Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Self Confidence on Google News

by

google-self-confidenceI use Firefox as my browser – which I would recommend to anyone as it has many useful pugins you can add. Its also supposed to be safer than Internet Explorer. One feature you can use on either Firefox or IM is Google/ig. This allows you to create a personalized home page and populate it with a variety of features – from games or news feeds to RSS feeds or weather forecasts.

I enclose a screenshot of my “IG” page – which includes a feed from Google news. As well as “Top Stories” and in my case “UK” and “Health”, I can add interests like “Self Confidence” and “Self Esteem”.

Some of the stories classed as “self confidence” have little merit But just looking at this mornings pick, the feed leads to some fascinating and informative stories.

I’m no great tennis fan. My colleague at work had Centre Court tickets in the first week of Wimbledon, which left me cold. But I did see a large chunk of the mens final, and cannot help but admire the skill of the Nadal & Federer.

The link from Google News is to an article in The Times (London) reflecting on Wimbledon [Read more…]

Changing habits

by

Car habitMy twin daughters are both learning to drive at present. I’ve only just recovered from helping my elder daughter learn, two years ago! If you drive, can you remember how strange it felt at first, how much concentration it demanded. Synchronizing gear and clutch, regulating your speed and direction, being aware of other road users and predicting their next move.

Today, I don’t consciously engage in the task of driving – likewise I don’t consciously think about how to tie up my shoe laces or walk (try thinking about how you walk and tell yourself out loud what to move!). Reflecting at my keyboard its quite frightening how we rely on our unconscious mind and embedded habits to propel a large metal box at great speed.

I have repeatedly touched on how much of what we do is habit. Our brains process millions of messages a day – putting most of our activities on automatic pilot makes us more efficient. If we did have to consciously engage in tying our shoe laces, or driving, then we would end up exhausted. [Read more…]

Procrastination at 50

by

happy birthdayMy past weekend was quite chaotic, which partially explains the delay in this post. I hit the grand old age of 50, which is somewhat weird – mainly because everyone expects you to feel different. Age is just a number, and I’m sure all of us can find examples of people who act and look very different (better or worse) than their real ages.

I must confess my physical body does at times feel a bit ancient – something I would like to address – whilst mentally I feel quite young. But I got myself into a mess by being over confident and falling back into a habit of my youth – procrastination.

I spent the weekend working on my photography portfolio, which I need to hand in this week as part of my adult education course. I had taken all the photographs I needed and had done the practical work for the assignments – but I kept putting off writing everything up. I kept telling myself I was capable of doing the work, that it should be quite straight forward. But that doesn’t get the work done!! [Read more…]

Motivational pictures and Chinese bottles

by

self confidence ladderDoes your house or office have any of those commercial motivational/inspirational posters on the walls? Slick, vivid color “perfect” images with a nice quote or bland saying to match. For example a photo of “businessman’s hands” with the following:-

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Part of me likes the concept, its just that the products to me seem too slick – I cannot imagine these inspiring or motivating me. The fact that there is now good business selling “demotivational” products says that others prefer humor and honesty! For instance, a photo of the pyramids with:-

“You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.”

What brought this to mind was story in the news about a shop in Beijing selling “spirit bottles” – empty bottles with meaningful (rather than inspirational) sentiments written on them. [Read more…]

Cyclone Nargis – what can be done to help?

by

Unite for Human Rights

“Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they’re tremendous tools of freedom of expression.
Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.“

Handbook for bloggers & cyber-dissidents

Having belonged to Amnesty International for around 30 years, and been “active” in various capacities for most of that time, I felt I couldn’t ignore the “Bloggers Unite for Human Rights Day“. This is joint action by Amnesty International and BlogCatalog, to encourage Bloggers worldwide to blog on a human rights issue on May 15.

And there are many things we could chose to blog about. The most obvious in the context is the case of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist, serving a ten-year prison sentence for sending an email to the United States. Yahoo provided information to the Chinese Government that led to his imprisonment. [Read more…]