Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Are Affirmations Useless?

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Its 150 years since the publication of what is now regarded as the first self help book – Samuel Smiles “Self Help“.  Still on sale today – and apparently a big seller in countries such as Japan and China.  selfhelp1But when first published it sold 20,000 copies in its first year, and by the time of Smiles death in 1902 had sold over 1/4 million copies. In the 19th Century it was only out sold by the Bible!

In a recent radio program it was said Smiles book was published on the same day as “On Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin.  I cannot find any other proof of that fact. Either way,  it could be that Smiles message “Heaven helps those who help themselves” was reassuring to a society held together by Christian beliefs.

But the underlying message from Smiles was that success came through dedication and hard work.  He didn’t appear to believe in the concept of “genius”, all those he portrayed in his case studies got there by hard graft and application. Interestingly, this is a central theme of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers.

The End of Self Help?

oprah1I write this as some have been predicting the end of self help, [Read more…]

Overcome a Fear of Failure

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One of the delights of living in the UK is I have never watched Oprah. So I was surprised when one of my favourite blogs, had “Oprah’s Top 7 Tips for Creating the Life You Want“. The writer, Henrik, is Swedish so who knows how far her influence has spread!

Oprah had an interesting take on failure – she redefined it:-

I do not believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.

Looking at some of my recent posts, a fear of failing can be another interpretation of the problems. With perfectionism for example, a person sets their required standard high – and anything less than 100% achievement of that target is a failure. There are no shades of gray.

If we lack confidence in our ability to do something, our thinking can revolve around whether we will fail or succeed. Failure enters the equation, rather than say “mistake”, when the stakes are higher. Usually with the fear of failing we can imagine unpleasant consequence, rather than just inconvenience. [Read more…]