Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Affirmations

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self confidenceAn affirmation is a positive self talk statement. They are usually goals – such as tangible things (to earn $xxxx a year) – where you can clearly say yes or no whether they have been achieved. But affirmations can also cover personal qualities – “to be a positive person” or “to have great self confidence”.

An affirmation is always stated in the present tense – “I am a positive person”, “I earn $200,000 a year”,” I have great self confidence”. The logic behind affirmations is that giving yourself positive messages, the mind starts believing it to be so. This is exactly the same principle as how negative thinking undermines us – being told repeatedly “you’re useless”, we believe it to be true.

Affirmations won’t work unless you [Read more…]

Bill of Rights

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I’ve been running a series of blogs that look at saying “No“ an essential part of confident communication. For some, learning to say this small word isn’t easy. We have learnt that saying no makes us uncaring, or selfish. Also, we learn to believe that by saying no we might lose friends, upset family or work colleagues.

Along with practicing the techniques for saying “No”, it is useful to tackle some of the underlying thinking that feeds these feelings. A good starting point is to draw up a “bill of rights” your rights. Here are a few suggestions

I have the right to:

respect myself

respect others

make mistakes

change my mind

to have my own opinions and values and share them with others

choose my friends

have time to myself each day

say what I feel

to be listened to

be free from physical or mental abuse

be (or become) healthy

be trusted

be happy

express my feelings

ask for what I want (accepting I may not always get it)

Making change with support

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My recent post How do you make changes did generate some interesting ideas, but mainly buried in the comments section and on others sites! I’m still learning, but its worth visiting the discussion it generated on Chris Garret’s New Media Blog

The idea I wanted to float was the issue of support. I came across it recently in another blog that I have linked to before by Martin Avis, who writes an interesting article centered on “Successful people share their goals”

Martin’s article expands that by sharing a goal you create an external conscience that keeps you on track. Also you create a feedback loop that constantly reminds you of what you are striving to achieve. And if you chose a trusted person well, they should keep any doubts to themselves and only give positive feedback!

Personally I take this a step further – to make change or achieve goals we need to have support that goes beyond reminding us of what we want to do. I can illustrate this by with a TV show a year or two ago that looked at people trying to lose weight. The spouse of one “guinea pig” did everything possible to help – cooking low calorie meals, not buying anything for anyone else in the family that didn’t follow the diet they were using, constantly giving encouragement and accompanying the dieter down to the gym. Very practical, and emotional, support.

Another dieter didn’t have support. Her spouse did remind her of her goal weight – but said from the outset she’d never stick to it. He still expected his “normal” food whilst she struggled with her diet. And to cap it all, when she had to go into hospital briefly he brought her in her favorite takeaway to cheer her up!

Suffice to say dieter one achieved his goal weight, dieter two didn’t. I should stress I’m no great advocate of dieting (my photo hides my waist!) but use this as an example of how support can make a huge difference to achieving our goals. But support can take many different forms – not just a verbal reminder.

How childhood can impact on confidence

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Initially we learn to value ourselves, or not, through our childhood experiences. If we are treated well, and those experiences leave us believing we are loved and valued, we see ourselves as being worthy of love. In this situation we learn to love ourselves.

The opposite holds that if we are neglected or abused we see ourselves as unworthy. We then learn to dislike ourselves.

Other childhood experiences can affect our self confidence. If a child only receives love or attention when successful – such as getting top marks in class, they will strive towards perfectionism in adulthood.

If other behaviors are also similarly rewarded – such as looking after younger siblings – there is also a knock on effect on how they later perceive themselves (“I am only worthwhile if I look after others/please others”) and subsequently act (don’t see themselves as worthwhile, put the needs of others above their own.

Whilst I made reference to abuse and neglect above, it doesn’t take such extremes to have an impact. As parents we are not aware at how much negativity and “conditional” love we impose on our children. There are many adults who did not suffer abuse or neglect, but constantly undermine their self confidence by striving for perfectionism, worrying about what others think, seeking approval or by having other forms of rigid thinking. Fortunately these things can be changed.

Great self confidence from praise

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A chapter in the excellent Happiness Toolkit is devoted to praising yourself. The author Jennifer Summers states:-

Most people have no qualms about putting themselves down when they’ve not done something as well as they’d hoped or wanted. People put themselves down for all sorts of reasons, examples can include: being late, messing up the baking of a cake, scratching the car, quite often even injuring themselves can provoke a reaction, “I’m so clumsy.”

The opposite reactions can be experienced when you praise yourself, and tell yourself you did well. This shouldn’t be reserved just for big events – like running a marathon!

Recognize that most of what you do each day is positive

To do this Jennifer suggests listing 10 positive things you did today, and describe how this makes you feel? This ensures you focus on the mundane, as well as the special. The Happiness Toolkit includes a worksheet to help with this exercise, although any form of diary or notebook would suffice. Give it a try.