Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Affirmation software

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Following on from my post on affirmations, there is no denying that for most people the act of reciting positive affirmations is quite strange. Like with other forms of goal setting, you write them out with the best of intention  but never get around to looking at them on a regular basis. More importantly, affirmations have to be read with emotion and made to feel real  otherwise your subconscious mind will not take them on as reality.

In the past I have tried computer software and subliminal CDs to help this process and tried to make my own affirmation board  a combination of affirmation statements and pictures/photographs. Despite my interest in photography, this never properly got off the ground. But over the past 3 months I have been trying a new piece of software called “Vision Board”. This helps you create an active screensaver, which is a combination of photographs and affirmations. [Read more…]

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…]

Goodbye to Jane and Andrew

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There is a lot more to be said about thinking, but my habit is to bounce around and not get bogged down on one topic. There are many other things I want to address. In a recent post on positive thinking I mentioned, somewhat flippantly, that I recently had a biopsy. This is a test for cancer (in my case prostate). I now know that the results are non malignant, and basically I’m in the clear.

Thinking about ones own mortality is quite a sobering experience. It happens to coincide with my reading about two deaths. One was Jane Tomlinson, which anyone in the UK cannot fail to have been aware of. She was a 43 year old mother of three, who was first diagnosed with cancer in 1991. The disease returned in 2000, when she was told she only had months to live. Despite (or because of) this she undertook various physical challenges over the next seven years, including 3 London Marathons and cycling across America. She raised over £1.5 million, but always maintained she was very “ordinary” [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…]

Irrational thinking

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self esteem

Today I want to go into more depth on positive thinking – and what it can and cannot do. It might be easier to start with what it cannot do. You can find many out there who believe their is a “law of attraction“. By thinking and believing (or manifesting an intention as I’ve heard it called) you will attract into your life whatever you desire.

This is a totally irrational belief, which defies science and logic. Many will cite anecdotal examples of how this has worked for them – how their thinking (and manifesting) gained them a promotion, or suddenly brought money into their life. [Read more…]