Blog for Self Improvement

Building Self Esteem can be a challenge. In my experience of conducting stress management programs and counseling for over 20 years, I found that roughly 99% of those I've worked with felt that they needed to improve self esteem. How could this be?

It's because most of us have been taught to base our self-worth on our accomplishments, skills, physique, financial worth and earnings, ability to help others… Little wonder then when we:

• lose skills because of injury;

• lose a close family member on whom we're very dependent;

• lose our financial nest egg because the stock market collapses;

• do poorly in a course of study;

• have a bad hair day; or

• don't live up to our own expectations...

we don't feel good about ourselves and our self esteem and self confidence are challenged. Ultimately, this may:
• jeopardize our health;

• jeopardize our emotional well being;

• set us up for failure mechanisms;

• have us constantly trying to impress others;

• lead to an identity crisis;

• contribute to suicide;

• cause chronic depression…

Why is it when there are so many programs available for building self esteem and building confidence that is there a tremendous shortage of those who have self esteem?

The answer is that if you analyze most programs, trainings, and techniques for building self esteem, you'll see that they actually create the path to easily put your self esteem self confidence in jeopardy with the first calamity that comes along in your life.

Five things you might want to know about building self esteem.

1. Many programs focus on having you to:

• Acquire skills.

• Accomplish achievements.

• Change you physical appearance.

• Develop a talent.

• Obtain additional education…

Building self esteem on something you can acquire can set you up for a big let down, life crisis, anxiety panic attack, and loss of self esteem because these things are not the essence of you but superficial. While you certainly will accomplish many things, when you build self worth the right way, you will never be at risk of losing your self esteem. While talents, skills, accomplishments and so on may come and go, you want your self esteem to be impenetrable.

2. Many programs emphasize affirmations. While affirmations are important, they can also be rejected or ineffective. One method of determining acceptance of a specific affirmation is through the use of a pendulum. It's simply to ask your subconscious mind if the affirmation is accepted or rejected while holding the pendulum over a chart with directions for "Yes" and "No." Sometimes it's simply a matter of rephrasing the affirmation.

3. Evaluate goal setting. Yes, many programs use the approach of setting and achieving goals to build self worth. While it's ok to have and achieve goals, goals in themselves can be a catch 22 in building self worth. Should you fall short of a particular goal, your self esteem is in jeopardy. While you may have and achieve many goals, your self esteem should not be dependent on them for life is more often about dealing with the plans that fall through than it is about making plans.

4. Many programs only educate the thinking conscious mind. This approach could take forever. The limbic (emotional brain) lags behind the reticular (thinking cognitive brain). When you choose a program, make sure that the program nurtures the emotional brain otherwise, the thinking brain gets smarter and you get simply frustrated because you just can't seem to put the material into action. The Program you use should have techniques to bring the emotional brain up to date to agree with the new information the thinking brain is receiving.

5. Few programs utilize the power of hypnosis and subliminal suggestions and those that do, may not tell you what the actual suggestions are and what's worse the suggestions may be counter productive. For instance, many use a suggestion such as, "I am not going to feel badly anymore." Because of how the brain processes words, this suggestion focuses on feeling badly and is therefore counter productive. Or they may use a complex suggestion which is useless because the subconscious doesn't process complex suggestions. Choose a program that utilizes hypnosis and make sure the program informs you of the specific subliminal suggestions.

For improving self esteem or building self esteem, it's important to observe (not criticize) the sources of your role models' self esteem. It's important to also observe (not criticize) where your self esteem has come from in the past, i.e. what makes you feel good about you and what you need to feel good about yourself. Thus you'll understand the psychology of self worth and the causes of low self esteem.

The next step in restoring self esteem and beating low self esteem is to meet your own best friend--you. It typical that we often think we are our own worst enemy. The fact is that you can be your own best friend.

Now, how do you handle emotions? I mean feelings of anger, uncertainty, confusion, frustration...? Self criticism in the past may have eroded your self esteem self confidence. You want to use negative emotional experiences to empower you in building self esteem through your experience of any emotion that life can throw your way.

Acknowledge your disappointments and your emotional reactions. Move through the emotional charge and use directional preference statements. Tell yourself that you want to:

• learn from the mistake.

• see the situation in from a different perspective.

• forget about it.

And that even though you may be unhappy, you still like yourself.

This is your formula for improving self esteem on a daily basis.

Source: http://www.articlecube.com

Richard Kuhns B.S.Ch.E., NGH certified provides the most effective method in building self worth. He is a is a prominent figure in the field of stress  management and personal change. He is the author behind the best selling self hypnosis cds and developed a new approach overcoming agoraphobia.

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!

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By: Sacha Tarkovsky

Motivation can help you achieve anything you desire but how do you motivate yourself to achieve your goals?

It’s not simply a question of saying I am motivated, if this was the case everyone would achieve there goals and fact is most do not.

To achieve positive motivation and more importantly keep motivated you need to channel two character traits.

Desire

The first road to achieving goals is to have the desire to achieve them. Many people however are frightened of desire. Why?

Quite simply they feel that they may not achieve and will end up disappointed. In this case desire can be termed dreaming.

To have desire you need to not only want something but feel you are able to achieve it.

You need desire then burns within you and you can then channel it into action.

Realism = Belief

To have desire and then motivate yourself to a goal requires realistic aims to give you the belief that you will achieve and believe is a massive motivational tool.

Many people simply set un-realistic goals that are impossible to achieve and get de motivated quickly as they don’t really deep down believe they can achieve it.

The goal is simply to daunting and they cannot maintain motivation to reach it and quickly give up.

The key here is to make goals realistic and set several smaller goals that lead to your ultimate goal.

Break your ultimate goal into sub goals

For example, you want to run a marathon but you have never run one before so you cant achieve it straightway so you set small sub goals of varying distances in time frames.

When you reach a sub goal tick it off, reward yourself and move onto the next goal.

This will keep you motivated, you will see know you will be working toward your ultimate goal in steps and keep in mind the longest journey always starts with “one step”

You cant achieve everything you want

No one can. You need to be realistic about what you can achieve and make sure that it is something you know you can achieve.

If you make your goals realistic and achievable, you can achieve a better life for you and your loved ones.

Staying motivated

When you have set your goals, Write them down and focus on how your life will improve and make sure that you visualise the end result, before you work toward your goal so that you can see and the benefits that will be a consequence of your action.

Keep in mind

Motivation can sometimes be hard to achieve but if a goal is realistic you can do it.

Also keep in mind that if you fail to set realistic targets and goals you will never be able to channel your desire into action.

In fact, your desire will really just remain wishful thinking and dreaming.

There is nothing to stop anyone motivating themselves to achieve goals that

will make their lives better and you can do it to if you adopt the right mindset.
Article Source: http://www.articlecube.com

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