Self improvement and success

2017-12-29 ~ adminlife

Everything that happens to us happens in purpose. And sometimes, one thing leads to another. Instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over past heartaches, embarrassment and failures, treat them as your teachers and they will become your tools in both self improvement and success.

I remember watching Patch Adams – its my favorite movie, actually. Its one great film that will help you improve yourself. Hunter “patch” Adams is a medical student who failed to make it through the board exams. After months of suffering in melancholy, depression and suicidal attempts – he decided to seek for medical attention and voluntarily admitted himself in a psychiatric ward. His months of stay in the hospital led him to meeting different kinds of people. Sick people in that matter. He met a catatonic, a mentally retarded, a schizophrenic and so on. Patch found ways of treating his own ailment and finally realized he has to get back on track. He woke up one morning realizing that after all the failure and pains he has gone through, he still want to become the a doctor. He carries with himself a positive attitude that brought him self improvement and success. He didn’t only improved himself, but also the life of the people around him and the quality of life. Did he succeed? Needless to say, he became the best damn doctor his country has ever known.

So, when does self improvement become synonymous with success? Where do we start? Take these tips, friends:

*Stop thinking and feeling as if you’re a failure, because you’re not. How can others accept you if YOU can’t accept YOU?

*When you see hunks and models on TV, think more on self improvement, not self pitying. Self acceptance is not just about having nice slender legs, or great abs. Concentrate on inner beauty.

*When people feel so down and low about themselves, help them move up. Don’t go down with them. They’ll pull you down further and both of you will end up feeling inferior.

*The world is a large room for lessons, not mistakes. Don’t feel stupid and doomed forever just because you failed on a science quiz. There’s always a next time. Make rooms for self improvement.

*Take things one at a time. You don’t expect black sheep’s to be goody-two-shoes in just a snap of a finger. Self improvement is a one day at a time process.

*Self improvement results to inner stability, personality development and dig this – SUCCESS. It comes from self confidence, self appreciation and self esteem.

* Set meaningful and achievable goals. Self improvement doesn’t turn you to be the exact replica of Cameron Diaz or Ralph Fiennes. It hopes and aims to result to an improved and better YOU.

*Little things mean BIG to other people. Sometimes, we don’t realize that the little things that we do like a pat on the back, saying “hi” or “hello”, greeting someone “good day” or telling Mr. Smith something like “hey, I love your tie!” are simple things that mean so much to other people. When we’re being appreciative about beautiful things around us and other people, we also become beautiful to them.

*When you’re willing to accept change and go through the process of self improvement, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. The world is a place where people of different values and attitude hang out. Sometimes, even if you think you and your best friend always like to do the same thing together at the same time, she would most likely decline an invitation for self improvement.

We should always remember that there’s no such thing as ‘over night success’. Its always a wonderful feeling to hold on to the things that you already have now, realizing that those are just one of the things you once wished for. A very nice quote says that “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” We are all here to learn our lessons. Our parents, school teachers, friends, colleagues, officemates, neighbors; they are our teachers. When we open our doors for self improvement, we increase our chances to head to the road of success.

To your success

Michael W

P.S. Are you frustrated that you are not reaching your ultimate level of success? Do you desire to be more confident and successful? Fantastic. Let me help you.

As a Life Coach, I want to make sure that you achieve all of your goals and desires to become the powerful person you know you are inside. Bring that confident person outside to take charge of your life. Let me buy you a 30 minute session so that we can talk together to determine how to move you forward.

Simply email me at michael@youaresuccesslifecoach.com to get started now.

Are you ready to reach the level of success that you know you desire?

2017-12-092017-12-09 ~ adminlife

Improve Self-Confidence – Model the 7 Habits of Highly Self-Confident People

By Dr. Camelia Furlan

There is no doubt that one sure way to improve self-confidence is to model highly self-confident people.

Self-confidence is all about believing in yourself, your own worth, your power and abilities, regardless of the situation you are in.

A lot of people believe that self-confidence comes from the possession of high skill sets or knowledge. While being excellent in a particular area of expertise can give you a sense of high self-worth, it is not a necessarily a prerequisite for self-confidence.

People who have high self-confidence have a strong sense of assurance and belief in themselves. They exude calmness, composure and self-awareness, and that is because, they have formed a set of habits that have become part of who they are and how they live their life.

So, let’s look at these habits in more detail:

HABIT 1: Keep Your Word – To Yourself And Others

This sounds very simple – but often it isn’t.

For example, how often do you tell yourself you’re going to do something and then you don’t, like exercise perhaps? How often do you NOT keep your promise to others?

Whenever this happens, not only is there an underlying feeling of dissatisfaction within yourself but also you are providing your subconscious mind with evidence that you don’t do what you say you will… that you are someone whom can not be trusted.

This is incredibly destructive to your self-confidence, because you don’t get to trust and know who you say you are and do. You say one thing, but don’t deliver, and this costs you your trust in yourself and your self-confidence.

High self-confident people understand the importance of keeping their word. They understand that coming from this space of integrity, where their word is law, IS the key to accessing their own power and self-confidence, and in my opinion, is also the most important habit that leads to success in life.

The trick is to start making smaller promises that you know you won’t let yourself or others down. Be honest with yourself. Don’t say yes to something when you know you can’t fit it in.

Baby steps are the key here. If you try to do too much too soon, you will inevitably let something slip, and guess who will be watching?

HABIT 2: Choose Positive Self Talk

The primary keyword here is CHOOSE. No matter how many successes we have or how many things we do well, we continually doubt ourselves and our abilities.

It might have something to do with the fact that over 75% of what we think is negative, which is completely counterproductive. With these kinds of statistics, it’s no wonder we struggle to feel good about ourselves.

One of the most important changes we can make in our life is choosing our self-talk.

Highly self-confident people have learned the habit of catching negative thoughts before they can have an effect on their moods, feelings and performance. They consciously choose to cancel these thoughts and replace them with positive empowering thoughts instead.

They have formed the habit of saying: stop, cancel or pass, whenever they catch a negative thought… not giving any power to that thought… not reacting to it.

Affirmations are a very powerful way of re-educating our minds to think empowering thoughts rather than the counterproductive negative thoughts.

So CHOOSE to improve self-confidence by choosing positive thoughts and practice these using affirmations.

HABIT 3: Focus On Your Strengths

Lack of self-confidence is a result of losing sight of our great qualities, and exaggerating our flaws instead.

High self-confident people know their strength and focus on what they can do, rather than what they can’t.

When you think you are not good at something, try to consciously focus on the qualities that you have that are important to carry out that task.

For example, if you are doing public speaking and are not confident at delivering a speech, but you are a great researcher, writer and organiser… focus on these attributes instead, and know that you can be confident and proud of the content of that speech. Focusing on the great content will make the delivery of the speech less significant.

HABIT 4: Be Courageous

Get out of your head and just do it!

Low self-confident people tend to procrastinate and worry. They end up being hung up over negative outcomes and failures of the past, and they can’t seem to find the courage to move forward.

Highly self-confident people have learned that in order to succeed, they can create the possibility of being courageous anytime they want… this way, even if they are afraid, they can choose to take action… in spite of fear!

You see COURAGE is not acting without fear; courage is acting in spite of fear.

When you make it a habit of being courageous you will increase self-confidence, because you are more likely to give the things you want a go, and when you are more focused on the doing rather than the thinking and worrying, you’ve overcome half the battle.

HABIT 5: Act and Feel Important

High self-confidence people have a habit of thinking highly of themselves through the way they behave and the image they portray. They have high levels of energy.

If we were to look at their behaviour, you will notice that self-confident people stand up for themselves and speak up when it is appropriate.

The image of self-confidence is also portrayed by the physiology and body language, by way they look after their body and the way they dress.

Do you see many self-confident people who walk around with slumped shoulders and are dressed badly?

No one is more conscious of your physical appearance than you are, so make it a priority to look good and feel important.

Here are some basic things you can do at the physical level to improve self-confidence… by modeling the image that highly self-confident people portray:

Good posture – walk confidently, stand up straight and tall with shoulders back and head up, and make eye contact.
Dress sharp – look presentable and smart. When you are dressed well, doesn’t that instantly make you feel great and important?
Get your energy up – listen to upbeat music to instantly get energy up, and exercise regularly. Not only will exercise give you energy, but also the side effect is… great physical appearance… which will also help to improve self-confidence.

HABIT 6: Be Grateful

There is no doubt that High Self-Confident people have an attitude of gratitude. I’m talking about heartfelt gratitude and not so much about forced gratitude, because… there is a difference.

How do you recognize the difference between forced gratitude and heartfelt gratitude?

If you’ve ever expressed gratitude by starting a sentence with, “At least… ” you understand the meaning of forced gratitude. For example… at least I have food on the table, or… at least I have a good job, etc. We force ourselves to feel grateful, but this is coming from emptiness and it isn’t a long-lasting habit, because as soon as our circumstances change, we may not feel the same.

Heartfelt gratitude is a much deeper feeling. It is a feeling of appreciation and connection with life itself, which when present, gratitude triggers positive feedback loops.

This is the secret habit that high self-confidence people rely on to get access to this amazing positive mental attitude that they have.

So, to improve self-confidence start the habit of being grateful.

An exercise you can do everyday is to spend 5 minutes acknowledging the small things you like about yourself, things that make you feel self-confident and successful right now.

You can write these down in a gratitude journal and review them weekly.

Another powerful thing to do is find an unsuspecting or unlikely target to unleash your gratitude upon.

Gratitude often works best where you would least expect it to. Perhaps you can show appreciation or be grateful to a friend or family member, or you have seen a beautiful tree or flower that brightens your day, perhaps appreciate your favourite song, or a really good hug… you will be surprised how many things you will find that you can appreciate and be grateful for everyday!

HABIT 7: Focus On Contributing To Others

People with low self-confidence tend to focus too much time on their own problems and flaws, they undervalue what they are capable of, and spend too much time being critical of themselves.

They get caught up in this kind of thinking and as a result feel low in self-confidence.

High self-confident people focus on the needs of other people, they take the attention away from themselves and focus on how they can be of service and contribute to others.

The more they contribute to the world, the more they are rewarded with personal recognition and success.

So, to help increase self-confidence, the one thing you can do IS stop focusing on yourself and start contributing and helping others.

By the way, do you want to learn more about how to improve self confidence and get abundance and success in your life?

If so, download my FREE Mini E-mail Course [http://howdoyougetselfconfidence.com/01-2/] and Discover the 7 STEPS towards Self-Confidence Mastery

To your success

Michael W

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Dr._Camelia_Furlan/1165606

http://EzineArticles.com/?Improve-Self-Confidence—Model-the-7-Habits-of-Highly-Self-Confident-People&id=7244265

The Timid Person’s Solution to Standing Up for Yourself

2017-11-09 ~ adminlife

Some of us are much better at standing up for ourselves than others. While some people can get worked up a little too easily and make a mountain out of a molehill, others are just the opposite. They’re so afraid of conflict that they always let everyone else have their own way.

This approach can be very damaging. Always giving in to others negatively affects your self-esteem and it sends the message to others that you are a push-over. When this happens, it encourages others to continue treating you in a disrespectful manner.

While there are many ways to express yourself, the healthiest option is to be assertive. The assertive approach is all about expressing your needs, concerns, and opinions. This needs to be done openly, honestly, and directly while still being respectful of the other person.

A great first step is to practice your assertiveness in lower-stress situations like these:

Order some food in a restaurant and send it back. Nearly every meal has something less than spectacular about it. Maybe the steak is too salty or the drink doesn’t have enough ice. Ask to have the problem rectified.
Walk into a fast food restaurant and request a glass of water without ordering anything. You might get turned down, but that’s fine. You’re successful if you make the request. The result is irrelevant.
Always give your opinion. If someone asks you what movie you want to see or what you feel like eating, tell them. No matter what you’re asked, give a direct answer. Avoid saying things like, “I don’t care,” or “It doesn’t matter to me,” or “Whatever you want.”
Compliment a stranger. Give a sincere compliment to a complete stranger. If you notice something that appeals to you, mention it to them. That’s it. You might even make a friend or get a date out of the deal. Certainly you can say, “Wow, those are really great shoes.”

Once you feel more comfortable with being assertive in low-stress situations, you’re ready for the big leagues.

Use those newfound assertiveness skills the next time you need to speak up for yourself:

Plan ahead, if possible. Give yourself every opportunity for success. Pick a time and place that makes it easier for you to speak up. Control the details to allow yourself to be as comfortable as possible. If your need to speak up is regarding a more spontaneous issue, this step won’t apply as much.
Remind yourself that you’re important. If you struggle to stand up for yourself, you’re most likely very good at accommodating everyone else. Give yourself the same treatment! Accommodate your own needs for a change.
Before the conversation, imagine your success at being assertive. See yourself being confident, comfortable, and assertive – and then getting what you want in the situation!
When you have the conversation, use “I” statements:

Give the other person a report of your feelings. For example: “I feel disrespected whenever you’re late meeting me. It leads me to feel that you don’t respect me or my time.” If you’re dealing with a stranger while you’re out on the town, you might say “I don’t appreciate being spoken to in that tone.”
Request a new behavior from the other person. Let them know what you need to feel better about the situation. “From now on, I would like for us to agree on times that you will be able to accommodate.”

Evaluate your effort. When you have the time, examine how you performed and see if you could be more effective in getting what you want or need. Be sure to congratulate yourself for speaking up!

Standing up for yourself can be challenging, but it’s worth the time to get into the habit. You’ll strengthen your self-esteem and bring more joy into your life. We all train others how to treat us, whether we realize it or not. Be sure you’re training them to treat you the way you deserve!

To your success.

Michael W

P.S. If you want to learn more about building and developing your confidence, you are invited to visit Confidence and Motivation. This membership site has a level that will be just right for the level of confidence that you want to reach.

P.P.S. If you are on Facebook, check out Develop Confidence in Yourself. Here you will get access to articles and videos related to developing your confidence levels.

Improve Your Self-Confidence

2017-10-152017-11-06 ~ adminlife

4 Secrets for Improving Self-Confidence

By Phillip Ramphisa

This article shares 4 secrets to improving self-confidence. Most people tend to focus on specific areas when they try to improve self-confidence such as improving the way that they speak or give presentations in business meetings. This is important but it is not the priority to focus on when trying to improve self-confidence. Below I break down the 4 secrets to self-confidence.

1. Improve your emotional fitness and mental state

Self-confidence is about emotional fitness. Most of what we experience around the area of self-confidence gets influenced more by emotions. Just think about what you go through when you feel that you have poor self-confidence. Most likely you feel anxious, doubtful, fearful and uncertain. At times you might even feel like you will embarrass yourself in a public place or a meeting. It is not always that we are not skillful, able or talented. Most of the time it is our feelings that get in a way and cause us to be fearful. Feelings of uncertainty and inadequacy are also associated with low self-confidence. Fear of Rejection, failure, embarrassment. All of these things are influenced by our emotions and mental state than anything else. It is not uncommon to have someone who is capable being afraid to do something due to fear of failure, rejection and embarrassment. The journey to becoming self-confident therefore starts with improving your emotional fitness and conditioning yourself to have a mind that supports you instead of a mindset that works against you.

When you feel that you have poor self-confidence it is very tempting to focus on the specific area where you want to improve self-confidence such as speaking or your ability to present in meetings. This is essential but it is more of the end than the beginning. To really improve self-confidence you need to first improve your emotional fitness and mental strength before focusing on the specific area that you want to improve. Doing this sets you up more for success than if you improve your skill set without dealing with inner issues.

Improving emotional fitness and your mindset before improving your specific skill set will help you create more lasting change. Let me give you an example of how what I am talking about right now works using marathon runners as an example. An amateur runner cut corners when it comes to stretching. He or she might feel like it is a waste of time spending 15 minutes stretching and warming up before the run and get tempted get started with the exercise or marathon right away. This in the short-term might look like a good decision because 15 minutes of stretching and warm up is saved as running starts immediately. It is a grave mistake when considering the long-term perspective because the amateur runner might get injured from not stretching and suffer a long prolonged period without exercising and competing due to injury.

Professional runners know that stretching and warm-up before the marathon is as important as the marathon itself and therefore spend time before running to stretch and warm up, knowing it will benefit them.

Improving self-confidence sometimes works the same way. Before trying to improve self-confidence on the specific area of your life whether this is about singing or cooking or speaking well you need to spend time improving your emotional fitness and mindset. Because self-confidence is more about emotional strength and mindset. When you take care of your emotional fitness a priority, your journey to improve self-confidence becomes much more easier.

From doing this you will gain the same benefit that the long distance runner gets from spending 15 minutes stretching before he starts running. You will be able to create lasting change in your life. What is even more exciting is that we the right level of emotional fitness you will be able to bounce back should you make mistakes or something crushes your ego as you are trying to improve your self-confidence. One person said that self-confidence is not about walking into the room and have everybody get excited to see you. It is about walking into the room knowing that if nobody accepts you or if you make a mistake and embarrass yourself you will be OK and have the ability to get up and dust yourself up without being too miserable. To get to this level of self-confidence takes emotional fitness. So first focus on emotional fitness to improve your self-confidence.

2. Improve mastery

Even though emotional fitness is the first priority to improve self-confidence, I would like you to note that no one is confident doing something that they feel they are not skillful in doing. You might feel comfortable speaking in public and maybe enjoy it, when you get asked to sing and dance in public a different story might unravel. Unless you are extremely multi-talented you might feel timid, nervous and hesitant. This is because doing one specific thing well does not make one a master in everything. It is important to practice and improve your mastery level to improve self-confidence. After you have conditioned yourself emotionally and mentally identify what it is that you would like to do well and improve your self-confidence doing. Maybe you would like to feel less anxious in social situations or to speak. Whatever it is that you want to improve your self-confidence on, identify it and spend time mastering the skills to develop it. This will help you improve your self-confidence. As you learn and try to improve you might take some time to master the skills that you want to improve well. If you have developed the right emotional strength and mental strength you will find yourself recovering well after setbacks and getting encouraged until you improve your self-confidence.

3. Improve self-esteem

When trying to improve self-confidence, having low self-esteem can sometimes work against your efforts. No matter how good you become at doing something if you do not accept yourself and see yourself in a positive light you might always find ways to criticize yourself and second guess yourself. Having a healthy self-esteem is therefore extremely important for improving self-confidence. Improving your self-esteem will help you easily develop self-confidence in the specific areas of your life and be able to enjoy any success that you create as the result of improved self-confidence.

4. Train your self-confidence

Self-confidence is like a muscle. The more you teach yourself to be self-confident in challenging situations, the more you get better. Self-confident people aren’t vastly different from anyone else. They have just learn to manage their feelings in the face of pressure or adversity. One of the best ways to improve self-confidence is to act despite fear and anxiety. The best way to learn to act despite fear and anxiety is to act despite fear and anxiety. Doing this will train your self-confidence. One person said that those that are successful do experience fear, they just learn to act despite fear.

Whatever it is that you fear begin practicing conquering it. If you have social anxiety and are afraid to meet people in social situations playfully start meeting people and push yourself to act despite your anxiety. If you fear speaking up during meetings start pushing yourself and say a few words in the next meeting that you have. Feel the anxiety as it tries to stop you but act anyway. Many people who face challenging situations and pressure including athletes, sky divers and even entrepreneurs learn to act despite anxiety. Do the same thing that they do in your life, it will help you.

Remember, you have all that it takes within you to succeed.

To live to your true potential, you need to believe in yourself and your abilities. Most people overlook self-confidence when trying to succeed. They are not even aware of how poor self-confidence affects them on a subconscious level. Poor self-confidence has the potential to cause pain and failure. I would like to encourage you to move to a place of higher self-confidence in your life. Visit my website and learn how to move to an area of higher self-confidence http://confidence.confidence4success.com/

To your success

Michael W

P.S. if you are interested in working with me to build or develop your confidence then contact me at michael@confidenceandmotivation.com and we can arrange a 30-minute call to learn more about each other.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Phillip_Ramphisa/2057309

http://EzineArticles.com/?4-Secrets-for-Improving-Self-Confidence&id=9400646

2017-08-20 ~ adminlife

Gaining Self Confidence

Self-confidence is a hard thing to find these days. Every time you turn around you see a news article or channel telling you about the horrible things that are going on around you. Most people sit back and wonder if it’s all worth it or if there is anything they can actually do about it. Well, even though things seem to be in the bottom of the barrel these days, or very close to that bottom, there are a few things you can do to gain enough self-confidence to push forward and start to enjoy the time you have left in this world.

The first thing you can do is take some time for yourself. You are probably working day and night just to pay the bills and keep food on your table. With all of this work that you are doing comes a large amount of stress. Stress is one of those things that kills confidence in a very short amount of time. Taking some time for yourself can help relieve that stress and can actually build up some of your confidence so that you can do something in your life that you have always wanted to do but never thought you could.

Another great way to gain some self-confidence and do something for your local area is to volunteer with community services. Volunteering is great when it comes to self-confidence. It shows you that you can do things to help other people and that means you can turn right around and do things to help yourself. Plus, the recognition you can attain from volunteering will definitely make you feel better about yourself and the situations you find yourself in. But that is not the only thing you can do, there are plenty of options available for you.

If you feel like dead weight at work and you get bored easily, then you might want to try going back to school. Now, most people would not think that going to school would do anything to boost your confidence, but they would be wrong. Sure, it is going to be tough when you first start, especially if you are the oldest one in the classes you are taking. But you will find that with the knowledge you gain the more confident you will become. This could be the single most important thing you do to gain some of that self-confidence that you desperately need.

Self-confidence is something that everyone needs in order to be more successful in their lives. Whether you know it or not, confidence is something that you have to give to yourself and is not something that you can just have handed to you. You need to prove to yourself that you can earn the right to be confident in your life so that the things you do will give you more success. You have every right to be as confident as possible, but if you give up too soon, then you are going to find that your confidence levels will drop and you will lose out in the end.

To your success.

Michael W

P.S. If you want to learn more about building and developing your confidence, you are invited to visit Confidence and Motivation. This membership site has a level that will be just right for the level of confidence that you want to reach.

P.P.S. If you are on Facebook, check out Develop Confidence in Yourself. Here you will get access to articles and videos related to developing your confidence levels.