Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Start Challenging Your Beliefs

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Last weeks post looked into our beliefs and came up with the, unsurprising,  suggestion that perhaps we should abandon our unhelpful, negative beliefs.

beliefs are like headlights...
beliefs are like headlights...

People confuse their beliefs with facts, and generally a belief is something we see as being true.  Having been told all their life that they’re useless, a person with low self esteem may see this as a fact of life, rather than a belief they have learnt over the years.

Our mind is full of thoughts, that we are conscious of; our belief system is generally silent and we don’t notice it. But our thoughts arise from that belief system.

“Just because you’ve believed something for a long time doesn’t mean its right. It just means you’ve believed it for a long time!”  Craig Harper.

Take Stock

Thats why its useful to take stock and separate out what you believe and why. For example, you may be a vegetarian because of a decision you made in your teens that eating meat was unhealthy and cruel to animals. Or it could be that you were brought up in a strict “meat is murder” household, where there was never any  questioning of this as a fact. In both cases you would have an underlying belief that eating meat is wrong, but reached from different directions.

If we are out driving a car at night, we only see the bit of the world that our headlights pick up. Our whole awareness, what we take see,  is determined by what our beliefs allow us to see:- [Read more…]

Do your Beliefs help your Brand?

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If you meet someone for the first time, one of the first questions you exchange is “What do you do?”. Our reply tends to focus on what we do for work, our occupation. We label, or “brand” ourselves as “a student”, “a nurse” or (dare I say it) “a plumber”.

There was a very interesting  post recently on one of my favorite blogs  The Positivity Blog. In describing 10 steps to be the brand you want in life, Mike King says:-

“Work is really just a portion of our lives since working for 40 hours a week and 50 weeks a year for up to 40 years (about 80,000 hours) is actually only about 11.4% of our entire lives (700,000 hours) if you expect to live to an age of 80 years old.

Even if you took 1/3 of your life away to account for sleeping, you still only work about 17% of your waking hours in a lifetime. Think about that for a minute. Is work really that important in the whole scheme of things if it is such a small portion of our lives from birth to death?  I’d say not.”

After going through the 10 steps he feels we need to take to review and build the “brand” you want to be, Mike closes the post with another interesting statement:- [Read more…]

Myth of the Addictive Personality

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Eric Clapton - Addictive personality or just low self esteem?

The actor Colin Farrell says

“I definitely have an addictive personality”

– he succumbed not just to alcohol and drugs but to breakfast cereal Rice Krispies! He has been treated for his addictions at the Crossroads Center, a rehab clinic set up by rock guitarist Eric Clapton in Antigua.

Coincidentally, Clapton, is another celebrity who has admitted to an “addictive personality”.  He went through addictions to heroin, cocaine and alcohol. He was successfully treated for his drug addiction, but then fell into problems with alcohol.

Whilst the term “addictive personality” may be helpful to explain away an addiction, it doesn’t have any real meaning or basis in science. There is some evidence that there is a genetic predisposition to develop addictions and some personality disorders can make someone more prone to compulsive behavior.

The other problem with “addictive personality” is it suggests that someone has no control, no way of stopping the problem. It can put responsibility out of their hands. It was interesting to listen to British comedian Jim Davidson blame everyone but himself for what had gone wrong in his life – an addict to woman as well as alcohol.  As well as blaming his “addictive personality”, he blamed the press for the end of his fourth marriage following the publicizing of an affair:-

“The media did it. I wouldn’t have told her.”

Eric Clapton has referred to his very confused, tumultuous childhood – discovering his mother was actually his sister among other things. [Read more…]

How to Build Self Confidence Through Activity

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Does ballet increase self confidence?

I have set up my browser with google/ig and get regular alerts on web sites that feature self esteem and self confidence. Looking at my links to self confidence, there have been three recent articles that suggest doing certain activities can boost self confidence. I highlight the comments from the karate and ballet instructors, plus the psychologist who looked at magic tricks.

Karate Helps Self Confidence

This article is about Dubai Karate Center. According their karate instructor Sensei Renjith:-

“Karate is more than a self-defense technique. It makes one confident to face any situation in life. Many parents who have sent their children to me for training have admitted that there has been a radical transformation in the behavior of their children after learning karate…

anyone who familiarizes himself or herself with the sport, can actually develop virtues like patience, discipline and respect towards others.”

[Read more…]

Self esteem: Linked to depression?

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In unhelpful thinking last week I touched on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and the link between our thinking, self esteem and depression.  In a comment a few weeks ago Sherri had asked me if there is a link between self esteem and depression, and i think its a good time to try and answer that.
depression

What is depression?

In everyday language its not uncommon for someone to say they’re feeling depressed, as in “bit out of sorts”, “fed up”. Unfortunately it does lead to the view that anyone with depression should just “snap out of it”. Sadly, they can’t.  What distinguishes depression from having an off day is the fact that it is a prolonged lowering of mood. The other main component is that it interferes, to varying degrees, with a persons ability to function – you cannot do your normal day to day activities. [Read more…]