Through the wonders of WordPress this post is appearing whilst I am 1200 miles from home on the Mediterranean Island of Gozo (part of Malta). Please leave comments, but they won’t appear till my return (unless I need to hide from the heat and find an Internet Cafe!)

As I said in part 1, self confidence and self esteem are undermined by poor, unhelpful thinking habits. These are things we all do to some extent – don’t mentally beat yourself up if you recognize things you do. Noticing a habit is the first step to changing it. The second is to tell yourself an alternative thought and practice using it.

Mental Filter

This is focusing on single events, or single details, and allowing them to color all your thinking. Unfortunately you exclusively chose negative details to focus on. For example, if you make a mistake you ignore all the successes and good things you did. [Read more…]