How to Build Self Confidence ...Part Two

Thank you for your patience and welcome back to part two of building confidence; before we fire
on I will like to assume you are prepared for this exercise. Preparation and the will are usually important as this determines and provides you with the opportunity to explore reasons you feel building confidence are important or relevant to your life. Refer to part one if you have not done so.
Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control. ~Richard Kline

Self esteem and building confidence work hand in hand and I could not help but revisit self -esteem last week and will be revisiting this topic again .Self esteem as you all know is essentially determined by the value we but on ourselves. It is a measure in which we use to appraise or evaluate our worth. So when you measure self down you will obviously end up with low or poor self esteem and will most certainly find it difficult to enjoy the attributes of the confident person.. Self confidence is generally characterised by personal attributes such as independence, assertiveness, affection, trust, optimism, enthusiasm and many more positive virtues .

Here are Some of the Benefits of the Confident Person

Self confident people are generally happier and smile more often .

Are not held back by fear and are able to take risks, positives ones.

Most of them are successful people.

They are able to mange anxiety better in tense situations.

Are able to accept praise and praise others .

Have generally reported improved health.

As being and building confidence is not inherited and can be learnt ; here are some practical tips/ exercise for you. Remember practise make perfect and as I have mentioned before, when we are learning something knew it may not be easy or pleasant but the more you push one with determination the better the results. Seek help from support groups if you are struggling.

Practical Tools to Boost your confidence.

1, Reasonability; this is pretty straight forward start learning to take responsibility for your own actions. Cut the blaming, making excuses and pushing the responsibility over to others. You most certainly will start feeling better and more confident once you learn how to be responsible for own your choices. We all make choices even when we decide not to, that’s a choice. The Key here is listening to yourself when you talk to others and be true to yourself , can you hear yourself blaming others?

2, Use your Mirror; I love this one because I make good use of my mirror I Smile say nice things to myself; do the same and practise it daily and don’t do this in an obsessive manner . Learn to appreciate you and how you look, it does not matter if you are too tall, fat or short what matters when building confidence is your ability to feel good about you. I am sure so can site someone you feel you look better than; yet they have more confidence than you.

“We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies”. ~Roderick Thorp, Rainbow Drive

3, The Feel good foods; Yeeepe!!! this is great because you simply can buy these foods and they will work on or interact with certain chemicals in the body to lift your mood. Some example of these of theses foods are Black beans, walnuts, chickpeas, oranges and chocolate and of cause in moderation. Try and keep a healthy diet and exercise too; My FoodhealthMood blog will enlighten you more on this area.

4, Rumours; Talking about others is nasty especially when it is done in a derogatory manner. My attitude to people who do so is get a life.. Learn to talk about what will make you grow, add value to your life and support others. Confident people generally talks about ideas and refer to other people in their conservations in a pleasant manner.

5, Be Honest; Learn to be honest to yourself , we all have a little voice in our head that talks to us when we are wrong, follow your intuition as needed and be honest with yourself.

6,Heads up; now this to me can be a problem and I tell you why ,if you are shy you may for one struggle but here is what to do .Learn to start walking straight and uphold a good posture. Ladies I love my high heels and it has generally helped my here I have no choice but to walk straight and high........ you see it makes me look taller too . When we slump our bodies or constantly look down we send messages of either feeling depressed, shy or tired to our brain.

7, Positivity; Surround yourself with positively and people who will help and support you. When you can do try and support others too, most of us have the ability to support others in one way or the other. Do things you enjoy doing and remember to reward your self.

8, Learn: Try and expand your knowledge ;the saying knowledge is power is certainly true. Finally, learn from your mistake we all make them.

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”~ Golda Meir

Good luck on this journey....

Should You Build Self Confidence and Happiness? Part One

Self-confidence is an important aspect of our everyday life. It gives us the ability and courage to face complex situations and basically do well in most things we embark upon. The beauty of being confident is that generally happiness, wellness and success are usually not far behind.

“Happiness and self confidence come naturally when you feel you’re moving and progressing toward becoming the very best person you can possibly be”. ~ Brain Tracy.

Now on the flip side reduced or lack of confidence will most definitely mean or lead to low self -esteem , fear of failure, negative expectations, self doubt, unhappiness, shyness and many other negative attributes. The aim of this post is to look at a few causes of lack of low self- confidence and provide you with practical tips towards how you can build your confidence and subsequently increases your happiness.

The most sensible thing to do when there is a problem is to address issues from its roots; This could be accomplished in various ways from meditation to self-discovery.

Some Causes of lack of Confidence
Lack of experience; is a very common reason and can be associated with lack of experience within certain areas of ones life where you continuously become hesitant to carry out a role(s).

Beliefs; AKA … Limiting beliefs are very powerful because it what you know and hold on to so dearly; its your reality hence difficult to break .Often people with low self confidence will hold limiting beliefs where they feel their life is controlled by events in the world e.g. the recession. Beliefs they have no control over how they feel, beliefs everything must be done in absolute perfection , beliefs failure reflect you as an individual and many more these are just examples.

Negative experience(s) in life; if you have been beaten not necessarily literally but have suffered from pains both emotionally and mentally the likeliness of low confidence is high. For instance, growing up in a household where you have been constantly told “you will never amount to anything in your life”, Being in a relationship where you have been told too often that you are good for nothing , you are ugly and many more are remarks that impact on one’s life adversely.

Recycling Unhappy experiences; Going over past issues is not so much of a problem provided it will help you address issues of the past and move on to the future. It is when it becomes a recycling process…….then that’s a problem.. I say “life is sweet and too short” so we don’t want to spend 30-40 years in therapy going over the same issue.

Separation issues, this could be as a result of divorce, bereavement or travelling can all be contributing factors to low self confidence.

Gender Issues; Research apparently shows that lack of confidence is a major barrier preventing women from applying for public appointments. As a female I will love to disagree with this...

At this stage you should hopefully be aware of what has led to lack of self confidence in your life. Being aware helps and reminds us that we are not finite (time is limited);we have the potential, the choice to act or not .So our next chapter is about preparing an action Plan to overcome lack of confidence.

“To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence”~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Action Plan
Self Awareness : lack of self awareness from my own viewpoint can be disastrous.
Get Motivated: This simply means what it says get motivated. I recently published an article on motivation and one of the comments I received was in quote “Just do it”.
Prepare your Mind: If you are mentally lazy, this is the time to start preparing your mind .As part of what you will be doing is expanding your knowledge.
Health & Body: Start paying attention to your health and body if you have been neglecting it. For instance if you feel you are overweight and want to lose weight get motivated and start a plan. If you feel your skin is not the way you will like it to be, do something about it now!

Part two of this post will shed more light on why an action plan is needed and provide you with practical tips towards building self confidence and happiness; stay tuned.