A Foolproof Formula for Believing in Yourself

2021-12-06 ~ adminlife

What does it take to succeed? You might think you need lots of money and powerful friends. However, there’s a more significant factor that’s free and within your reach.

Believing in yourself may be your most valuable resource. It has a powerful impact on your behaviour and experiences. It’s a mindset that gives you motivation and helps you to reach your goals.

You deserve to be happy and fulfilled. Try this foolproof formula for increasing your faith in yourself.

Building Your Confidence

When you’re feeling unsure, remind yourself that confidence is a skill you can develop. You might need to fake it sometimes, but gradually you’ll accept and trust yourself more.

Try these tips to build confidence:

Review your achievements. It’s easy to forget how far you’ve come. Give yourself credit for your major accomplishments and the incremental progress you make each day.
Set goals. Keep adding to your track record by creating specific and compelling goals for the short and long term. Making an effort is just as important as the end results.
Change your inner dialogue. How do you talk to yourself? Choose words that lift you up and inspire you to try harder.
Continue learning. Maybe you need additional resources and qualifications to pursue your passions. Take courses online, read books, and talk with others about their areas of expertise.
Think positive. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude and hope. Start your day with a smile, and savour small pleasures.

Taking Care of Yourself

Your daily choices reflect how much you value yourself.

Adopt habits that protect your physical and mental well being, such as:

Exercise regularly. Physical activity reduces stress and increases hormones that help you to feel calm and happy. Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise each week.
Eat healthy. It’s easier to have confidence when your energy levels are high, and your blood sugar is stable. Enjoy a diet rich in nutritious whole foods, including plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Avoid excess salt and sugar.
Sleep well. Your body and mind need 7 to 8 hours of restful sleep each night. Stick to a consistent bedtime and keep your bedroom dark and quiet.
Manage stress. How do you deal with daily tensions? Learn constructive coping strategies. In addition to working out, you could develop a daily self-care practice or listen to soft music.

Reaching out for Support

Believing in yourself also means being realistic. Relying on others can sometimes be a sign of wisdom and strength.

Try these strategies:

Advocate for yourself. Mutually supportive relationships are based on healthy boundaries and asking for help when you need it. Communicate tactfully and directly and allow yourself to be vulnerable.
Network actively. Build a strong system of personal and professional contacts. Join clubs and go to places where you can meet others who share your interests. Nurture your relationships by staying in touch and being willing to communicate on a deeper level where you share your thoughts and feelings.
Find a mentor. Working with a trusted advisor is a great way to gain guidance and valuable feedback about your career path and other aspects of your life. Look for someone you can relate to and be respectful of their time. You can start with someone you know or ask your contacts for introductions.
Be generous. Giving to others can increase your regard for yourself in many ways. In addition to making yourself more popular, you’ll see proof that you have strengths that can make a positive impact on the world and your community.

Believe in yourself and your abilities! Love yourself for who you are and create the life you want.

You can book your 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button belowand we can talk about how we can work together

To your success

Michael

P.S. you know that living a life that is in balance is important. When you can balance your work, family, health, relationships, fitness and money, you feel better and can achieve your goals. You have the support of your family and friends which makes life worth living.

Check out my programs at Confidence and Life Coaching by clicking on the logo below:

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Believe in Yourself: Boost Your Confidence in Just 30 Days

2021-10-31 ~ adminlife

Chances are you believe in others more than you believe in yourself. You’re probably the first to encourage a friend to keep going because they have what it takes. But when it comes to encouraging yourself, it’s easy to shy away due to self-doubt.

It’s not fair to cheat yourself out of opportunities. Having low self-confidence can cause you to lose out on awesome experiences. And you certainly don’t want that, do you?

Now is a great time to start focusing on yourself and work on boosting your confidence. And it’s surprisingly easy to do.

Follow these steps to boost your confidence and start believing in yourself:

Avoid hesitation. Self-doubt is often developed out of hesitation. Do you take a long time to act on an impulse? If you see an opportunity, does it take you a while to go after it? The longer you take to pursue something, the more reasons you’ll find for justifying your unsuitability for the opportunity.

- Avoid “sleeping on it” if you can decide right away. For a self-doubter, delaying a response usually means losing the confidence to go after the opportunity.
- Do you think you’re not ideal for a new role you’ve been offered at work? Forget about that for a minute. Focus on the fact that you were actually offered the job for a reason!

Challenge negative thinking. It’s easy to diminish self-confidence by harbouring negative thoughts. But before you accept negative thoughts about yourself as a reality, challenge the thinking.

- Instead of accepting you’re not good enough, take a moment to think about the facts. Have there been instances which support your negative thinking? If the answer is yes, then remind yourself of your many positive experiences as well.
- Beware of thought patterns that can eat away at your self-esteem. Avoid looking at life as “black or white” and live in the grey area sometimes. You may not have one trait or another, but you could have the perfect combination of what you need for your life!
- Always be sure to differentiate between feelings and facts. Just because something makes you feel a particular way doesn’t mean there’s any fact in it.

Be kind to yourself. As someone who rarely displays self-confidence, you probably give yourself a hard time and consider yourself inadequate or ill-equipped. But when was the last time you were actually kind to yourself?

- Spend some time each day highlighting your positive traits. Remind yourself what makes you beautiful inside and out.
- Celebrate the small successes to help remind yourself that you’re actually more amazing than you give yourself credit for.
- Try spending some time with positive people. Their energy rubs off quite easily!

Learn to listen to and accept compliments. Most of the time when people say nice things about you, they mean it! Take the time to really hear what positive things are being said about you. Absorb the thought and believe them!

- If someone says you’re beautiful, believe them!
- Spend some time listening to the kind things said by others. And remember to say thanks each time. It helps to cement the positive thoughts in your mind.

During the next 30 days, be patient with yourself. Consider each of these tips on a daily basis. Gradually, as with anything else, practising self-confidence becomes second nature.

In no time, you’ll see the world is in the palm of your hand. And you’ll hear every opportunity calling your name. Aren’t you excited for that time? Start building your confidence now and soon it will be yours forever!

You can book your 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button belowand we can talk about how we can work together to boost your confidence.

To your success

Michael

P.S. What is holding you back from achieving the success in your life and career? For many people it is their Limiting Beliefs. Once you understand and remove your old limiting beliefs and replace them with new empowering beliefs, success becomes that much easier.

Check out my basic Limiting Belief, self-paced program at Confidence and Life Coaching by clicking on the logo below. This program will get you started on identifying 14 of the most common limiting beliefs, you will probably be familiar with some of them, and will give empowering beliefs to replace them in your life if you have them.

After completing the course, you will be at the starting point of your success journey.

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5 Excuses That Derail Success

2021-10-03 ~ adminlife

No matter how impossible you might think something is to accomplish, there’s someone out there getting it done anyway. Most often, excuses are a way to justify fear of failure, fear of success, or a lack of resolve. Excuses get in the way of success and living fully.

By overcoming your excuses, success becomes much more likely!

Avoid letting these excuses sabotage the life you desire:

I don’t have the right education. A surprising percentage of the most successful people never completed high school. It’s true that education is required to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, but education isn’t required in many situations.

- Our society places a high emphasis on education, but it’s not always necessary. Motivation and commitment are far more valuable than education in most cases. How committed are you?

I don’t have enough money. Many of those wealthy in the present were poor in the past. Some of the biggest companies were started in a one-car garage. Money certainly makes things easier, but it’s not always necessary to get started.

- A lack of financial resources is a convenient excuse to stay stuck in your current situation. The world is full of money. If you don’t have enough money to move forward, find a way to acquire more.

I don’t have enough time. With careful planning, you can find time in your schedule for your priorities. How much extra time do you need to achieve your goals?

- You might need to eliminate some of the activities that aren’t as crucial to making your dreams come true, such as club meetings.
- If you regularly overextend yourself by saying Yes every time someone asks you to do something, practice politely saying No until you can sometimes make that your answer.
- Delegate some of your responsibilities.
- Cut down on watching television. You’d be surprised how much you can get done during the time you usually spend watching shows on TV or the internet!

It’s too late to get started. Do you think life has passed you by? An 80 year-old man climbed Mount Everest successfully. People over the age of 60 have graduated from medical school. Is it really too late? It’s possible that your age or life circumstances can make success more challenging, but it’s unlikely that it’s too late.

- What can you do today to take that first step?

I don’t know how to get started. There was a time when Tiger Woods didn’t know how to play golf and Warren Buffett couldn’t even spell “stock.” It might be true that you don’t know how to get started. That just means you require some education.

- There’s never been a time in history when more free information was available. You can find anything you need to get started online or at the local library. And there’s no law that states you can’t sit in the bookstore all day and read to your heart’s content.

If you feel that success is eluding you, thoughtfully consider the possibility that you might be making excuses. You might discover that what you thought was stopping you all along was really you! Now that you know, you can get past your excuses and on the path to success.

You can book your 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how we can work together to help you overcome your excuses so that you can be more successful.

To your success

Michael

Check out my programs at Confidence and Life Coaching by clicking on the logo below:

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

5 Steps to Overcome the Fear of Success

2021-08-15 ~ adminlife

Fear of success? Most people don’t believe they fear success, but most of them would be incorrect. Our lives rarely change because we become comfortable with our situation. We might not like it, but it’s comfortable. We know what to expect. We might be unhappy, but we know we can deal with it.

In a nutshell, we don’t like change. We also don’t like the prospect of failing or of standing out.

You might fear success if you:

Consistently make plans for your life, but fail to follow through on them. Whether it’s to start a business, read a book a month, or hit the gym five days a week, you just can’t seem to make it happen.
You leave projects uncompleted. This includes at work and in your personal life.
You’re all talk. You rarely take action.
You struggle to make decisions.
Your life never changes for the better.
You self-sabotage, especially when you’re nearing success.

This probably describes most of the people you know. Does it describe you accurately?

Use these strategies to defeat your fear of success and make real changes in your life:

Imagine being ultra successful. Imagine yourself being even more successful than you want to be. If your goal is to make $100,000 per year, imagine making $1 million. If you want to lose 25 pounds, imagine getting lean enough that you can see your abs. Do this each night and morning in bed.
- Make the visualization as vivid as possible. Include all of your senses. When it feels uncomfortable, stick with it and just relax.
- In time, it will feel natural. When that happens, achieving your goal will be much easier.
Practice standing out. Many of us fear success because we don’t want to stand out in any way. Somewhere along the way, we learned or decided that it’s better to keep our head down than to be noticed.
- There are a variety of ways you can practice standing out in your everyday life. You can dress differently. You might even put on a pair of pink mittens and walk around the mall in the middle of the summer. Or you could wear your best clothes to the store.
- You could go out in public with your hair dishevelled.
- You can do something in public that you’re either really good or really bad at, like bowling.
Reframe failure. Fear of success might actually be a fear of failure. Keep in mind that failure is just an undesired result. It says nothing about you. It simply means that you need more practice, more time, or a better approach. When you can view failure in this manner, there’s nothing to fear.
Focus on action over thought. We can’t fear success if we don’t think. If you need to send 100 cold emails to find clients for your business, just sit down and get busy. The longer you think about it, the harder it becomes. Just decide and take action.
Have a real vision for the future. Enough motivation can overcome any fear. Create a possible future in your mind that is worth overcoming any obstacle. Fear doesn’t matter if you have a very compelling future in mind.

Do you fear success? It seems counter-intuitive to fear success, but it’s a common obstacle to making sustained progress in life. Success brings attention, the unknown, and the possibility of failure.

Create a vision for the future that will pull you through any fears you might have. Learn to deal with discomfort. Remember, you only have one life to live. Avoid allowing fear to limit your life.

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how you can overcome your fear of success

To your success

Michael

P.S. if you have always thought that you should have a Life Coach on your personal team to help you create the best year of your life but were put off by the cost and the time requirement, I have created a Self-paced course that covers what we would do when working together.

While not the same as working one-on-one with a Life Coach, this self-paced course can help you to understand your present situation, how you got there and how to set goals that will move you forwards to success.

Click on the logo below to find out more about the course

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Stopping Self-Sabotage: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

2021-08-08 ~ adminlife

There’s a lot of truth to the quote, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” We get in our own way far more than life, other people, or bad luck sabotage our success. We really are our own worst enemy. You’d be amazed by how much easier your life would be if you weren’t constantly sabotaging your success.

It boggles the mind why we stand in our own way, but we do. Understanding that fact is half the battle to overcoming it.

Try these techniques to stop sabotaging yourself:

Let go of the past. Mistakes from the past don’t mean that you’re doomed to failure in the future. The past should be used as educational material, not as a predictor of the future. Leave your past in the past and create the future you desire.
Avoid talking to yourself unless you’re going to say something nice. You spend too much time saying negative things to yourself. Eventually, you begin to believe them. Such negative input gives you an incorrect opinion of yourself and your capabilities. Ensure that your self-talk is supportive and positive.
Notice your habits that sabotage your success. Think about what you want to be successful at and notice your habits that stand in your way. For example, if you want to lose weight, but you eat a bag of chips every time you’re stressed, that habit is sabotaging your success.
- Make a list of all the habits that sabotage your success. Write down all the ways in which those habits inhibit your success. What is the cost of each of those habits? Being aware of the damage these habits cause can make it easier to change them.
Define your fear. All self-sabotage is rooted in fear. What exactly are you afraid of? Are you afraid of embarrassing yourself? Are you afraid of finding out that you’re not capable? Are you afraid of success? Are you afraid of how people will view you?
- Understand the basic fear that is causing you to sabotage yourself. Unless you can either get over that fear or remove it, you’ll continue to get in your own way.
Know your ceiling. Notice how far you can go before you begin sabotaging yourself. For example, perhaps you’re stuck at a particular income level. What income level do you get stuck at? If you’re trying to lose weight, at what point do you begin sabotaging yourself? We all have a ceiling for each part of our lives. Understand yours and seek to understand why.
Identify and change your beliefs. What are the beliefs that stand in your way? For example, do you believe that you’re naturally a chubby person that can never get below a certain weight? Do you believe that you can never be a successful writer because you failed high school English?
- Look at all of your beliefs related to the part of your life you want to be more successful in. Which of those beliefs are getting in your way?
Notice the people that get in your way. Sometimes, we allow people into our lives that don’t really want the best for us. You’ll find that few people are truly interested in seeing you live up to your full potential.
- Avoid believing that it’s acceptable to allow someone to get in your way. If they choose to be an obstacle, consider removing them from your life.

The good news is that easier to control yourself than it is to control others or circumstances outside of yourself. Since you are the source of your challenges, you also have the power to eliminate them. Never underestimate how much you’re standing in your own way!

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how getting rid of self-sabotage in your life moves you toward success

To your success

Michael

Click on the logo below to find out more about the course

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