of my peak moments (although I didn’t label it as such at the time) when swimming beneath the Azure Window in Gozo a couple of years ago.

If you do the exercise, how many peak moments were accompanied at some point by strong feelings of anxiety or even fear? I can report from memory, 25 years on, that getting married generates much anxiety for the main participants!

Lets Scare Ourselves

As I write this we approach Halloween and there is the usual glut of horror films on TV. Personally I’ve never enjoyed the genre; likewise I’ve never enjoyed the adrenaline rush people get from riding roller coasters.

But just as our peak moments lead to extra adrenaline pumping around our body, as we prepare to fight or flight from danger, we do seek it as well by deliberately submitting ourselves to fear and terror. [Read more…]