Boost Your Self-Esteem and Believe You Can
Before I start can I just make a few comments in regard to my journey
Over my short time (76) years of being who all I know would call me a loner,
I have found that the need to become a better me made a lot of sense.
Yeah, I guess I was a bit of a misfit in the scheme of life , most of the other kids were three or four years older or three or four years younger, now the big kids didn’t want a 12-year-old hanging around and an 12-year-old did not want to play with 7year olds .
Yep I was a MISFIT. Enough about my rebel youth.
As I grew, I had many problems and seen the need to change, so I started to try to understand life, so I had a thought that there must be a way of being a better me .So my Quest began.
My first step was I found a few articles on Self Improvement that sounded like what I was looking to do, However I had no idea what they were try to say ( that’s the difference between highly educated authors and those like me of lower education )
Please note : I have no academic training of any kind . The purpose of this exercise is to try to break it down to simple practical steps to being a better you .
For me improving my self-esteem is the key, because if you don’t feel good about yourself how can you become a better you.
In the following chapters you will find that I have repeated certain points that is deliberate and important
The strongest single factor is self-esteem: believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it.
– Jerry Gillies
Boost Your Self-Esteem and Believe You Can
Self-esteem refers to how you think and feel about yourself. These are thoughts and feelings a person may have, may it be positive, negative, or mixed — about oneself. The more positive these thoughts and feelings are, the higher your self-esteem will be and conversely the more negative these thoughts and feelings are, the lower your self-esteem will become.
Feeling good about yourself is important as it gives you a sense of control over your life. It can also help make a person feel satisfied in a relationship. With a positive self-identity, a person is able to set realistic expectations for oneself and pursue goals. Having a negative self-perception, on the other hand, results in a distorted view of oneself, which leads to further lack of self-confidence, poor performance, and depression.
In recent times, low self-esteem has been one of the most popular and frequently invoked psychological explanations for behavioral and social problems. Taking their cue from social commentators and media opinion leaders, people have been willing to accept that a limited sense of self-worth lies behind just about every social and personal ill from drug abuse and delinquency to poverty and business failures. The result has been a huge market for self-help manuals and educational programs.
People who have low self-esteem rely heavily on their day-to-day performances. The positive external experience and encouragements help them to battle the negative feelings that they have about themselves. These negative feelings very often trouble people with low self-esteem. In some situations, feelings of inadequacy torture those who do not have enough confidence in themselves and about what they can do.
There are many known ways to improve one’s self-esteem. To boost one’s confidence, it may be helpful to practice the following self-improvement techniques and strategies:
Rebutting the inner critic that keeps on sending self-defeating messages;Practicing the art of self-nurturing; and getting much-needed help and support from people who are close to you.
The first and the most important step to increase self-esteem is to tell the inner voice to shut up. The inner voice might say negatively about you. In such a situation you must praise yourself. Rebutting the inner voice that keeps on criticizing you should be done on a regular basis. However, this step is not enough to develop self-esteem.
The second step that one must take on a way to healthy self-esteem is that a person should nurture himself. The most important part of this step is to start treating yourself as a person who is worthwhile
Seek out people who make you feel good. Remember that you get to choose your friends so why not choose people who think you’re great?
Low and poor self-esteem is often the result of bad or a wrong treatment that was experienced in the past. Hence you must start regarding yourself as a worthy person. You must be able to challenge negative experiences in the past and you should start loving yourself. Try to change yourself and show to the outside world that you are valuable, competent, and a lovable person. Learn to develop high self-esteem and believe you can do it, you deserve it, and you will get it.
Let’s break this down
- Feeling good about yourself is important as it gives you a sense of control over your life.
- The first and the most important step to increase self-esteem is to tell the inner voice to shut up.
- Try to change yourself and show to the outside world that you are valuable, competent, and a lovable person
- The MAIN RULE You are always right. If you think you can you will. If you think you can’t you won’t. It is your choice
Explore your inner self
Each one of us has a hidden self within us, but we are not aware of it. Actually, our inner self guides our behavior in our day-to-day life. This self is constructed and undergoes transformation with the passage of time as we experience new things. Ego also forms a part of our inner self. It makes us fight for our own identity in the world. It stresses the individual existence of a human being separated from others. This will make an individual proud and selfish. He will neglect certain facts, which will be an obstacle to his self-awareness and thereby degrading his self-development.
For the development of the inner self, the first is self-introspection. This means that an individual should look within himself and analyze his own personality. This way he will be able to make out his own strengths and weaknesses. After this, it will be easy for him to take on to the methods that add on to his strengths and subtract his weaknesses. A person will then become more attracted towards the positive ways of life. This can be selfless service towards humanity and moving away from the negative thoughts of life such as jealousy and frustration. This will lead to the healing of the inner self.
Another way of self-healing is to take on an optimistic attitude towards life. Many of us are prone to pessimistic thinking, which is the reason why they fail to realize the possibility of a solution to the problem. Taking on a positive and constructive attitude will give us the strength to face the problems of life and seek a solution to the same.
Through self-regulation, self-exploration and self-liberation. It helps us to keep a check on our animal desires and improves our concentration.
Moreover, by making us realize our mistakes and weaknesses it brings about a transformation in our personality.
Self-love is a method of transformation of our inner self. Every person has the desire that the thing or the person he loves should always be perfect. Therefore, if a person will love himself then, no doubt, he will make all the efforts to transform and develop himself and be a better person.
Desires in Healing the Hidden Self
The self is our personality that acts as a representative of our actions, emotions and feelings. It is our nature that makes up our character and becomes our identity once developed.
Many people commonly react differently in typical circumstances. The outcomes of our decisions are based on the way we react to these situations.
Desires play a huge part in our decision-making. In the competitively fashioned world we reside in, it often becomes out of one’s control to retain a balance between the mind and soul, which the soul is the body. We often find ourselves struggling to maintain such balance of mind and body.
Many people struggle with balance, which sometimes these people become distressed and anxious. To avoid such emotional chaos is the key to balance. Failure to thrive for balance by navigating through your desires will only lead to serious or even grave degradation of one’s spirit and health.
Suffering only slows the healing processes. Self-healing evolves around processes, which we must navigate through to understand suppressed emotions and desires. The process of self-healing is not initiated via any external factors. It is not initiated through means of synthetic or artificial drugs, or medical procedures.
Self-healing takes effort on our part. The external factors may perhaps offer some relief in synchronization of the inner self.
According to many prospectors, our best healing agent is time. Debating the notion however, time can offer you some relief, yet it takes more than waiting to move toward healing the hidden self.
We need self-control and confidence to work with time in order to reveal the hidden being. The first goal is to move toward understanding the logic of our own self as we see it now. If you feel dismal and ominous for example, you must explore your mind to understand these feelings of gloom. Only then will you find answers and move to accept change. Change is a huge problem for most people, simply because they fear change.
To overcome such gloomy feelings, one must understand his or her fears. One must attempt to overcome any sort of inferiority complex issues, fears, et cetera. Quote: Whenever an inferiority complex problem exists, you will find a good cause. Find the cause of the problem and you can work through the complex issues.
We need to trim down any holdups from the subliminal mind and psyche. Anything that stumps our growth is interference one must move to understand. If you lack confidence, try joining a motivation course. You want to develop self-motivation to work through psychosomatic disturbances.
Self-healing as prerequisites is healthy subsistence. Self-healing is commonly referred as perennial prostate herbs, or “heal-all-or hearts ease.” This is the definition outlined by various natives, including Eurasia. The wild pansy was commonly used for self-healing, which is also the Viola Tricolor flower that has bright velvety petals. This is a European plan life.
Today, we use innate abilities, skills, et cetera for self-healing. Because scientists are coming to a better understanding of the brain’s functionalities, thus new techniques are re-announced that we can use to heal the hidden self. Today, you can go online and discover thousands of articles that will give you additional insight into healing the hidden being. I encourage you to spend some time surfing the Internet today to discover these insights that will bring you some rewards by navigating through your desires.
Aspects that aid in controlling oneself in Self Control
Self-control is one of the various divisions of self-development. It is the capacity to encourage oneself to do the right things in life and curb our animal desires. However, the root of this self-development lies in a strong will power and disciplining oneself. Self-control produces a kind of confidence in us to do the things that we think are difficult to achieve. It creates a drive of perseverance in us that makes us accomplish our goals. One’s motivation empowers that person and makes it possible to accept challenges that assist us with developing self-control.
But it is important that an ample amount of rest be taken effectively apply self-control in life. An individual should find ways to relax himself. It may be by listening to music, exercise and other things that boost one’s energy levels. This will make it easy for the individual to accomplish his task. For instance, if there is a student who wants to complete his entire course in a single day for a particular subject, then he may be studying the whole day. But this may create a lot of stress on his mind and hamper his ability to learn. So, if he takes breaks in between to relax then this will reduce stress and improve his productivity.
Self-awareness is the foremost aspect that needs to be dealt with for successful self-control. This means that one should first analyze one’s own personality and figure out his strengths and weaknesses. After this, he should try to resist the temptations that he faces in life in relation to his weaknesses. This is to say that if one loves ice cream and is used to having it every day, then he should make efforts to limit it to twice a week. This is how a person strengthens up and develops strong will power thereby contributing to self-development.
So, we can say that self-control is actually the willingness to reject one’s own temptation to a particular thing or a task. This brings us to the next aspect of self-control i.e. strong willpower. Our willpower makes us take a serious decision to complete a task. Most of us have the tendency to make up our mind for a mission, but due to our laziness or desire for other comforts, we are not able to abide by it. The most common example of this can be exercising in the morning, which we usually give up because we do not want to sacrifice our sleep. This is where we actually understand the essence of strong willpower. A person with a strong willpower will give up his comforts and establish his mission. This willpower generally reduces in stressful conditions.
Last but not least, is the aspect of self-discipline. All these three aspects of self-control are, however, interlinked. But each of them has a separate role to play. Self-discipline refers to fighting with one’s own feelings. In this, one has to discover the actual cause of one’s temptation and consciously negate it by getting involved in other interesting activities. This will in turn, develop a strong willpower. Analyzing the consequences, one’s actions in future will also help in reducing the urge for temptation.
An optimistic approach to life will surlily take an individual on the path of success as when an individual thinks positively then he will have a healthy body and thereby be able to accomplish his tasks in a better way.
Thus, self-awareness, strong willpower and self-discipline together lead to effective self-control and further self-development.
Gaining Self Confidence to Succeed in Anything
Where does self-confidence come from? How do we get it? Why don’t I have it? The answer to all of these questions can be answered with one word – you! Self-confidence starts with you, your perception of yourself, and what other people think about your actions or behavior.
For some of us, a lack of self-confidence only affects our high ambitions. You might have always wanted to get up on stage, or to be a professional singer or actor for example. Perhaps your life dream is to travel the world, visit different countries or cities, but you don’t have the self-confidence to do it. For others, the problem of self-confidence is much closer to home – in the office, business meetings, public speaking events or presentations.
Self-confidence issues affect most of us at some time, and we can usually find ways of getting around the problem. Avoidance is one tactic we often use – if we can get out of an intimidating situation, we’ll make up excuses not to take part. However, there are times when we can’t get out of it, or we really don’t want to. If a lack of self-confidence is preventing you from trying something new, or from succeeding in your working life, it’s time to do something about it.
The starting point in improving your self-confidence is understanding what causes the problem. Low self-esteem, not believing in yourself or your ability, feeling inadequate compared to your colleagues or friends or maybe some kind of trauma from your childhood are all contributing factors. By examining the reasons for your low self-confidence, you’re halfway there!
Taking positive action to overcome your fears is the next step to help boost your self-confidence. A simple way to do this is by taking on small challenges. You have allowed your brain to associate certain events or actions with fear, so you’ve already pre-empted the outcome of these situations. By taking a small step towards conquering this, you’ll find that the result is most likely not as bad as you think – in fact, you’ll probably be surprised about how good you feel, and your self-confidence will instantly increase.
When you’ve completed your first small challenge, congratulate yourself on achieving your aim. A small reward can often help. You’re already on the right path to improving your self-confidence, so you’re ready to take it to the next level. This doesn’t need to be a huge task; you don’t want to undo all the good work. Building up your self-confidence takes time, and while you might want to leap ahead, it can be a good idea to take things slowly at first. Steadily increase the risks you’re taking to get your self-confidence to where you want to be. Risk taking does not, of course, mean jumping off a bridge, but the perceived risk of something happening as a result of your actions is usually the biggest barrier with self-confidence.
Self-confidence problems are common for most people, and there are excellent resources to learn to deal with these issues, but if you do have severe difficulty facing certain situations you should seek professional help.
Hidden Self by Controlling You
Healing of the hidden self will better all aspects of our lives, both the professional aspects as well as the personal aspects. Self-control is one of the crucial lessons of self-development and healing the hidden self, since it will lead us to becoming better people overall. If we are able to show self-control in many situations, we will be able to overcome them and avoid the associated stress. It is crucial that we adapt and grow in life and become individuals that are more self-controlled.
Self-control is developed through the processes of healing the hidden self. In dealing with receptivity, the need for self-control is of the utmost importance. It is vital that we are all able to control ourselves when faced with situations in life. Receptivity is one of the components that prepare us with the mental attitudes that are needed for the control of our concentration and the control of our will.
We are able to exhibit self-control when faced with many problems in life. It works to aid in the directing of our attentions, the withholding of our judgments and many other aspects of our self-control. We learn to accept the things that we cannot change and change the things that are within our power. We learn to act in a controlled manner and change our behavior to suit situations that we face.
We all have to be receptive to change. Life is dynamic and does not remain constant. If we are trapped in the mindset where we cannot adapt to change then we are directed along a path that leads to the loss of self-control. We all have to wake up to the reality that when we show self-control, we avoid many problems in life. We are made better overall and are able to handle anything that the world throws at us. We are able to face all the issues that arise in living head on.
The fact is that we all have our own unique mannerisms that are used in the handling of situations. We are not able to be normal all the time and this is a factor that contributes to the need for self-control. There are times we will let our emotions get the best of us but when this occurs the end result can be worse than the previous situation. It is here that we all see the apparent need for self-control. We need to be able to face our problems head on and logically emotionally. Logic can provide us with the best reaction to the situation. Yet to build logic, we must learn to analyze and continue to heal the hidden self.
When we are stressed and cannot see our way through a problem, it is often because the subliminal mind hinders us from seeing. Once you start to explore this mind you can control you and work easily through the process of healing the hidden self. We can redirect our thoughts to the positive aspects of our lives and fulfill our lives. If we always focus on the stresses in our lives, we will be soon overburdened. In order to progress well we have to open up our minds and hearts and be in control of our emotions and physical reactions. It is quite possible at times to forget about the important things in life and to focus only on the negatives. This is not the best attitude and it we are in control of our thoughts then we will be able to redirect ourselves to an action that is more positive.
Personal Mastery And Improving Your Confidence
Self- confidence is something that people find difficult to have. There are people who find low self-confidence influences the way they see themselves and their performance. Contrary to what most people think, self-confidence is not something that only the gifted and blessed could have. With the help of personal mastery, individuals could now start building on their self-confidence.
Personal mastery is about self-development and self-improvement. It is about loving yourself and accepting yourself as you are. You need to acknowledge your weaknesses and at the same time strengthen them. Personal mastery is about loving yourself.
To attain personal mastery and confidence, it is important to believe in yourself. It is also important to be content with yourself. To develop self-confidence, self-acceptance should occur. Self- acceptance is about accepting not only the good things in life, but also the failures in life. Aside from self-acceptance what else can you do to achieve self-confidence through personal mastery.Understanding thoughts and emotions- forgetting about a bad habit or behaviour would make us more aware about thoughts and emotions. By becoming aware of our emotions and behavior, then we will be able to overcome and correct our behavior. But once you have decided to change habits and behavior, there are different strategies and methods that you can do gain mastery over them.
Self-discipline. Changing attitude and behaviour, or even perspective might take a while. Change does not happen overnight. You need to gather enough knowledge and start learning and practicing the skills that you would like to improve and develop.
Have a clear vision of what you want to happen in your life. To be able to move forward in your life, then it is important to have clarity. Seeing what you want to have in a clearer image would encourage you to work for it.
The choice is yours. You can choose what you want to experience. Doing something important for you and something you love would give you enough confidence to continue with what you have started.
Commitment and trust. To be able to attain personal mastery for development and growth, you need to trust yourself that you can undergo the process and commit yourself on the process.
When developing self-confidence through personal mastery, we would have to develop some characteristics. We would develop self-awareness, which is about our readiness to look at our past, accept it and the same goes for the present.
Aside from this, we also develop self-knowledge which is about understanding our past and our attitude. Not only should we understand them but also be able to comprehend the basis for such an attitude or experience. Last, we develop self-discipline. Self-discipline is about how we make sure that our goals and vision are translated into action and achieved. We need self-discipline to make sure that we do not back-out just because of simple and little disappointments and setbacks.
Building self-confidence can’t be done in just a snap. Self- improvement can be a never-ending process. There are people who even acknowledge that
self-improvement can last even for a lifetime. Sometimes, we can only say that we are fully masterful of our life if we have reached our dreams and goals. Personal mastery can help use with growth and eventually with success. We just need to continue with our dreams and be patient.
Turbo-Charge Your Life with Powerful Self-Talk
Self-talk is the inner chatter that accompanies us in most of our waking moments. Your self-talk can be a powerful aid to your performance, or it can be destructive.
What do you say when you talk to yourself? If you’re like many of us, your self-talk is a caustic mixture of judgments, complaints, and verbal abuse, in the form of “tapes” – mental recordings – that you’ve imprinted on your mind and play over and over again. No wonder you feel down and depressed.
However, you can change the tapes you play, and your self-talk, as soon as you become aware of what you’re saying to yourself. Changing your self-talk will turbo-charge your life and enhance your performance in everything you do.
You can change your self-talk right now
Let’s try a little test. Say to yourself, silently or aloud: “That was a stupid thing to say. How could I say _________ (pick any verbal blunder you can remember). I’m so stupid.”
How do you feel? Perhaps you feel sad, or anxious. Take a moment to track your emotions in your body. Perhaps you have a sinking feeling in your tummy, or your face is becoming hot. Your self-talk immediately affected your body, your mental state and your emotions.
Now let’s try some positive self-talk. Take a couple of deep breaths, smile, and say to yourself, aloud or silently: “I’m happy, strong and confident.”
How do you feel now? Feel your emotions in your body. Repeat the words “I’m happy, strong and confident” several times keep smiling as you do so. You felt an emotional lift, didn’t you? You can give yourself an emotional boost at any time, just by changing your self-talk. If you make it a habit to repeat motivating self-talk to yourself, not only will you feel better, but you’ll perform better in everything you do.
Self-talk is powerful, and it’s free. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself.
Erase old self-talk tapes: make new tapes
Affirmations are a form of self-talk, and you can create your own affirmations to use as self-talk. However, the best way to change your old self-talk tapes, is to make a new tape every time you catch yourself replaying an old tape.
For example, if you hear yourself saying: “I’ll never get this project done. No one’s helping me with it, I’m always left to do the hard work and others get the credit “
Change your self-talk immediately. Write down your new self-talk tape which will over time erase the old self-talk tape: “This project’s interesting. I’m going to have fun working with it. I’ll ask ___ and ___ for their input right away. I’m taking charge of this project, it will be done in no time, and I’ll claim the credit because I deserve it.”
Now repeat your new self-talk to yourself as often as you need to, particularly as soon as you can hear any faint whispers of the old self talk. Boost the new tape with affirmations, like: “I’m confident, capable and strong. I CAN do this!”
Start today: use powerful self-talk to enhance your performance in everything you do.
The Desire to Succeed
It’s 6 in the morning. The alarm clock is buzzing, and you’re thinking to yourself, “What’s the point in getting up this early for work?” For some of us, motivation is simply the desire to shut off the clock that is vibrating off the nightstand. But for
others, it is truly self-motivation. It is an internal alarm clock that motivates a
person to make the best of his or her day.
Certainly, everyone wants to succeed in the world. Everyone wants to have a purpose, to be at the top of the corporate ladder, or to be the best he or she can be in any given area. But why do some people succeed in doing these things, and others do not? The answer is: self-motivation.
There are several factors that contribute to self-motivation. They include:
-Self-esteem
-Desire to succeed
-Will power
-Mental stability
-Family
-Life goals
-Daily activities
-Daily pleasure
All of these factors will directly affect success in a career, in academics, in playing sports, and in marriage and parenting. Whether you desire the highest position possible at your job, or graduating with a 4.0 grade point average, you need self-motivation to do it. Self-motivation drives an athlete to score the winning soccer goal, just as it drives a parent to be a good role model for a child.
Along with the desire to succeed comes mental stability. Everyone has a bad day here and there; but what self-motivates a person to continue on with the bad day? The answer is mental stability. The mind is a great force. When you put your mind to accomplishing something, you will try your best to do it. As a result, your
willpower is tested. Being able to stay self-motivated and focused on what is important rather than “throwing in the towel” allows you to succeed in the end. Will power, mental stability, and the desire to succeed are all the result of self-motivation.
Another factor that drives self-motivation is the family unit. Family can self-motivate an individual to be successful. An individual – especially a working spouse – will crave the family’s pride and approval. The working spouse self-motivates himself or herself simply by worrying whether or not the family is taken care of financially. The working spouse will most likely want to earn a high paycheck, and in the end provide for the family. Children often idolize their parents and will mimic what they see their parents doing. In the end self-motivation is passed on from one generation to the next, as it has an important role in family affairs.
Lastly, self-motivation is driven by daily goals and basic daily routines such as losing weight or learning how to play a sport. The simple daily pleasure of waking up to see the sunshine, to hear the birds singing, or even listening to the rain are all pleasures which can self-motivate a person to get up in the morning.