Blog for Self Improvement

Self confidence is a mental and emotional state of mind that responds to an individual's need for self-acceptance and peer recognition. It is among the oldest and most studied concepts in psychology. It is used to describe a positive but nonetheless adequate perception of oneself and one's abilities. As such, people with self confidence usually have a better idea of the things they are able to do and are more apt to be successful in their projects. They are able to more readily admit and learn from their failures.

On the contrary, a lack of confidence might prevent you from believing what you do and decide will finally work out the way you had intended. It can hence hamper the improvement of decision-making aptitudes, planning and managerial abilities all of which are essential and mandatory skills in the business world of today. The pre-occupation with other people's opinions of your work may also cause you to become excessively self-critical, which will distract you from things you would have otherwise been fully capable of performing.

Low self confidence will also affect your social life, as people with low self confidence tend to stay in their "comfort zone" and are afraid of being rejected. This is called social phobia and is usually associated with low self confidence, as well as other mental afflictions such as depression. People with low self confidence are scared of being judged by their peers and will avoid talking to new people, which can subsequently lead to isolation and even lower self confidence. Low self confidence is a vicious circle that's difficult to break.

On the other hand, because they are able to trust their abilities, people with self confidence are able to do what they feel is appropriate and do not expect the approval of others. They also trigger confidence: your boss, employees, customers, friends or relatives will be more likely to believe in you or in the things you are telling them if you appear self-confident.

Different experiences can lead to low self confidence. New research indicates that parenting style has a major impact on the development of a child's self confidence. Corporal and psychological abuses during childhood are for instance the worse for a person's self confidence, as well as family conflicts or divorce. Overprotective parents may also be a reason for a child's social phobia and inhibit the independence that is necessary to develop self confidence. Failures and successes, for instance at school or in one's professional life, also play a significant role: losing a job or failing a class are some of the several experiences that will negatively affect your self confidence.

There are nonetheless ways to overcome those bad experiences and improve self confidence. The first thing to do in order to build self confidence would be to learn to know who you are and what your strengths are. Recognizing that you cannot be perfect and cannot be the best in everything you do will help you gain self confidence. Accepting who you are is the key to building self confidence. But improving self confidence also requires that you start taking risks and giving yourself credit for your achievements. This is very simple advice that will help you improve self confidence. You may also find plenty of books that will claim they can help you improve self confidence, however not all of them are reliable.

A lot people suffer from low self confidence or are only able to gain self confidence in one or a few areas of their lives because they constantly look for other people's approval and are afraid of failing. Many factors, including childhood traumas, can explain why certain people cannot have the wholesome life a self confident person could have. These persons also don't always know how to gain self confidence. However improving self confidence can now readily and effectively be achieved thanks to hypnosis and NLP.

As we have seen before low self confidence and social phobia can stem from traumas or unconscious fears that may be difficult to overcome through self persuasion only. Confidence hypnosis and NLP on the other hand are able to get to the unconscious part of our mind and modify belief systems to boost self confidence. They are effective tools that will help you address your fears and trust yourself to develop self confidence.

Confidence hypnosis has been used for several decades and has shown significant results in building self confidence. Once in a hypnotic state, accessing unconscious thoughts is a lot easier and, through hypnotic suggestion, you will be able to replace your negative thought patterns with positive ones to boost self-confidence.

By: Alan B. Densky, CH

Source: http://www.articledashboard.com

Alan B. Densky, CH is an NGH certified hypnotherapist. He offers effective hypnosis CD's for social phobias and self confidence. His self hypnosis for self confidence CD's were independently reviewed in the UK. Visit his Neuro-VISION self hypnosis site and watch free hypnosis videos.

Everyone one of us knows the important role that self confidence plays in our lives. Without a good measure of confidence in ourselves we would find it difficult to interact in social, business or even personal situations. Every one of us has some degree of confidence in ourselves whether we realize it or not. Without confidence you would not survive in the world! For example you must have enough faith that you can clothe, feed and shelter yourself.

However how many of us take a good look at the state of our self esteem? If you take the time to increase your self esteem you will find that your self confidence increases naturally. Build a solid strong self-image, with high self-esteem and you will feel invincible!

Having a positive self-image that is built on a foundation of high self-esteem is a pre-requisite to happiness, any type of success and life fulfilment in general. So what is self-esteem and how can you develop your own?

Well, self-esteem is simply a word that is used to describe how you feel about yourself. It represents your own self worth and reflects your internal beliefs about yourself and your place in the world.

Your self-esteem is the bedrock of your self-image and it is your self-image that you use, unconsciously, as a guide to your own abilities - what you think you can and cannot achieve. Your self-image is also the blue-print from which you build your life. If you have a negative or unrealistically negative image of yourself and your abilities then your life will never work the way you wish it to regardless of how hard you try to change it!

As your self image is how you see yourself then this determines how you think, act and react to the world around you. It influences your behaviour and thus it is directly responsible for the results you get in life. Having low self-esteem usually leads to a victim type self-image where you feel like it is impossible for you to succeed.

If you have high self-esteem your self-image will be very positive and you will feel like you can handle any problem and overcome any obstacle. You feel like you will succeed no matter what life throws at you. You will be naturally optimistic.

When you have a strong sense of self worth and high self-esteem you tend to know where you are going in life. People with high self-esteem are usually very goal-driven. They hold the optimistic view that they will reach any goal they set themselves and although the path may not be easy at times they never give-up!

Having high self-esteem allows you to think clearly and avoid emotional thinking and this leads to the gaining the skill of persistence. It allows you to act in circumstances from a clear mental view point instead of reacting. This gives you much more power in any circumstance because you can think clearly and make decisions based on solid evidence and clear rationalization with the belief that you can find a way to effectively deal with the situation at hand. People with low self-esteem usually just give-up when faced with challenges because they believe they cannot meet them.

Having high self-esteem will also allow you to enjoy the moment instead of being distracted by negative thoughts and emotions or worrying about what will happen or how others view you. Having a solid belief in yourself and your abilities also gives you the opportunity to look at your weaknesses and improve yourself because you are able to see these as challenges to overcome rather than as a criticisms or affirmations of your faults.

In order to achieve high self-esteem you must first be willing to accept yourself as you are. Stop judging yourself and especially stop judging the past. The key is to live in the moment.

Take inventory of your strengths. Congratulate yourself on your abilities and the skills you have developed on your journey through life. Accept that you have made mistakes, everyone makes them. Accept that you have learned valuable lessons from things that you believe you have done wrong. Every action you have ever taken has helped to develop the person you are today and the knowledge you gained from each experience will help to create the person you intend to be tomorrow. Each life experience is getting you closer to your goals!

Recall your success and dwell on them for a moment internally. There is no need to be egotistical about this. Just congratulate yourself on a job well done and know that you can replicate these successes again and again! Also think about what you want to gain in life. Set yourself some goals. If it seems like they are too far out of reach then set smaller goals first that will lead you closer to your ultimate desires.

Having doubts about your ability to achieve your goals can be used to your advantage. Write down, in a point by point list, all the reason you believe you cannot achieve your goals. Then take each one and develop a plan to overcome each obstacle. An example would be if you wanted a better paying job and set a goal to change your career yet you think that you do not have the necessary experience or qualifications to achieve this. In this case you would therefore create a plan to attain the necessary qualifications or gain experience through voluntary work or whatever way is open to you (there is always a way if you look closely enough).

Another essential skill you need to develop is the use of positive self-talk. Watch how you speak to yourself internally and how you speak about yourself to others. Both are forms of affirmations which are really commands you are giving to your subconscious mind. You must reprogram your mind for success. Write your goal down, in the present tense, as though you were telling someone else exactly how your life is now. Read the statement every morning and every night. Try self-hypnosis as a form of positive mental brain-washing. Use it to program your subconscious mind for success.

In this way you will increase your belief in yourself, your abilities and your future and your self-esteem will sky-rocket!

http://www.angelfire.com/wizard2/release/hypnosis.html  - Free reviews of the best Self Hypnosis products we tested. Find out what really works!

http://hypnosis.personal-development.info – Hypnosis products tested and then reviewed for free. We find out what works so you don't have to!

used to be frighteningly under confident in social situations. And although people who know me now would never believe I used to doubt myself so much I literally had to learn confidence until it became a natural part of me. I can tell you relaxed optimistic confidence is just, well so much more fun.

Here I'll tell you about the things that made the most difference to my confidence levels...

Some people have naturally high levels of confidence but everybody can learn to be more confident

Firstly, it's important to get a clear idea of what self confidence really means, otherwise you won't know when you've got it! So, self confidence means:

1) Being calm. For every situation in life you need to run on the appropriate level of emotion. Too much emotional 'leakage' into a experience can spoil the experience. You make great strides towards confidence when you begin to relax in a greater range of situations.

2) Being cool. The second part of self confidence is about being able to relax with uncertainty. To be 'cool' in a situation really means relaxing with not knowing how things will pan out. If you truly tolerate uncertainty, you can do pretty much anything.

3) Not being too concerned with what others think of you. You know when you imagine what some place is going to be like before you go there but when you get there it is totally different to your imagination? That's how reliable your imagination is! Stop trusting your imagination so much. I've long since stopped bothering to imagine what others think of me because so often I've turned out to be wrong.

4) Being specific - where do you want confidence? 'Confidence' is meaningless until you tie it to something specific. You are already confident that you can read these words or can switch a light on and off. So you don't need more confidence everywhere. To get what you want in life you have to establish exactly what you do want. Where do you want confidence in your life? Think about the specific situations now and write them down. You beginning to steer your brain towards confidence.

5) Understanding that what you expect is what you get. Your brain is an organ that needs clear goals to work towards. When a task has been set in your brain it will do everything it can do to bring about the completion of that task. If you've tried to recall someone's name but can't, hours later you'll often find their name pops into your head.

The 'trying to recall' experience set the task or blueprint for your brain's future subconscious behaviour which eventually produced the name for you - when you weren't thinking about it consciously. You can use this natural mechanism to start feeling more confident. But, to ensure you set the right task for your subconscious mind, the next point is vital.

6) Don't task your mind with negatives. Instead of: 'I don't want to screw up' (which sets the task of 'screwing up' for your brain), set the blueprint for what you do want! Your brain doesn't work towards what to do by being told what not to do. And nature has given you a wonderful natural tool to set the right task blueprints with.

7) Use nature's goal-setter: Now you understand how vital it is to set the right task for you brain, you need to know how to do this reliably. Good hypnosis will strongly 'program' the right blueprint in your mind through the use of your imagination. If you powerfully imagine feeling confident and relaxed while in a relaxed hypnotic state it will be hard for your unconscious mind to do anything else. The blueprint for relaxation has been set firmly into your subconscious mind.

3 simple strategies to get you feeling confident quickly:

1) Think specifically of the time/place/situation you want to feel confident in. Remember 'confidence' doesn't mean anything until you attach it to something specific.

2) Focus on words in your mind right now that describe how you do want to be in that time and place. Maybe words such as 'calm', 'relaxed' or 'focused'. Remember your brain works on clear positive instructions.

3) Close your eyes for as long as you like and think about how those words feel. Then, imagine the situation itself and rehearse it in your mind feeling confident and relaxed. This way you set the right blueprint or 'task' for your unconscious mind.

You can repeat this often to make it more effective and use it with as many areas of your life as you need to. If you listen to a hypnotic cd or download that can make the benefits even more powerful (see my profile below). So if you feel like you'd be blessed with less confidence than some other people you can start redressing the balance by using your mind in the right way right now.

It took me years to learn how to be more confident - now you can do it in a fraction of the time. Good luck!

Boost your confidence now at HypnosisDownloads.com

Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com.

Improve your self confidence in 15 minutes

I used to be frighteningly under confident in social situations. And although people who know me now would never believe I used to doubt myself so much I literally had to learn confidence until it became a natural part of me. I can tell you relaxed optimistic confidence is just, well so much more fun.

Here I'll tell you about the things that made the most difference to my confidence levels...

Some people have naturally high levels of confidence but everybody can learn to be more confident

Firstly, it's important to get a clear idea of what self confidence really means, otherwise you won't know when you've got it! So, self confidence means:

1) Being calm. For every situation in life you need to run on the appropriate level of emotion. Too much emotional 'leakage' into a experience can spoil the experience. You make great strides towards confidence when you begin to relax in a greater range of situations.

2) Being cool. The second part of self confidence is about being able to relax with uncertainty. To be 'cool' in a situation really means relaxing with not knowing how things will pan out. If you truly tolerate uncertainty, you can do pretty much anything.

3) Not being too concerned with what others think of you. You know when you imagine what some place is going to be like before you go there but when you get there it is totally different to your imagination? That's how reliable your imagination is! Stop trusting your imagination so much. I've long since stopped bothering to imagine what others think of me because so often I've turned out to be wrong.

4) Being specific - where do you want confidence? 'Confidence' is meaningless until you tie it to something specific. You are already confident that you can read these words or can switch a light on and off. So you don't need more confidence everywhere. To get what you want in life you have to establish exactly what you do want. Where do you want confidence in your life? Think about the specific situations now and write them down. You beginning to steer your brain towards confidence.

5) Understanding that what you expect is what you get. Your brain is an organ that needs clear goals to work towards. When a task has been set in your brain it will do everything it can do to bring about the completion of that task. If you've tried to recall someone's name but can't, hours later you'll often find their name pops into your head.

The 'trying to recall' experience set the task or blueprint for your brain's future subconscious behaviour which eventually produced the name for you - when you weren't thinking about it consciously. You can use this natural mechanism to start feeling more confident. But, to ensure you set the right task for your subconscious mind, the next point is vital.

6) Don't task your mind with negatives. Instead of: 'I don't want to screw up' (which sets the task of 'screwing up' for your brain), set the blueprint for what you do want! Your brain doesn't work towards what to do by being told what not to do. And nature has given you a wonderful natural tool to set the right task blueprints with.

7) Use nature's goal-setter: Now you understand how vital it is to set the right task for you brain, you need to know how to do this reliably. Good hypnosis will strongly 'program' the right blueprint in your mind through the use of your imagination. If you powerfully imagine feeling confident and relaxed while in a relaxed hypnotic state it will be hard for your unconscious mind to do anything else. The blueprint for relaxation has been set firmly into your subconscious mind.

3 simple strategies to get you feeling confident quickly:

1) Think specifically of the time/place/situation you want to feel confident in. Remember 'confidence' doesn't mean anything until you attach it to something specific.

2) Focus on words in your mind right now that describe how you do want to be in that time and place. Maybe words such as 'calm', 'relaxed' or 'focused'. Remember your brain works on clear positive instructions.

3) Close your eyes for as long as you like and think about how those words feel. Then, imagine the situation itself and rehearse it in your mind feeling confident and relaxed. This way you set the right blueprint or 'task' for your unconscious mind.

You can repeat this often to make it more effective and use it with as many areas of your life as you need to. If you listen to a hypnotic cd or download that can make the benefits even more powerful (see my profile below). So if you feel like you'd be blessed with less confidence than some other people you can start redressing the balance by using your mind in the right way right now.

It took me years to learn how to be more confident - now you can do it in a fraction of the time. Good luck!

Boost your confidence now at HypnosisDownloads.com

Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com.

By: Max Ng
There is this Chinese Saying that literally translates to "Failure Is The Mother Of Success!". Basically, it means that failure is like a mother who will give birth to success. A more proper way to phrase it will be failure precedes success. Usually, it is use to encourage someone who have just encountered a failure or setback in life. It helps to remind the person that one will definitely need to go through the experience of failures before one can succeed.

Though I heard of this saying numerous times during my upbringing, I never really realized the full meaning of the saying. Actually, there is another way to interpret the saying. If I want to succeed quickly, I need to experience as many failures as possible in the shortest possible time.

Why? Each failure is due to a mistake or a combination of mistakes. If I can learn from my mistakes, I will improve in whatever I am trying doing. When I experience failure faster, it simply means that I have made mistakes quicker. This gives me the opportunity to learn from my mistakes earlier. And I will improve faster. At this fast rate of learning from mistakes, my success will be nearer.

This reminds me of my experience on trying to learn to ride a bicycle while I was a teenager. Of course, I did not manage to balance myself on the very first attempt. In fact, I had lost my balance numerous times and injured myself. But I did not give up because I knew that I was improving with each failed attempt. This is because I was learning from my mistakes.

Somewhere along my life, I have forgotten about this simple principle that in order to success, I need to go through failures and learn from my mistakes. Like everyone else, I have my dreams. But I am afraid to pursue my dreams because I am afraid of failure. This fear of failure causes me to procrastinate on pursuing my dreams. If I had recalled that principle early, I would have taken actions to pursue my dreams sooner. How did I manage to remember this principle again? Well, the Rich Dad series reminded me of such a principle.

Why does understanding that principle help me to overcome the fear of failure? Basically, there is a shift in perception on the value of failure. I used to associate failure with no value or negative value.
If I fail in whatever I am trying to do, people will look down on me. That is how I perceive failure. With the paradigm shift that failure benefit me positively so that I can succeed faster, the fear of failure is reduced.

Other than the paradigm shift, I have adopted additional steps to enhance my chance of success in whatever I am trying to achieve. Firstly, I will focus on my goal instead of my fears. If my goal is to learn ice-skating, I do not focus on the dangers of falling and injuring myself. That is I do not imagine the fears of falling and the pains from the injuries before they have really happened. Instead, I focus on mastering the skill properly so that I do not fall and injure myself.

Secondly, I leverage on my past success experience. If I can successful perform a fire walking, then I definitely can master ice-skating since fire walking is a much difficult task. Well, if you do not have such a special experience like fire walking, what can you leverage on? The answer is the mastery of walking. It is a common success experience that everyone can leverage on except the handicap.

Have you ever wonder how you had mastered walking as a child? Can you recall that? Walking is a difficult skill to master as a child. But we have done it through trials and errors with the encouragement of our parents and loved ones. Since we can learn to walk, we definitely can learn other skills or do other difficult tasks if we put our heart and mind into doing so.

Thirdly, I will leverage on the experience of people who had already mastered it or done it before. The best way is to get a coach to guide and teach me. But if I cannot find a coach, then the next best alternative is learned from books, videos and audio courses.

Lastly, I will come out with an actionable plan with quantified milestones to measure my progress. By constantly checking my progress against my plan, I will be forced to reflect on my actions. What have I done incorrectly that causes the delay in my progress? What can I do to correct the situation?

With all the above steps in place, my fear of failure is greatly reduced. My chance of success is greatly enhanced.

* DISCLAIMER *
The author, publisher and distributors particularly disclaim any liability, loss, or risk taken by individuals who directly or indirectly act on the information contained herein. All readers must accept full responsibility for their use of this material.

Article Source: http://blogticles.com

Information about the Author: Max Ng shares about his struggle for financial freedom at www.richdadsecrets4me.com
Get a free sample of his book "Your Greatest Gift! Why Waste It?" at www.yourgreatestgift.com