How you see yourself goes a long way to how you feel about yourself and how others see you and think of you. If you think positively on the inside then you will glow with confidence on the outside and come across this way to others. Feeling good about yourself is essential if you are to be happy in life and make the most out of life, it can make the difference of you being successful or failing, it is all about how you see your self-image.
People suffer from low self-esteem for many reasons and if they have been brought up feeling negatively about themselves then developing a positive self-image will be difficult, but not impossible. Developing a positive outlook is about changing your thoughts and feelings about yourself and if you have been thinking negative thoughts for a long time changing the habit will take time. However by adapting a new way of thinking and sticking to this new way of thinking you will eventually banish unwanted negative feelings and will automatically replace them with positive ones in your day to day life. When this happens your outlook changes and with your outlook, you change, where once you might have thought something would be beyond your capabilities you will now look at it in a different light and begin to realize it is within your grasp.
There are many ways which you can use to develop a more positive self-image and esteem, there are self-help books dedicated to the subject, audio sessions which you listen and follow, DVDS, hypnotherapy audio or attending counseling sessions. They all however rely basically on the same principle, understanding what confidence really is, gaining confidence in yourself, ridding yourself of negative beliefs and replacing them with positive ones and learning strategies which allow you to remain confident in any situation.
The basics behind developing a more positive outlook and self-image are
We all talk to ourselves at one time or another, and we may find ourselves continually putting ourselves down and are very slow to praise ourselves. This must be changed. We want to change unhelpful self-talk and replace it with positive and encouraging self-talk, the easiest way to do this is by
While we all understand the importance of eating healthy, exercising and dieting, very few realize that changing our self-image is just as important to leading a healthy lifestyle. How you think and feel about yourself goes a long way to bringing happiness and success into your life and in order to change your self-image - just as you give your body a workout - you need to give your mind a work-out too.
The first step you need to take is to determine what exactly it is you would like to be and what you are already good at or enjoy doing. You might say you are good at sports, poetry and spending time with friends. The one thing you don’t want to do is create a list of things that you don’t like about yourself. This would only make you feel inadequate and hinder your ability to change yourself and your self-image. By focusing on the good in yourself, you will be able to quickly change your self-image into something that you are proud of.
Visualization and affirmations can help you to realize just how great you already are. See yourself doing and becoming everything that you originally wrote down. Repeat positive affirmations throughout the day to help the new way of thinking sink in and develop your new positive outlook. By vividly imagining this new you, your mind will retrain until you understand that all the things you visualize are true.
During this process you will benefit from keeping a journal about your transformation, you will be able to look back on it and this will help to strengthen your self-image and reinforce the new you. It is important that you let your past go and think only about the future and the new you, you will develop your new self-image more rapidly by focusing on what you are achieving and have yet to achieve.
You can help yourself mold a positive self-image if you set attainable goals for yourself and then strive to reach them. Giving yourself something to work towards creates success in your life – a vital part of reshaping your self-image. Set goals for yourself in any area you wish, work, personal, health, fitness and then go for it. Set yourself a realistic time in which to accomplish each goal and give yourself praise when you get there.
How you choose to change your self-image is entirely up to you, there are no limitations to what you are able to achieve if you set your mind to it and are determined to work towards reaching the desired goal. If you stray from the path leading you there, then don’t be put off and discouraged, get back on track and carry on with determination.
You are committing yourself to working hard to achieve what you want. Plan on what you will do when you finally reach your ultimate goal, you should aim to give yourself a special treat, you deserve it. Make sure that it is something which you can set your mind on during the tough times, keeping it in mind will give you an incentive that it will completely worthwhile.
You should never underestimate the power of keeping a written journal, there are many ways in which a journal can help you to better succeed in life. You can use it to help yourself associate your feelings with your thoughts and your thoughts with your feelings and this is what is most important in order to succeed in life. Your journal can help you to find out what motivates you in life, develop new skills, learn new strategies for dealing with life in general, write down ideas and plan them through and find out more about the person you are by asking questions of yourself and writing down answers to those questions. A journal is an essential tool when it comes to learning about ourselves and if we want to be a success in life, and knowing about ourselves is a must. While we may think, we know ourselves very few of us actually do. By keeping a journal, we begin to realize all the little things we do not truly know or understand about ourselves.
Your own intuition is your greatest asset and if more people developed an ear to listening to what we are actually saying inside then more of us would know the way to go and how to successfully achieve what it is we want out of life, simply by following our own inner guidance. Your own personal journal can be a great way of developing your intuition and listening to yourself and what lies within you, record all the little things that you might let pass you by, such as flashes of inspiration, premonitions or hunches about something, basically anything that your intuition is telling you.
Keeping a journal is essential because inspiration can strike at anytime, some of the greatest inventors and thinkers kept journals including one of the most prolific inventors in history, Thomas Edison. One of the most helpful things a journal does is give us the ability to look back on records and refer to them, for example if you encountered a problem and overcame it in the past and a similar problem crops up then you can reflect back and apply the same solution or adapt it for a more positive outcome. Your journal can remind you of past achievements and this goes a long way to building self-confidence and helping you succeed in life when things get tough and can help comfort you.
A technique which is very popular and one which keeping a journal can help you accomplish is the “best-better” technique, this technique can be applied to any situation that crops up in life and simply relies on you looking back on the situation and finding what you liked about it or what you experienced from it and then deciding how you could do better next time or how you could have better experienced from it. The key to recovering from past mistakes and succeeding in the future is to learn from your mistakes but remember to focus on your strong points rather than your weak ones. If you concentrate more on your weak points rather than your strong ones then very often this leads to you unconsciously reinforcing them which then lead to low self-esteem and of course having a low self-esteem isn’t positive. It is only by building on your strengths can you increase your self-esteem and your self-esteem is the crucial factor to understanding your weaknesses and correcting them and therefore building a positive outlook on life which greatly increases your chances of success. So by noting down your experiences in your journal you are able to look back on them and gain a clearer understanding of yourself and how you feel which ultimately determines how you think and how you think determines how successful you are in life.
Healthcare providers know that there are many reasons why people suffer from low self esteem from chemical imbalance to lack of faith, opportunities, discipline and more. Many agree, though, that the number one cause of low self esteem is due to lack of positive feedback and love given to children during their early years.
What happens all too often is that children are born before their parents have matured enough to focus more clearly on their own adulthood, family and family values, in the race to succeed with a mate while both are working long hours, still trying to learn good work and life ethics and morals while being out from under parental influence, plus learning about family life together and extended family members during those early years. It’s a lot all at once.
And often before the maturing adults realize they may be following in their own parent’s footsteps, they repeat similar mistakes done to them in their own childhoods. For example, many parents simply do not let their children try and try again and make their own mistakes. And many parents do not offer sincere praise and compliments to their children, instead taking them and their efforts for granted in all too often a difficult, tough world today full of challenges.
Another important factor is that children most often truly believe in their hearts that all adults are right, and set their own values and feedback systems by them. However, unfortunately too many of these adults raising young children are still battling illegal substance abuse, gambling, alcohol abuse and other very important issues. The results are that these adults are simply not doing what’s best for either themselves or their families, especially with their young children trying to follow along in their footsteps. What a drug or alcohol abuser does not see, for instance, is the harmful physical, emotional and often other abuse passed along to the children as the adults get and stay too caught up in their own self-focus.
In short, children and adults of all ages do need positive feedback and people to demonstrate in a sincere manner their care and concern. Start up young and encourage your mate and children to make good, healthy, positive choices. And when they fail at something, offer them hope and encouragement to try and try again.
Also encourage education, regardless of the level you have. Too many adults often ‘say’ they want their children to success, yet negate comments all through childhood in areas of advancing education. So do offer plenty of reading materials around the home, show by example and read yourself, encourage workshops, online classes, ebooks and more. Try to point out and help guide children and mates in their areas of their strengths like subjects in school (chess, math, music…), hobbies (crafts, musical instruments, singing…) and service to others (volunteer work, part time job).
Reach out and show positive feedback. And reach out with human love, care and respect. You’ll gain in return, increasing your own self esteem and love.
It is important that you do not under estimate your worth, as you are what you think you are, self-esteem is all about thoughts and what you think of yourself. If you think confidence then you will appear confident, and then this will show on the outside, when people realize their worth, they are able to face life with greater confidence and optimism about the future. They are more likely to be able to reach their goals and gain experience, satisfaction and happiness from life, are better able to form lasting relationships that work and are better able to cope with whatever life throws at them. A person who realizes their self-worth is a happy well adjusted person who posses the ability to cope with anything and anyone throughout their life and is capable of doing anything they set their mind on doing.
Many problems can occur in your life simply by under estimating your own self-worth, a lack of self-worth affects your sense of well being, causes problems with your feelings and needs, affects your ability to make good healthy choices in relationships, work and life in general and cause fears such as abandonment and problems such as people continually striving for perfection but never seeming to reach it. A lack of self worth has been attributed to being indecisive, addictions such as smoking, drinking, drug abuse, compulsive shopping disorder and problems with eating such as bulimia and anorexia.
Each one of us is capable of realizing our self-worth, we do not have to do anything special in order to gain or deserve self-esteem. The key to realizing your self-worth is getting that little voice inside your head to stop putting you down all the time, it is our own thoughts and feelings that drive us to develop a low self-esteem. This little voice has developed over a long period of time, casting self-doubt onto ourselves until we genuinely believe that we aren’t worthy or capable, it is our own minds that develop our feelings of low self-esteem, not some outside force. There are several ways in which you can begin to change your pattern of thought and boost your self-esteem that in turn begins the process of realizing your true self-worth, the basics behind making this correction are:
There are many ways in which you can begin to set the pattern of changed thoughts but perhaps the easiest one is using affirmations, which are simple positive statements and using these to replace any negative thoughts, examples of positive affirmations could be:
All of these are simple affirmations that you can use to gradually change the way you think, which in time will change the way you feel about yourself and encourage you to realize your true self-worth.
While many of us are happy in life and do accomplish to some extent what we set out to do, there aren’t many that actually push themselves that little bit further and go on to develop their full potential. While we might be particularly good at doing certain things in life we could excel if only we had the courage and belief in ourselves to go for it.
As children we are full of excellent ideas, they never stop flowing because we have an open mind and belief in ourselves that we can accomplish just about anything. However, as we grow up fear of if we are doing the right thing and of speaking out and being ridiculed takes over and we stem the flow of our imagination and ideas. We hold back our thoughts and this can stop us from developing our full potential.
There are many ways you can start developing your potential, it’s never too late. You should remember that there is no right and wrong way of thinking and many times the reason why others try to make you feel inferior when you voice opinions and ideas is because they wish they had had the idea and courage to speak up. So focus on your skills and abilities and let your thoughts run free, put them to use and truly excel in life.
In order to be successful you should realize that you will sometimes make mistakes, no one is perfect and mistakes are ok providing you acknowledge them and learn from them. Characteristics that you can nurture and that will lead to developing your true and full potential include:
When developing your full potential the two most important things to remember are, what you want out of life and what you can realistically do to make that possible. Once you have these facts clear then you can go full steam ahead towards achieving what you want.
Running is a great self-esteem booster, especially if you are a beginning runner. Running will allow you to test and expand your limits like never before. With each milestone you reach you will find yourself more confident and able to take on the world.
Even if you can’t run to the mailbox without huffing and puffing, you can run to boost self-esteem. The first time you run to the mailbox, down the street, around the block or whatever distance it is, you will feel a great sense of pride and accomplishment. The first time you go out, you will probably do a lot more walking than you will running. However, if you keep at it, you will soon find yourself running more and more until one day your run the entire route without stopping.
The important thing to remember is to start out slow and not overdo it in the beginning. Your body does need to adjust to your new activity levels, especially if you previously lead a sedentary lifestyle. Overdoing it and causing overuse injuries can be a big discouragement, especially after seeing the progress that you made. Most people won’t want to increase their weekly mileage by more than 10%. However, do what works best for you, some people can handle a larger mileage increase and others need to increase the mileage much more slowly.
Despite how your muscles may feel, 90% of running is purely the mental capacity to be able to do it. Building up this side of your brain by telling yourself you can do it, you can finish the race, you can run for 30 minutes non-stop, or whatever your goal is will invariably be a surefire way to build up your self-esteem. What happens is that while running, in order to finish, you will have to come up with some good things to say to yourself, often referred to as positive self talk. This self talk not only gets you through your current run, but will start seeping into the rest of your life and you’ll find yourself using it at work, while doing dishes and burdensome tasks will no longer feel so bad.
With running, you can set goals large and small. For the beginning runner, a good goal might be to complete a local 5k. You with undoubtedly enjoy the sense of accomplishment – not to mention the bragging rights at the office.
Remember to set realistic goals for running and you’ll build up your self-esteem – and miles – much faster.
Have you ever realized that you, like anyone else, have a gold mine of strengths deep down within yourself? Most of us are unaware of the fact that we possess such hidden talents. The rest of us, even if we know that they are there within us, do not know how to bring the strengths out into the open and put them to use in improving the quality of our life or in leading a more fulfilling life. Let us explore ways and means of unearthing our hidden strengths to enrich our lives.
To begin with, you must believe that you have some inherent strengths. Banish all negativity in thought and action. Never say to yourself, “I can’t. I don’t have it within me.” Instead, think that you have the strength within you to encounter any situation, no matter what that is, and that you can, and you surely will, succeed in dealing with it in an appropriate manner. Remember, self-belief is confidence and gaining confidence is half the battle.
The next step is to start exploring your self. Closely examine your background, the genetic as well as the acquired. Not that you have not done this before. You might very well have. Now you need to do it more systematically. Write down what you inherited from your parents or grandparents. If you don’t think you’ve inherited any, think about what they have taught you. Is it possible that somewhere deep within you, you have those very strengths, but you have not realized that you could use them? List all the strengths and talents of your parents or grandparents. See if some or all of them you can put to use. For instance, does music run in the family? Did you ever notice that your mother had tons of patience? You too may have it within you, without being aware of it. Have you ever noticed that you have, by nature, a way with words that others you know do not have? Have you not put this skill to good use? Maybe you are endowed with a strong physique, but you are not aware of the ways in which your physical strength can be utilized profitably. Explore, experiment and, finally, exploit. That should be your strategy in drawing out your strengths into the open.
Your acquired background appears to you to be easier to analyze. But actually it needs a more detailed examination. Again, draw up a detailed list of the strengths your education and training have given you. What is the skill set you have acquired? Are you utilizing your skills and your talents to their fullest extent? Have you pursued your interests, converted some of them into hobbies, and thought of the possibility of turning at least one of the latter into a second profession? Enlist your inner strengths like composure, compassion, conflict-resolution, self-control, perseverance or determination etc. for achieving success in your life.
This is not once in a lifetime exercise. As your life keeps progressing, periodical reviews of your strengths help you pinpoint unknown strengths that may help lead you down the right path. Who knows, you may strike gold!
Chances are that many of those who first come across NLP wonder what it is all about, even if it appears in the context of influencing human behavior through the adoption and practice of certain established techniques and procedures. Actually, NLP stands for Neuro-linguistic Programming, where ‘neuro’ is something related to both mind and body, ‘linguistic’ is about language patterns or structures and ‘programming’ is devising ways and means of coordinating mind, body and language for shaping behavior so as to achieve better results than before in various walks of life. In a sense, NLP can help you in many ways, if only you get to know its techniques and how to use them for your benefit.
You can turn to NLP when you are interested in developing your personality traits and characteristics, which determine your verbal and non-verbal reactions to the happenings in this world. As a first step, let us understand that your perception of reality is based on your subjectivity. Just as a map is merely a miniature representation of a territory, what you perceive as real is only a colored representation of reality, not the reality itself. You can’t help but look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Your reactions are dictated not by the reality but by your view of that reality. NLP helps you in realizing this and reducing, if not completely removing, your subjectivity. You will then perhaps consider adopting alternative viewpoints of reality and, consequently, bringing about a shift in the way you react to it.
Why do people react differently to a particular event or situation? Is it not because of the differences in their individual perceptions of that event or situation? What a traumatic event is to one may not be the same to another. For instance, some people may take verbal or physical abuse lightly or simply ignore it. Others may be so affected by it that they need psychological or medical treatment. The underlying philosophy of NLP is based on the premise that it is possible to change one’s perceptions, beliefs and behavior so that traumatic experiences become possible to treat. It is also possible that you might even become immune to trauma.
You can similarly get rid of your phobias, if any, by going into the factors that cause your fear in the first place, with the help of NLP techniques. You can perhaps look at things in the way that your adversaries do. You can perhaps consider the same things from a totally new perspective. Or, you can perhaps study people who have achieved excellence in any particular aspect of their life, find out what qualities and factors contributed to their success and then try and import the same or similar factors and qualities into your life in an effort to achieve excellence in your chosen field. You can lower your levels of unhappiness or raise the levels of happiness by transforming your belief portfolio, your pre-conceived notions, your language patterns that display your innermost feelings, your unconscious mind that exposes your conscious reactions to the external world, and so on. In short, as the NLP practitioners claim, NLP transforms you into a new you, a happier you and a more effective you capable of dealing with this world in a much better way than before.
If we are surrounded by clutter and disorganization in our lives it makes an excellent breeding ground for negativity, negativity is what brings about feelings of low self-worth and low self-esteem which hinders us in life and is the basis for us being unsuccessful in what we choose to do. It is essential therefore if we want to succeed and make the most out of life that we de-clutter from time to time and remove any excess obstacles and belongings from our path, keeping our lives open and free flowing. Here are some simple points to remember to keep your home and life clutter free.
This applies to anything which you bring into your home be it clothing, utensils, furniture or any other item, if you continually buy and bring new items into your home then very quickly you are going to be over run with items which usually end up being packed in cartons and put in the basement. Even if you pack items and put them in the basement it is still clutter, clutter that you could do without so get into the habit of throwing things away or giving them to charity when you buy new.
In order to keep your home clutter free it is essential that you don’t keep anything which is not essential, items belonging in this category include junk mail which appears through your letterbox, flyers, old newspapers, magazines, letters or trash from your car. Letters that you don’t need can be shredded immediately, the same for junk mail, while any trash from your car should be collected daily and disposed of immediately. It is surprising if you get into the habit how much junk you can eliminate building up in your home on a daily basis just by taking care with items such as this.
Never hang onto items simply because you were given them as presents, while this may sound harsh it leads to unnecessary clutter, if you don’t like something then don’t keep it, give it away to someone who likes it or sell it but don’t hang onto it.
When looking around your home have a goal in mind when de-cluttering, for example treat each room separately and say to yourself “I aim to de-clutter this room by 25%”. If you start out with a clear goal in mind you will feel more in control, organized and feel you are accomplishing something. You should divide the clutter into three piles, those items you can sell, the ones which are trash and those that you wish to give to charity, starting out with a clear plan and goal in mind makes de-cluttering your life so much easier.
Be harsh with yourself and don’t feel guilty about throwing something away or giving it away, once you start de-cluttering don’t give it a second thought and remove something from a pile and change your mind about getting rid out of sentiment. If we stop and think about every item in this way it sows the seeds of doubt and negativity that leads to disorganization and a home full of items we don’t need.
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