Self Confidence and the Way You Use Your Words

By Allan Cowley

The way we use language can have a huge impact on how we feel about ourselves.

By that, I don't mean what language we speak (English, French, Spanish, etc) but how we communicate with ourselves and with others.

We all have a constant dialogue going on in our heads and this has a strong impact on our self confidence. If our internal dialogue is negative, then we tend to feel negatively about ourselves, our situations, our circumstances. Equally, if our self-talk is positive, we feel better.

Being aware of this negative dialogue is the first step to correcting it.
The conversations we have within ourselves are as if we are actually saying them at the pace, tone and volume we would use if we were speaking to someone else. This is one of the major reasons that they are so powerful; it feels like it is the truth because we wouldn't lie to ourselves. We need to be sure that what we say is supportive.

Listen to what you say to yourself on a regular basis. Are the things you say negative or positive? Are these thoughts making you feel how you want to feel?Start by writing down some of the things you say to yourself on a regular basis.

Write down the thoughts you have regularly or that are specific to a situation you find uncomfortable (or worse). Write as many as you can recall. Leave a space between each note so that you can write underneath it at a later stage. Think about the times when a perceived lack of confidence has got in your way and what you were saying to yourself in those moments.

For example, do any of these internal dialogues sound familiar:-

"Stop right there before you get embarrassed."

"Why me?"

"I wish I could just walk up to that person and say hello."

"Do not try it because you always fail."

"I cannot stand up in front of all these people and make a speech."

"I never get it right."

"I need to do more than this."

"If only I had more courage."

"People think I am an idiot because I get so flustered."

"I cannot do this because I have no confidence."

You can see how these self comments are very negative and are not likely to help you get the results that you are wanting. Not only are they negative, but they contain some powerful words that just embed the feelings you do not want even deeper into your thinking. You are, therefore, not only being negative in that moment, you are setting yourself up to feel the same way the next time that situation arises.

Look at the specifically negative words in the above sentences.

embarrassed,
why,
wish,
fail,
cannot,
never,
need,
if,
flustered,
cannot.

Simply by using such words you are allowing yourself to be put into a negative way of thinking. You are bound to feel badly about a certain situation if you approach it with these thoughts.

Now take a note of HOW you talk to yourself i.e. the pace, tone and volume. Is your conversation fast, harsh and/or loud? It is not just the words you use but how you say them.

You have already written down some of your own internal comments and conversations. Take a look at your notes and see if you can identify the negative words you have used. They will probably stand out like a sore thumb. If you are like most people you will discover that the things that you say to yourself are not very helpful to you.

Now that you understand this point you can begin to change the words, sentences, tone, and volume of your internal dialogue.

When you are communicating with others, you should use the same techniques as described here. Although our most common conversations are internal, it is important to realise that the same rules apply when we are talking to other people.

Again, be aware of your words, how you speak and practice putting your new knowledge into action. When you change what you say and how you say it in conversation, you will start to notice that you are getting a much better response.

Remember, YOU CHOOSE YOUR WORDS, whether consciously or unconsciously, so make the decision to deliberately override your previous habits and use words, sentences, tones and feelings that help you to get the results that you want.

Allan Cowley is a Life Coach working on a one-to-one basis with clients throughout the world. He provides online coaching via his website at http://www.uk-success-coach.com/

Self-Confidence - Should You Let Someone Affect Your Self Confidence?

By: Abhishek Agarwal

It is understood that not everyone would feel safe in letting another person take control of his or her lives. Still, this is what professional psychologists do in a way. People help other people all the time!

There are negatives and positive to the idea of putting your life in someone else's hands, as there negatives and positives in everything else in this world. The answer, as usual lies in getting the right balance out of the situation. This article will deal with the negatives of the situation, because there is much to lose if you let the wrong person run your life for you.

Many of us only feel successful when someone else measures and acknowledges our success. It is evident that we as humans live in a society and need acceptance in it. It is however unhealthy to be completely dependent on other people's feedback to judge your own level of success or of failure as well. We sometimes do not have the time to notice other people's success, and it is the same the other way round as well. Just because someone does not give you a slap on the back every time you do something wrong, do not fret over it. Instead, give your own self the thumbs up and keep doing it right!

Somebody has rightly said that misery does love company. It is unhealthy to have relationships even very short ones, on the basis that both people in concern have had failures.

People sometimes love cribbing about their past, and two such people often create an unhealthy relationship of encouraging each other to curse the life they have lived. Avoid such people at all times. There are still others who seem to have the only objective of making themselves look and feel superior by putting other people down. Take no heed of such people as well. They generally have a low self image themselves, and that is why they fear letting anyone else look good.

When it is time for you to judge someone, maybe a relative or your own child, make every effort to lose your biases. Just because someone failed the last time does not mean they fail every time. Rather than destroy the person's self image, encourage them to do better the next time, and use kind and firm words to do so.

You can shape your child's future personality into a healthy one by doing so. Judging someone is a huge responsibility, and one that requires great care in undertaking. Do not be hasty in your judgments, and always try and sound encouraging. Constructive criticism on the other hand, is a whole new ball game, and that is what you should accept in your life, as well as aim to give those around you.

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Abhishek is a self-proclaimed Personality Development Guru and has written several books on this topic! Visit his website www.Positive-You.com and Download his FREE Personality Development Report and discover some amazing self-improvement tips for FREE. Become the best you can become and reclaim your life! But hurry, only limited Free copies available! www.Positive-You.com

How To Learn From Sucessful People

By Enrique

Contrary to popular belief, the traits of successful people are learned, not inherited. You do not have to be born a gifted person in order to be successful in life. Here's a quick "True" or "False" quiz:

1) Successful people have all been "blessed" with exceptional talents or skills.

2) Successful people are highly educated people with college degrees.

3) Successful people inherit their success.

4) Successful people get where they are by being dishonest.

If you answered "true" to all of the above, you failed the quiz. What's more, you are most likely undermining your own potential for success.

In order to unravel the "mysterious" secrets of success, it is necessary to discard several unfortunate misconceptions. First of all, success does not require superior talents or skills.

It does require certain attributes or traits that are not inborn but learned. For example, successful people are typically goal-oriented, highly motivated, flexible, determined, confident, and self-disciplined.

Secondly, many of the most successful people in the world never attented college. In fact, many never even finished high school. Thomas Alva Edison- whose many inventions include the electric light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera- had only a few months of formal education. Largely self-taught, Edison learned and developed the attributes common to successsful people. He once said that "genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perpiration". Insert the word "success" in place of "genius", and the statement is just as true.

A third misconception is that most successful people started out with unfair advantages. The thinking here is that successful people never get where they are by starting "from scratch". These people must have inherited financial advantages or influential contacts. The truth is, a great many success stories are "rags to riches". Many of the most successful people in the United States started with nothing and earned their measure of success through hard work.

Finally, most successful people do not get where they are by cheating. Dishonesty is not a prerequisite to success.

Once these misconceptions have been discarded, it should begin to come clear that success is not typically a result of circumstances or aptitude. It is most often a result of "success-oriented behavior" involving certain characteristics or attributes that anyone can learn and develop.

Rather than being secret, the way to success is open to anyone who has a goal and who develops the thinking, attitudes and behaviors common to all successful people.

In order to be successful, you must have a goal- some point you wan to reach. That's the first and most important requirement for success. Simply put, you can't be a winner if there's nothing to win.

Both short- and long-term goals are essential elements in providing a sense of direction and purpose. Without a specific, clearly defined goal, you're like a traveler who has no destination. You have no idea of where you're going or why. You don't know how to use your time and resources to their fullest advantage. On the other hand, goal-oriented people know exactly where they are headed and why. They plan their journey carefully, keeping in mind all the detours they may face along the way, and never lose sight of their destination- their goal.

Once you have set your goal(s) you must have the drive or motivation to reach it regardless of the obstacles in your way.

Successful are all highly motivated people who press forward until their goals are reached. That doesn't mean that in order to achieve your goals you must exclude everything else from your life. You'll still need to socialize and relax, but you must set priorities. Consider how much time you spend each day in unnecessary pastimes that do little more than sap your energy. If you use that time instead to focus on and work toward a specific goal, you'll increase your chances for success dramatically. The bottom line is, in order to be successful, you must want to reach your goal more than anything else.

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About the Author: Enrique Villalobos is the owner of MakingExtraMoneyAtHome.com, which provides free articles and resources about working from home. Visit it now and sign up for his free newsletter.

Discover Secrets Of Acquiring Self Confidence

By Bill

A person's future and career certainly depends on whether that person has trait of self-confidence in how they present themselves and solve problems. Self-confidence is one attribute every person should have in order for him or her to assert himself or herself. Many kids and even adults suffer from lack of confidence.

There are people who lack the ability to make strong decisions in life. Others are unsociable and are almost left alone often, while still others are too reliant on outside opinions and lose the independence of decision making. All these result from a lack of self-confidence.

That is why some parents of children who are exhibiting signs of lack of confidence are taking the problem very seriously. They immediately send the child to a therapy or to a behavioral treatment program.

Self-confidence is a really important for everyone, and lacking it should be treated as a serious problem. A person's future and career certainly depends on whether that person has trait of self-confidence in how they present themselves and solve problems.

Starting to build self-confidence:

People are not born with self-confidence. That trait is developed as a person learns more about the world from infancy to childhood to adulthood. Remember, without confidence, you would not have been able to learn how to walk, talk or do other necessary activities.

People with good self-confidence are those who have a belief that everything in life is achievable if there is proper motivation. Usually, these people are those with positive and cheerful disposition in life. Some observations also indicate that those lacking self-confidence are usually those who have experienced sad or traumatic events in the past. A dysfunctional family life in childhood can fail to provide the modeling needed for a child to emulate.

A simple disappointment can be considered a major event in a child's life, especially if the ill feelings that came along it were not properly addressed. Thus, simple embarrassment can be a major and serious cause of lack of self-confidence in a person. Shame can easily develop.

To start building up self-confidence, it is advised that the person gain and have a positive outlook about life. He should be cheerful and fun-loving and must have a good outlook.

Tips on gaining self-confidence:

Through the years, behaviorists and experts have been sharing some basic and helpful secrets that surely and effectively help people gain and develop self-confidence. Here are some of those simple tips:

Just feel good.

People with confidence are usually those who feel good about themselves. If you feel good about yourself, confidence is a natural occurrence. It makes it easy to talk the talk and walk the walk.

If you find it hard to feel good, there is a simple tip to help you out. Think of good and fun memories, think of a fun activity, or think of a person who really makes you feel happy. Redirect your thinking and use some positive self talk, Some experts advise that thinking of a favorite celebrity or an idol could also help build good confidence and disposition.

Overcome self-consciousness.

The most potent factor in sustaining lack of self-confidence and staying stuck is self-consciousness. Why do people not feel good about themselves? Because they think they are inferior to other people. When people think they are ugly or are less desirable, they start opting to withdraw. When we judge others with our own yardstick we often come up short. Why? Because we are our own harshest critic.

Another tip is to think of other people and how they get things done, then motivate yourself to doing the same. If you want to be a millionaire do what millionaires do.

Keeping busy and productive helps. Remember, idle minds are the workshops of the devil. If you are too bored because you don't have much to do, chances are that you would start noticing yourself and then develop a sense of self-pity and affliction.

Don't criticize yourself.

Criticisms surely are constructive, but often when they come from yourself, they have adverse effects. Self-criticism could lead to too much focus on self and eventually, to the feeling of inferiority, which could lead ultimately to lack of self-confidence.

Lastly, the most effective secret to building up a firm self-confidence is a belief in self, and motivation to succeed. If you keep on comparing yourself to others, you would certainly end up feeling less confident, so stop the habit and focus on the things you can accomplish, and then just do it.

Article Source: http://www.ArticlesAlley.com/

About the Author: Tell your story! Pick up addiction recovery tips and tricks to enhance your life free of addictions.The author, Bill Urell MA.CAAP-II, is an addictions therapist at a leading residential treatment center. He teaches healthy life styles and life skills. Join our growing community.
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Self-Confidence Counselor - 3 Ideas To Help You Locate The Right Self-Confidence Counselor

By: Abhishek Agarwal

If you are looking to find a self confidence counselor but don't have a clue where to start, we have a few ideas for you.

A. Don't overlook the phone book. The telephone directory remains one of the easiest sources to find what you are looking for in your own city. The yellow pages can help you quickly get in touch with the right self-confidence counselor in your area. Not only would it give you the contact telephone numbers of the counselors in your area, you can also get the postal addresses of the people.

B. Don't forget to look in magazines and papers. The classifieds section of the papers could definitely have a few ads of self-confidence counselors in your area. Health magazines would carry ads of the same, but the newspapers may be a better option since they would carry ads relevant to your state or city. Magazines are often circulated through many states, and thereby carry some ads that may be geographically irrelevant to you.

C. The Internet is probably more accessible to you than the daily paper! However, the vast sea of information that it provides can be the very reason that you may find it hard to find a counselor in your area, when looking over the Internet. We still recommend the daily or weekly local paper as the best bet.

Here are some of the characteristics you may want to keep in mind that define a good counselor. Remember that the person who counsels you is going to become a major figure in your life, almost like a life partner. A psychologist may well be the right choice, since they study all aspects of counseling in their university years. Sociologists on the other hand are accustomed to the study of human behavior. Such a person could definitely help you get more comfortable with who you already are.

You need to place a lot of trust in the person you hire, so make sure you do a background check on the short listed counselors. If you can get in touch with some of their former clients, nothing like it. You need to be able to trust this person with not just your time and money but the course of your life it self, so take your time and do not hire a counselor in a hurried manner.

Hiring a professional can be an expensive issue, so do consider that aspect as well before you commit to working with someone. If you do not want to shed out any money, you could look to your close friends and to family members for counseling. After all that is what it was all about until a few years ago.

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Abhishek is a self-proclaimed Personality Development Guru and has written several books on this topic! Visit his website www.Positive-You.com and Download his FREE Personality Development Report and discover some amazing self-improvement tips for FREE. Become the best you can become and reclaim your life! But hurry, only limited Free copies available! www.Positive-You.com

5 Steps to Destroy Fear and Build Self Confidence

By Steve Peck

Recently while reading through "The Magic of Thinking Big", I found these five little steps anyone could do to gain more confidence in their life and destroy fear. It was so powerful, and yet so simple!

We all face time that more confidence would make the difference between having what you want and not having it. It may show up for you as fear, or simple lack of action. Its that thing you know you should do but are stopped for some reason.

Here are 5 Steps and Practices that will work for you -

1. Action cures fear. Isolate your fear and then take constructive action. Inaction--doing nothing about a situation strengthens fear and destroys confidence. Pick one thing you are putting off or avoiding, where you know fear has a grip and take at least one action today.

2. Make a supreme effort to put only positive thoughts in your memory bank. Don't let negative, self deprecatory thoughts grow into mental monsters. Simply refuse to recall unpleasant events or situations. Pick a positive experience from your life (search for it if you have to), one where you felt good. Stop and think about it, relive it in your mind, recall every detail….dwell in it.

3. Put people in proper perspective. Remember people are more alike, much more alike than they are different. Get a balanced view of the other fellow. He is just another human being. And develop an understanding attitude. Many people will bark but it's a rare one who bites.

4. Practice doing what your conscience tells you is right. This prevents a poisonous guilt complex from developing. Doing what's right is a very practical rule for success.

5. Make everything about you say, I'm confident really confident. Practice these little techniques in your day to day activities. Try them and see they make a difference for you.

a. Be a front seater - in church, school or next meeting
b. Make eye contact - look people in the eye.
c. Walk 24 percent faster - you may be suprised.
d. Speak up - make it a point to say something constructive or ask a question.
e. Smile big - it makes a difference.

Commit to take action today and see the difference it makes in your life. We'd love your feedback - remember 5-b Speak up!

Steve Peck is a veteran network marketer with over 10 years experience building a business using the traditional methods (the old school). He is excited to share a truly online system that works. He is currently building a real online MLM business without making one phone call, holding home meetings, paying for card decks, conference calls, cold calling ... ===> http://DigitalSuccess.info Visit Steve's Blog ===> http://DigitalSuccess.org

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Make It Your Destiny To Accomplish Great Things In Your Life

By Hani Al-Qasem

Ever thought that maybe your past is holding you back, keeping you exactly where you are, not moving ahead as quickly as you might want? The thing to learn here is to let go of your past. Do not allow it to dictate your future. Move on to progress in life, to do, have and become what you want; to be the best in any area of your life that you choose, so you may design your own destiny.

From this moment on, choose not to let your past dictate your future. What is gone is gone – forever. Now is the time to move on, to do and become what you want: to be the best in any area that you choose, so you may design your own destiny.

Here are a few helpful suggestions that you may take on board, and below you will find a couple of simple tips that can quickly move you in the direction of manifesting your destiny to accomplish many great things in your life.

To join ranks with the most successful people in the field of your choice, or merely to achieve your dreams quietly, for yourself, you will need to take the journey toward a better more enlightened future; toward a more empowered and motivated you, toward a life that you will design and achieve. You will live your life as you want it. And you will become that person you have been dreaming of becoming.

Invest in life – in your life. No more wavering dreams, staring out the window and wishing and hoping. No more sleepless nights worrying about your future as you only see where you are now.

This time it is for real. What you are dreaming of will happen, and in abundance. From today, you will move forward in your life in a dramatic way. You will do what is required of you to accomplish your daily goals, big and small, and you will always expect to succeed at everything you do.

Embrace your unlimited power and build a life of excellence. Success is your one and only option. Fill all of your days with accomplishments, no matter how small you may think they are. It is important, at this point, to realise that most successes stem from your ability to feel certain that you can set out to achieve what it is that you desire – to accomplish great things in your life. And for you to feel certain, you need to become confident.

One of the principle prerequisites to achieving almost anything in life is confidence. Confidence is an indispensable requirement to your success and further development or betterment, be it for your personal or professional needs. Confidence is the doorway to success and fulfilment. With confidence you will have the courage, strength and motivation to tackle and overcome all life’s setbacks and challenges.

The great news is that confidence is a learned skill, and anyone can learn the skills to having awesome and unstoppable confidence.

As promised, here are just a couple of confidence tips that I believe are easy to do and are extremely effective. By repeating the simple tips daily, they will retrain your thinking and become an automatic part of your new successful and confident habit. They will become your new way of life.

Challenge your thoughts that have been holding you back and stretch your mind to raise your limits to unlimited heights.

- At the end of each day, put yourself into a confident and resourceful state of mind by jotting down in your diary or daily journal, all of the day’s achievements, no matter how small.

Benefit: The mere act of writing them down reinforces the idea of success and confidence. It is extremely beneficial and motivating for you to feel the successes from deep within so your mind acknowledges them as confident achievements.

- Just before going to bed, conceive and initiate your ideal day. Once you have gone through your diary and planned your next day, sit back and take a few minutes to imagine and visualise the entire day, from beginning to end. See it unfolding exactly how you would want it to be, in every situation. Feel the confident emotions that come from success, with the feeling that you have accomplished all that you wanted.

Benefit: When you go to sleep, your unconscious mind will work all night on ways to bring about that which you have just visualised.

Truly make it your destiny to accomplish many great things in your lifetime by adopting a vital ingredient to success, and that is confidence. With confidence you discard worry, hesitation and fear. With confidence you rise above challenges and failures. With confidence you have unlimited motivation and unrelenting persistence.

Do not underestimate the immense power of confidence. Go ahead, reap the rewards and accomplish many great things in your lifetime.

Co-author of "Self-Confidence Building in 7 Steps," Hani Al-Qasem is passionate about his vision and purpose in life; which is to help inspire, support and motivate adults and children to be the best that they can be in all areas of their lives. Take advantage and discover how you, too, can improve on your confidence in all areas of your life by reading and applying his learnings in his book. Visit: http://www.self-confidence-building.com and http://www.insight4you.com

The 5 Keys To Unstoppable Confidence

By Shannon Graham

Confidence, what does it mean to you? I believe we all have a personal definition of confidence, and whatever yours may be the follow steps will help you not only increase it, and make it stronger, it will also help make confidence a bigger part of who you are. So read on, and don’t forget to live like a champion!

1. Certainty

Lets face it, when if comes to confidence no one is perfect. But it seems to me like one of the biggest factors in having high levels of self confidence comes from knowing exactly what you want out of life. I mean think about it, when you are not very sure about what you want, where you are going, or what kind of results you would like to achieve. That leads to a fair amount of uncertainty which can be a total killer of confidence. That is why certainty is the first key; it is because it is so important. Your action activity for this first key is to set some time aside and really focus on what you want out of life, where you want your life to go, and what kind of experiences you would like to have and make sure to be a detailed imaginative as you can. You will see your confidence level rise; because you will be completely aware of how you want to walk through life.

2. Fearlessness

Now when I speak of fearlessness I am not talking about having a total absence of fear. I am talk about your association to fear. Many of us live far below our potential; and it has nothing to do what what they are capable of, or their intelligence. It is more often because they are afraid they might fail, and experience pain. Yet the psychology of someone who has a great level of confidence does not see failure as something that is negative or to be feared. Ask your self this question right now. Am I willing to learn from my mistakes? True confidence comes from the ability to make mistakes, learn from them and use what you learned to take a better action next time. So go out and make some mistakes!

3. Awareness

Have you ever been looking for something and not been able to find it, and become upset and annoyed because you know this thing you are looking was “Right there!!” just two minutes ago? Just to have someone else point the thing out right in front of your nose? It is no different when it comes to confidence, when we get into a negative state of mind it is easy to ride it further and further down. Yet the whole time there is our confidence, our power, right next to us the whole time. So now it is time to become aware of the fact that we choose our thoughts and that confidence can be ours at any moment as long as we just make a strong decision to take a step back, take a deep breath, and reset our thoughts. Action step? Work on being aware of when your confidence starts to flounder, and ask your self some empowering questions like, How in this moment do I have power? Or what would it take for me to have more confidence right now?

4. Self Talk

The next key goes hand in hand with the one before it. Along with being aware of your confidence when it starts to slip, being aware of your own self talk. That is the way you communicate with your self. Way too often people are negative in their thoughts. They ask questions to themselves that require a negative answer. Like I always say your brain is like a machine, it has no bias what ever you put in is what you get out. So make a point of only asking questions or making statements that are positive. Rather then constantly getting information that makes it difficult to be positive, you will be receiving information that gives you power and builds you up, and naturally you’re confidence will boost. The homework for this one is to take complete ownership of your thoughts, remember you are the boss! If there are thoughts going on in your mind that do not support you, instantly make a statement that is the opposite. You will be blown away by the effects!

5. Practice

In this day and age of instant Email, instant messages, I want it now, give it to me now. It can be difficult to have to have patience. No one wants to do the work, but we all want the benefits. The funny part is in my experience I have found whatever it is that we will not do, or do not want to do is very often the very thing we need to do. How many of us do not exercise? How many of us to not deepen our relationships when we know we should? I think you get my point, so the real secret is just old fashioned practice. Make confidence something you are fully committed to, use these tools everyday, make them a part of who you are. This change in your belief and how you construct your thoughts will lead to a shift in your life that will knock you off your socks! Guaranteed!

Disclaimer: If you follow the 5 Keys to Unstoppable Confidence with passion and determination you may encounter the following side effects: Abnormal Joy, decreased stress, problems complaining, lack of nervousness, increased sex drive, feeling empowered upon arising from a sitting or lying position, racing heartbeat, manic intensity.

Shannon Graham is a professional life coach that works with people to help them reach higher levels of confidence and empowerment. At only 25 years old he has been studying success principles and personal improvement strategies for over a decade. For more information visit: http://www.success4rlife.com

Tips For Building Self Confidence Through Feelings And Emotions

By Lorna Luck

Your feelings affect literally everything you do in life, and everything that happens in your life - especially your self confidence levels and self esteem. You create feelings and emotions about everything that your senses pick up, and you create an immediate and automatic reaction to everything that happens to you.
When you taste something really bad, you immediately feel revulsion and try to get rid of the horrible taste as quickly as possible. When you slip on a wet or icy pavement, you immediately feel panic as you lose your footing and fear you might fall.

In everything that happens to you, your emotions and feelings immediately come into play and automatically determine how you react to each and every situation. There are several different groups of feelings and emotions, and they control us in very different ways. So let’s look at the primary groups because by being able to recognise them, you can learn how to deal with and control them - instead of the other way round.

How Painful Feeling Affect Us.

Imagine you’re having a relaxing soak in a hot bath. After a while, you’ve noticed the water temperature has dropped so you decide to top it up with some more hot water. You stretch your leg so you can turn the hot tap on with your toes. Hot water rushes out scalding your foot a little. You might squeal in pain a little, and you immediately pull your foot away from the water. This shows that we always try to move away from painful feelings.

One of the biggest and most commonly experienced painful feelings is anxiety. Anxiety can cause all sorts of negative feelings, and it can also be very non-specific. That means that you can be suffering with various anxiety symptoms, without really understanding exactly what is causing you to feel that way.
Anxiety can be very severe - and can certainly be strong enough to wake you from a deep sleep or cause an anxiety or panic attack. It is usually caused by an accumulation of many smaller fears and worries that combine together to create overwhelming emotional stress. In stronger cases, it can cause you to be uncertain and incapable of positive action. In most cases it also has a negative impact on your self esteem and reduces or even wipes out your self confidence.
The second group of feeling we call pleasure feelings.

These are my favourite feelings - and it’s probably the same for virtually every other human being on the planet. Imagine for a moment that you’ve just been out on a first date and really fell “head over heels” with your date. You seemed to have lots of things in common, there was never a dull or quite moment, and you got on like a house on fire. After the date, you feel on top of the world. These feelings and emotions cause us to feel pleasure, and we want to get as much of them as possible.

We are all programmed to seek out pleasurable experiences and situations, and to try to have more of them in our lives. This is why romance, holidays and even pleasure parks play such an important part in our lives. Pleasurable emotions and feelings that we can’t get enough of include happiness, joy, laughter, love, friendship, fulfilment, winning, being loved and inner peace.

Pleasurable experiences make us feel good, and we feel good on the outside, we feel good on the inside, and our self confidence and self esteem grow immensely. The trick is to control your emotions so that you always feel positive about the things that happen to you in every day life. When you’re in complete control over how you react and how you feel, your emotions will always be positive, and your self confidence and self esteem will soar.

Lorna Luck is a self confidence and personal development coach . Here she talks about how your feelings can help with building confidence levels. Get your personalised copy of her free program teaching how to build confidence at http://magic-hats.com

How To Build Self Confidence The Easy Way

By Wendy Jones

Have you ever felt anxious, depressed, nervous, or angry? Or feeling low on self confidence and self esteem? One of the questions I get asked a lot by my clients (and friends too) is how to build self confidence and start to feel good about life.
No matter how bad or how low you feel, if you start to use these techniques when you’re feeling low, I know you will start to feel much better and far happier than you ever thought possible. They’ll also show you how to start really achieving your goals and life long dreams at the drop of a hat.

These techniques aren’t my creation - they’re part of a powerful personal development technique known as Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP for short. The program was created by a Master NLP practitioner who coaches with some of the biggest “blue chip” and Fortune 500 companies around today. The very simple techniques will teach you how to turn a negative and disempowering emotion into a position of strength and power.

Having the knowledge is nothing without action.

You may be familiar with the saying that “knowledge is power” - unfortunately that’s not quite true. You could read everything here, gain the knowledge but still not see any improvements in your life. That’s because “Action is Power”, not knowledge. To reap the benefits of these techniques you must put them into action. It will only take you 10 - 15 minutes a day, but they will likely be the most powerful and stimulating 15 minutes.

Let’s get started with some Magic Hats.

This process you’re about to discover is more commonly known as Magic Hats. You get 5 different colored hats (not real hats - they’re jus in your mind) and 5 very simple steps to follow. In fact there so simple you can have them down in less than 20 minutes.

Step 1 - Self Hypnosis. This is where you place yourself in a very deep state of total relaxation. Just feeling this relaxed is enough to make you feel great, but we are only just getting started.

Step 2. Modalities. Your modalities are your modes of thinking - or how your brain recalls past memories. Have you ever smelt a familiar smell and almost immediately recalled the memory of where you were and what you were doing when you first encountered that smell. Or looked at an old photo and had the memories come flooding back? We remember our past experiences through our senses - just like this.

Step 3. Swish Patterns. This is simply a method where we replace one emotion with another. So if we are experiencing a negative emotion, it’s a method we use to replace it with a positive and happy emotion.

Step 4. Anchors. When you are experiencing your new positive behaviour it’s important to “anchor” it in your memory so that you can recall it whenever you wish - literally at the drop of a hat.

Step 5. Your mode of operation. Most people allow their mind to control their emotions and simply react to all the things that happen to them each day. By being aware of how your brain and your emotions work, you can control how you react to each situation you find yourself in.

Learn to Relax on Demand

Most people hardly ever relax - even when they’re asleep, they’re still tense and under stress. Our bodies operate and function best when we are relaxed. We can think more clearly, we feel better, and are much more fun to be around. So the first and most vital lesson is learning how to fully relax - and you’ll be amazed at how easy it is.

Sit in your chair with you back straight, and your feet flat on the floor. Make sure the base of your spine is pushed right back into the back of the chair.

1. Place you hand (whichever comes naturally) onto your stomach just about where your belt buckle is (or would be if you were wearing a belt).

2. Take a deep breath in and push out your stomach muscles allowing your lungs to start expanding into your stomach area - this helps fill your lungs from the bottom allowing you to get much more air into them. Continue to inhale filling the top of your lungs as well. When you can’t breathe in anymore, hold your breath for a slow count of 6.By holding your breath, you ensure your lungs can extract the maximum amount of oxygen from the air and get it into your bloodstream.

3. Now breathe out slowly for a count of 6 and suck in your stomach muscles as far as you can at the same time. This helps expel the maximum amount of air from your lungs ready for the next deep breath in. Once you have exhaled, hold your breathe for another slow count of 6.

4. Repeat this breathing technique for a total of 6 to 12 times.

The process we are following is: Push out your stomach and breathe in - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6; Hold your breath - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6; Suck in your stomach and breathe out - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6; Hold your breath - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6; Repeat the complete process 6 - 12 times.

You may start to feel a bit dizzy or light headed while your doing this, or once you’ve finished. Don’t worry as it’s completely natural - just sit still for a few seconds and the feeling will pass. The reason is that you are now very relaxed and your blood is very well oxygenated. The light headedness is due to the increased amount of oxygen getting to your brain (which is a good thing).

Now that you’re calm and relaxed you can move on to the rest of the program - I haven’t got space to fit everything in here so there’s a free download you can get over at http://magic-hats.com with the rest of the steps. You can download it and have completed the first task within the next 10 minutes, and be on your way to a happier, more positive and much more successful life.

Author Wendy Jones is a personal development, NLP and life coach. Here she explains some personal development using some simple yet highly effective personal development techniques using the Magic Hats program from a highly respected master NLP practitioner.

Take Action Immediately

By Melisa Milonas

I have noticed one of the best ways to boost self-confidence is to act immediately. When you want to do something but you have a fear about it you will usually avoid and resist doing it. But when you choose to act in the moment in spite that your fear, you experience power and boost in self confidence.

When I am working with a client and they have an assignment or task to complete that is confronting to them I notice they always want to push it off doing it and put it toward the bottom of the list. And they put the easy things at the time of their priority list. So I always have to give them a little push and request that they do the scary thing first or soon. What happens when you put things off that you’re afraid of doing, they become scarier over time. It is harder and harder to get yourself to do it.

It is important to do the things that you fear first, right away when you are starting your day. This approach as you feel powerful and confident and everything else you do seems like a breeze. Also when you are asked to do things that scare you, it will be easy for you to say yes and because you will have the confidence to know you can do it.

If you know there is something you want to do that scares you, do not choose to wait two weeks to do it. If you do you are giving your mind the opportunity to focus on the fears. You will start to find excuses for putting it off even longer. That is how procrastination starts. So many women tell me that they think they are lazy because they procrastinate. I have to re-educate them that they are not lazy. The problem is they believe their fears and excuses are real. They don’t realize they are avoiding something that is confronting to them. Once they see that it is an irrational fear blocking them they choose to take action.

Have you notice when you have procrastinated, after you did what you were putting off you say things to yourself “it wasn’t that bad, “I don’t know what I was so worried about?” “That was easier than I thought.” Those thoughts are signs that you feared something and it was stopping you from acting. The fear may be as simple as you feared it would take long, or the task would overwhelm you.

The next time you want to do something that is scary or confronting to you act immediately with out thinking about it. Even if you have some thoughts or fears that come up, accept them and say do it anyway. If you do it right away you will instantly feel confident. Surrender to not knowing everything or having enough time and do it, its ok, you will figure it out as you go. When you have this approach everything usually feels less threatening and more enjoyable.

I can not stress enough how important it is to act immediately, this is one of the best ways to boost yourself self-confidence. When you practice this you will become more decisive and know how to respond quickly to any situation. You unwavering trust about yourself.

Your assignment:

The next time you want to do something that you have fear do it right away. Do not let your mind talk you out of it. Look at the last two weeks and identify where you have put off doing something. See what excuses you have come up for not doing it. Ask yourself is it possible that this excuse came from a fear I have? Is that feat real or valid? Also ask yourself, If I did not have this fear would I have done it already? Then take care of it immediately.

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Do You Avoid Confrontation?

By Melisa Milonas

A lot of clients I work with avoid confronting people when something is bothering them about what they are doing. The most common reason they avoid doing it, is because they have a fear around confrontation. Unfortunately avoiding confrontation is a confidence drainer. There are many fears people have about confrontation such as; I may explode, I may upset the other person, I am being too sensitive, what if they hate me or stop talking to me. Do any of these sound familiar to you? I too used to fear confrontation.

I used to believe that if I confronted someone it meant there was going to be an argument or I would make the other person angry. So I would avoid confrontations all together. But what usually ended up happening is that I would get more and more resentful of that person and the anger would build up. I would keep looking for that person to make another wrong move. I would collect evidence to build my case and then one day when I had enough I would explode. Needless to say that never worked for me!

I also had another pattern, I would not say anything to the other person and as time went on I would avoid them and eventually remove them from my life. But I realized that I was not dealing with the issue, I was not being responsible. I also did not learn anything from running away. I was cutting people out of my life that I did not always want to cut out. A simple conversation could have changed the whole dynamic of our relationship. I remember I used to get so upset with myself for not speaking up and taking a stand. My self-confidence and self esteem always took a blow, it was a vicious cycle. It does not have to be like this for you. I am going to share with you what I use and teach others to effectively deal with confrontation.

First let’s get to the bottom of some of misconceptions about confronting people. First many believe it will turn into an argument and someone will get angry. Another misconception is that it is a power struggle, someone is going to win and someone is going to surrender. Anger does not have to be an outcome of communicating to someone that something is upsetting or bothering you. No one has to lose you can create a win win situation.

I am going to use an example from a client I was working with recently. My client was having a lot of problems with one of her renters. Her renter was 2 months behind on her rent and was not following-up with my client’s calls or emails until days and weeks later. My client expressed to me that she was upset but that she did not want to confront her renter because she had a fear of confrontation. At first she made up excuses for her renter to avoid having a conversation. “She is really busy, I know she has a lot on her plate right now.” But the longer my client avoided dealing with the issue the more it got out of control and she was not taking responsibility for the situation. What was stopping my client was her fear of making her renter angry by confronting her and dealing with her own anger toward the renter.

My client was taking on the responsibility of how her renter would respond emotionally to their conversation. This is a great demonstration of how invalid your fears are and how they can trick you. You can not control another person’s feelings or reactions to you. People choose how they are going to react and how they feel toward a situation. Also my client feared her own anger and did not want it to come out in her conversation. Her fear had her believe that if she confronted her renter, her anger would definitely come out, which is an invalid.
My client had a belief that the conversation was going to be uncomfortable and like a battle. She even prepared herself by saying “I have to be strong and take a stand for myself and tell her that I am angry.”

During our call I helped her realize that she could communicate with her renter in a way that expressed the problem they are having with out it being confrontational or argumentative. Here is how I coached her, I suggested she just point out the facts of what has happened over the last 3 months to her renter. Acknowledge they had an agreement and that is has not been upheld by her renter and the impact of that her lack of commitment has had. I helped her to recognize the difference between what actually happened and the facts, rather than going into her story about how her renters behavior was making her feel angry, and trying to make her renter wrong. I had her outline why what has been happening does not work and then come up different solutions to the problem.

By the end of our session my client felt empowered and less stressed about going into the conversation with her renter. Before our call she had an expectation that the conversation with her renter would be a difficult and cause unwanted emotions. After our call she got to see how she could communicate what she wanted and need without attacking or judging her renter.

Being assertive and confronting someone can be done with ease and effortlessly if you use the communication tools I demonstrated above. When you simply stick to the facts and address what has happened and why it does not work for you it takes the blame game and pointing the finger out of the conversation. When this approach is taken the person listening will be more open to hear what you have to say and will feel less defensive.

In the past you have attempted to talk with someone about a problem you are having with them and you get caught up in your story, you start talking about how they made you feel and pointing out what they are doing to you. It is all about you and becomes a poor me attitude.

You can express your emotions and what you are feeling as a result of a behavior or situation but just make sure you take responsibility for your emotions. Do not say to the other person “you made me feel this way or when you did this I got angry.” A better way to say this is “when this happened, it occurred to me that you were trying take advantage of me and I got angry.” “I am not saying that is what you intended to upset me, but that is how it occurred to me.” See how you are taking responsibility for your feelings and reactions it is much different than pointing the finger.

See when you say what happened and then take responsibility for how you felt as a response to it, it takes the blame off of the other person. Most times people do not even know what they are doing or how they are being is causing you so much grief and frustration. Also no one likes being blamed by another person for something. Pointing the finger and blaming another person only alienates them and puts them on the defensive. So the fear you have about them getting angry may end up happening, they will get angry and attack back if you point fingers and blame.

If you are willing to take responsibility for the way you communicate about something that is bothering you, you will most likely have a productive conversation with a resolution. No matter how the other person responds to you, if you address your fears and be responsible for your communication, you will feel confident and empowered about how you handled the situation. Acknowledge that you do not need to avoid conversations with people that address uncomfortable issues. That only drains your confidence and builds up resentment toward the other person and yourself.

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