Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

How to breathe confidently exercises

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anxietyIt may sound silly to have a post about breathing – after all, we all do it without thinking. None of us were taught how to breath and, apart from pregnant women, most of us don’t get taught how to breath in later life. An interesting exception is those who perform on the stage. To date I have only touched on speaking, but for those who use their voice professionally, learning how to breath properly is an important part of how to use your voice more effectively.

In how to improve your speaking voice I looked at practical exercises to help you sound better. Learning to have greater control over your breathing will help here as well. But as I highlighted in do you sound confident a big handicap to being confident is how our body reacts when we’re anxious. The fight or flight response kicks in, adrenaline is released into our blood stream, and our body prepares to respond physically to an “enemy.” [Read more…]

Do you sound confident?

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I have done a few posts now looking at what we say – “how to say no“, “express opinions“, “express feelings” and confident communication (or “assertiveness“) in general. But I have yet to touch on how we sound, or the quality of our voice

Initially I’ll touch on why our voice lets us down when we most need it. We all have experienced situations when we want to be at our best – giving a speech or presentation, having an interview, trying to impress someone. Unfortunately, these are times when our voice can falter or fade, we stumble our words and ultimately sound anything but confident.

The problem is, of course, that when we want to perform really well, we get anxious [Read more…]

Habits & Routines

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This is my first post in October, and September has proved a challenging month in many ways. Two weeks ago our eldest daughter started University in the north of England. We drove 5 hours up various motorways up to Yorkshire, traipsed up several flights of stairs with large boxes before spending a fortune in the local supermarket. My wife and I then drove the 5 hours back to the south coast.

Meanwhile our 16 year old twins have started a waitressing job at a local pub. This means most of the week one of them has to start work at about 5.30, and so gets their own evening meal. I’m the main cook in our household, and one family habit or ritual I have always tried to maintain is having an evening meal together as a family. Suddenly, with one daughter leaving and two now working, that has had to be abandoned. [Read more…]

Who do you trust?

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Over the past week in the UK there has been a major financial new story. A leading bank, Northern Rock, asked the Bank of England for a loan, to help resolve a “cash flow problem”. Since then, there have been constant queues outside the banks branches as anxious savers have been withdrawing their money.

As bank officials, government ministers and the Bank of England have given assurances that “there is nothing to worry about”, “that everyones money is safe” – the queues got longer. Would you trust a politician who says there is nothing to worry about! [Read more…]

Thinking – automatic thoughts

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In irrational thinking I suggested that expecting thinking to act externally, and “attract” is somewhat flawed. I am more interested in how positive thinking acts internally. How we can improve self confidence and self esteem by changing our thoughts about ourselves. As a starting point I want to look in more detail at how our thinking evolves.

As we grow up, we are all subject to stimulation from those around us:- parents, siblings, teachers, peers, television, media, everyone…. Especially in our early years, the messages we receive formulate how we see the world, and our place in it. When we tried to stand up and walk, most of us got loads of encouragement – despite falling flat on our face – because this is something we should do and everyone around gets pleasure and excitement from seeing a child make its first steps.

The same happened with our first words. But as years go by, most children get far more negatives than positives – don’t do this/that, do be quiet, stop talking. How many parents encourage their children to talk more!! [Read more…]