Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Challenging negative thoughts

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This post and Distract Yourself from Self Talk was inspired by a previous comment saying “how am I supposed to stop caring about what people think? It’s not a switch I can just turn off…”

I said there were two techniques, one – “distraction”, which featured in the Distract yourself post, and two – positive challenge. This second technique is equally simple in practice, you challenge the negative thoughts you are experiencing and come up with positive alternatives.

It is useful, whichever technique you use, to monitor your thoughts. keep a rough diary of what thoughts you get. The underlying principle is to get on top of what automatic thinking habits you have got. You may find all you negative thoughts center on just one problem. [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…]

What do you believe?

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On my post improving self confidence I mentioned I had recently joined and started contribtuing to the “Personal Development for smart people” forum, part of Steve Palina‘s site. Steve has probably the most popular personal development website around – although ironically the most recent post when I found it was about living in Las Vegas! However, there is plenty of good, relevant stuff on his blog and some stimulating posts on the forum. But, returning to the forum, in my opinion there is also an awful lot of nonsense. [Read more…]

How to expressing feelings

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My posts on confident communication, or assertiveness, have looked at how to say no, and types of behavior that are not assertive – such as passive, manipulative and aggressive. I also went over a “bill of rights“, that expands on the underlying mindset behind assertiveness.

One right is to be able to say what or how you feel, and what you want. Being unable to say how you feel can lead to frustration, and ultimately conflict. If you feel strongly about something, its important to acknowledge it, and make others aware of how you feel.

A useful way to express feelings is to use the following structure:- [Read more…]