Articles about Building
Self-Confidence,
Quieting the Inner Critic
and Increasing Self-Esteem
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When Nothing Seems to be Going Right
It’s more then just a bad hair day. Truth is, you don’t even care how your hair
looks because everything that can go wrong is going wrong. It’s not like you created
the problems yourself and are having to fix your own mess. That is easy enough to
deal with. No, this is about those days when nobody takes you seriously, every light
turns red when you are on a tight schedule as it is, and your spouse is in one of
their darker moods. You drop your lunch in your lap and there is no way you can
sneak back home to freshen up, the tax man just chose you for his next audit, and
your sister calls to say she has a lump in her breast and is terrified to go in for
a check up. Your boss tells you that you are doing an awesome job and deserve the
pay raise you have asked for, but the company can’t afford to give it to you…. and
you love your job too much to quit. You cannot seem to get through the red tape
of a bureaucracy that holds some sort of power over your ability to succeed at your
dreams. The computer system goes down at work and you cannot finalize a very lucrative
time sensitive deal that you were trying to close. No matter what you do, everything
around you just seems to be going wrong and you are continually finding doors slammed
in your face, brick walls in your path, and glass ceilings above you. How do you
cope? How do you get out of the crazy maze that has you feeling trapped, alone,
and helpless?
The Next 50 Years
Ten days after my daughter turns 18, my mother will turn 60. And two days after
that, I will be 43. Neither my mother, nor my daughter ever thinks about things
like personal growth and self-awareness. My mother is from a generation and family
culture that has a "Love me or leave me alone" attitude. My daughter has been raised
with a healthy level of self-esteem and does not feel a need to worry about whether
or not she will "grow" to become someone different, better, or a new and improved
version of herself. My life has not been so simple.
How Can I Embrace - and Risk - Change?
You can spend years analyzing your old belief systems, categorizing which ones do
and do not work for you, looking at how they came to be, and even assigning blame
to various people, institutions, and circumstances that programmed you to think that
way in the first place. In the end, what matters is not HOW you got these limiting
beliefs or even WHAT they are, but WHY are you still holding on to them?
What If I Fall Flat On My Face?
I hope you do. Sounds awful, I know. But I really think the best thing that can
happen to you is for you to take a timid little leap and fall flat on your face.
Then, I want to see you get back up, evaluate what you did wrong, and jump again.
Keep on taking that leap of faith and learning from each and every mistake until
you become used to jumping and used to falling. Then, you will get over the fear
of falling and you will finally begin to concentrate on flying. I want to see you
run with everything you have and dive into your dreams with so much passion and fire
that you forget all about the possibility of failing. You will never find your wings
until you do.
Five Ways to Expand Your Comfort Zone
Expanding your comfort zone is not quite the same as building self-confidence. However,
the two do fit together rather nicely. The one begets the other. So many people
feel stuck in a rut… bored from a routine that is safe and comfortable but not very
exciting. Fear of falling flat on your face or of looking foolish stops you from
reaching out beyond that cozy little life you have created for yourself. If your
goal is to expand your comfort zone, then you must think positive while doing so.
Remember that nothing really bad can happen to you if you are smart in how you go
about trying new things. It is all just new adventures. Become like a curious child
and have some fun.
The Beingness within a Restless Soul
What does it mean to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? It means that
your spirit is bigger than your body. It means that no matter how perfect your life
is in this moment, that soon a small voice will begin to haunt you asking, "Is this
it? Is there nothing more?" It is not that you feel entitled or that you are selfish
and gluttonous. It is the fact that your body is incapable of maintaining a state
of contentment no matter how much your mind might think that you are being illogical.
Your body is stir-crazy. Your body seems to have a mind of its own that causes
even the most logical and conservative of brains to have to fight like crazy to regain
any sense of quiet and tranquility. It means that you are forever searching and
hungering for some unobtainable indescribable something that haunts your soul.
Conversational Negative Self-Talk
Most people do not even know they are doing it. Throughout the course of normal
conversation, they bombard themselves with negative self-talk. Even people who are
aware of the power of their words seem to miss some of the most commonly used derogatory
comments that are made towards ourselves in the course of normal conversation. While
plotting out goals and dreams we remember to stop ourselves from saying statements
like “I can’t,” “I’m not good enough,” or “I’ll never be able to pull this off.”
However, it is the subtle little things that we say while on conversational autopilot
that eat away at our self-confidence.
Who Is The Inner Critic?
The inner critic is that voice inside your head that tells you that you are not good
enough, smart enough, talented enough, pretty enough, or strong enough. It nags
and natters at you to the point that your self-confidence and sense of bravery is
destroyed. You are convinced that the voice is correct and that you really don’t
have what it takes to live out your wildest dreams. As time goes on, you quit setting
meaningful goals. You become resigned to a life of mediocrity and dullness.
Getting Back Up On That Horse Again
Sometimes, for whatever reason, we give up and quit. Sometimes, we run out of resources
or start up capital. Sometimes, our children, parents, friends, and loved ones need
us during their time of crisis and we gladly put our dreams aside to rush to their
aid. Sometimes, we are simply burned out and no longer feel motivated to take action
despite still seeing the validity of the objective. Sometimes, we do not have the
skills, education, or credentials that we need. Sometimes, we simply cannot do it
alone and help is nowhere in sight. Sometimes, political powers make it very difficult
for us to accomplish our goals because our aspirations conflict with their ideology.
Sometimes, our competitors succeed at sabotaging our efforts. And sometimes, we
feel like we do not have the strength to pick ourselves up one more time to keep
moving forward, so we decide to just stay down for awhile while we catch our breath
and regroup. We suspect that someday, somehow we will get back up on that horse
again, despite feeling that right now in this moment, we just cannot go on anymore.
9 Ways to Motivate Yourself When You Just Don’t Feel Like It
Achieving big goals and dreams always involves breaking them down into little do-able
steps to be taken one at a time. Assuming that you have picked a goal or dream that
you really love working at, then most of the steps are a delight to take. No matter
how much you love your dream and no matter how much you love your work, there are
going to be tasks along the way that you really do not want to do. Avoiding those
pieces of work that we hate doing is often the very thing that sabotages our success.
How do you stay motivated during those parts of the journey?
Women and Aging
When I was ten years old, America celebrated it’s 200th Birthday. I told myself
that I wanted to live to be at least 111 years old so that I could see the tri-centennial
celebration. As more and more people live to be over 100, the idea isn’t as far
fetched as it was back in the 70’s when I first announced it to my folks. Lately,
I keep coming across beautiful dynamic women in their early to mid-fifties that are
going through some sort of an age related depression. It’s understood that if you
don’t look and feel old by the time you’re fifty, you soon will. Most of us don’t
age as beautifully as Sophia Loren and some of the other starlets. If I am to reach
the age of 111, then half of my life will be as an old woman. I better make peace
with that now.
Age Envy
Like many teenagers, my children think it would be cool to be on television and in
the movies. Therefore, they both like to try out for roles as extras in commercials
and various films when the opportunity shows itself. When we still lived in Oregon,
my son tried out for a background role in a commercial promoting the Portland Trailblazers.
As I sat in the waiting room waiting for him to finish his interview, I was amazed
to see an elderly woman come bouncing into the office wearing the most outrageous
costume. She was easily 70 years old. However, she had the energy of a 20 year
old. She wore a flamboyant red hat and a crazy purple outfit. She had attached
purple feather boas around the base of her blouse and around the cuffs of her pants
and sleeves. She was like some kind of cartoon character right out of Tune Town.
Dealing with Criticism and Rejection
Whether it is the other kids making fun of you at school, you just received a really
harsh performance evaluation from your boss, you got turned down by the girl you
asked out, or you did not get the job you interviewed for, rejection and criticism
hurts. I will not tell you not to take it personally, because it is personal. You
are the one who was criticized. You are the one who was rejected. No matter how
much self-confidence you have a part of you cringes every time someone rejects you
or criticizes you. You are the one who has to get rid of that awful feeling in the
pit of your stomach. What do you do to make yourself feel better?
Making New Friends
How do we make friends? More importantly if dropped into a new city or a new job
or a new school, how do we go about making a new friends? Most of us don’t really
think about it, but just sort of allow people to float in and out of our lives without
really paying any attention to how we pull new people into our lives.
Marketing Yourself
Every good salesman knows that you must believe in your product or else be able to
do a good job of acting like you do. It is no different whether you are marketing
products, policies, revolutions, or people. Marketing is marketing. Overall, image
and believability is king. So how does that play out when you are trying to market
yourself?
Breaking the Dysfunctional Family Patterns
It is one of the most difficult things you will ever do and it is one of the most
rewarding things. At some point, you will decide that what you are experiencing
is not what you want for your children. You will want to raise them differently
from how you were raised but you probably will not have a clue how to make that happen.
What has to happen is rather simple, but takes such amazing commitment, that you
will think you must be doing it wrong.
Top Seven Reasons NOT to Put Your Self-Esteem in Someone Else’s Hands
We’ve all heard wonderful heartwarming stories of the underdog winning the day because
someone else believed in them so much that they were able to overcome their own self-doubt
in order to go the extra mile and succeed at some goal or dream they had been putting
off. Those stories are beautiful and inspirational, however in reality they are
also few and far between. I would never advocate turning a cheerleader’s love and
support away, but I do think you are foolish if you sit around waiting for someone
else to encourage, uplift, and inspire you towards your greatest moments. The reasons
why are as follows:
Taking Personal Stock
What is the difference between self-criticism and self-awareness? There is so much
talk in the world about loving ourselves just the way we are. The idea is that we
are each perfect and beautiful. It goes even further to say that in reference to
our personal journeys, we are exactly where we are meant to be and there is no need
to berate ourselves for not being more spiritual, more educated, more affluent, more
of anything. My concern is that so many people take that to mean they can then sit
and do nothing about fixing any of their self-limiting ways. People act as though
acknowledging a flaw or even using the very word ‘flaw’ is the same as self-hatred
and is too critical. Yes, those who have been on the path of self-enlightenment
for a long time have discovered the difference, but I am not so sure that the everyday
Joe on the street understands the message completely.
How Do You Build Self-Confidence?
Years ago while running an at-home daycare, I came to realize that we are all born
with an innate sense of self-confidence. Every single child under the age of five
that I have ever observed has had a strong self-confidence in at least one area of
their life. Most kids had confidence in all areas of their lives. It seems to me
that they systematically lose that confidence and it is replaced by an inner critic.
Quite often, it is the child’s home life, but sometimes it is the schools, neighborhood
kids, extended family, or some other person who unknowingly destroys the child’s
belief in themselves. Children have to be told they are not good enough, strong
enough, smart enough, or talented enough to accomplish whatever it is they are trying
to do. Unfortunately, most of us are told exactly that. So, how do we rebuild that
sense of self-confidence?
10 Ideas to Jump Start Your Self-Confidence
To begin feeling that first spark of self-confidence within you, try as many of these
as you like. It’s important to enjoy yourself along the way. Have fun!
Feeling Forgettable
My teenage daughter reminded me of something the other night. We were talking about
things that were going on at school. She is in a drama class and is one of the teacher’s
favorite students. However, when assigning roles for an upcoming show the students
are putting on, the teacher completely forgot to put my daughter on the list. This
was not one of those big school plays that students try out for and hope to get a
role. This was a mandatory class project and was the equivalent of their mid-term
or final exam. The teacher assigned each child to a group and the groups were assigned
one-act plays to direct, rehearse, and then perform in front of the parents. My
daughter was shocked that as one of the favorites in the class, that the teacher
had completely forgotten to put her on the roster. She was frustrated because she
ended up with a boring group doing a boring role while the rest of the teacher’s
favorites had all been hand-picked for starring roles. She was not at all angry,
just frustrated that the teacher would have forgotten her and therefore she ended
up in a lesser role.
The First Step
Today is an anniversary of sorts for me. Three years ago today, I publicly launched
Tomorrow’s Edge after years of getting ready, talking about how I was someday going
to do it, and researching everything but advertising! It was a huge first step in
the middle of a bunch of first steps that I had taken up to that point. Naturally,
it fell flat on its face because of my lack of education in the marketing area. So,
here I am three years later, better educated, dusted off, boot straps pulled up,
repeating that first step. I take a deep breath, psyche myself up, wiggle my toes
a bit, bend my knee, lift my foot, and sit back down with another cup of coffee….
Maybe in a minute or so.
Fear of Rejection
Getting the nerve up to ask someone to go out with you can be very difficult. There
are a lot more reasons to be afraid than there are for being brave. Many of us have
self-esteem issues firmly rooted in our childhood stories that hold us frozen and
afraid to really reach out to others. Our parents, siblings, or neighborhood friends
taught us that we were less than beautiful, that we are not clever enough, wealthy
enough, or likable enough. A string of broken hearts and failed relationships can
only add to the fear that perhaps those people were right and we really are not all
that lovable. But oh, how our souls long for someone to love who will love us back,
forever.
Does Self-Esteem Even Matter?
There was an article in the January 2005 issue of Scientific American entitled Exploding
the Self-Esteem Myth. It is a very well written analysis of what scientists and
mental health experts have found after decades of studying self-esteem. If you have
the time, I would highly recommend reading the full version of it. If not, I will
do my best to paraphrase what it said. Some of the results were rather surprising:
Self-Esteem and the Entrepreneur
Isn’t it funny how people think that being self-employed is so cool? They think
that you get to take lots of vacation time and spend all of the profits. What they
do not realize is that you put in outrageous amounts of blood, sweat, and tears to
get there. They do not know that you have to take the blame for every single thing
that goes wrong. They do not know how many times you fell flat on your face before
making it work. They think that you simply come up with a cute little idea over
dinner one night and within a couple of months you are flying high living the rich
man’s life. The reality of the situation is very different. Statistics consistently
show that most successful entrepreneurs failed a handful of times before finally
finding that winning formula. It is during the failure years that you earn all of
those future vacations and big fat salaries. Delayed gratification takes on a whole
new level, doesn’t it?
Praying for Self-Confidence
There are many different aspects involved in creating our sense of self-confidence.
Most of us are quite aware of the big obvious pieces like whether or not our childhoods
created a strong foundation to build upon or not. We know that a string of broken
hearts can begin eroding what confidence we may have had and that a loving supportive
spouse can be our greatest asset in the belief that we can do anything we set our
minds to. We know that succeeding at our goals also adds a wonderfully rich layer
towards our overall sense of self-confidence. One aspect that often goes overlooked
is how our spiritual beliefs hold a hidden resource that can keep us going when all
else fails.
Self-Esteem and Teens
Ideally, we raise our children from the cradle to have a positive sense of self-esteem.
A child that has always had a strong sense of who they are and were they want to
go with their life is not as likely to dabble in drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex.
A child who has a safe open dialog with at least one of their parents is not as
likely to keep secrets and start sneaking around during the teenage years. A child
who has been raised to set personal boundaries is not as likely to let peer pressure
dictate their standards of conduct. Children who have been raised to recognize their
own gifts and limitations are able to make their own choices about what is in their
long-term best interest. But most teens weren’t raised perfectly and they know it,
so along with the lack of self-confidence they are often carrying at least a little
bit of animosity towards the authority figures that have failed them.
Toddlers and Self-Esteem
Honestly, self-esteem is not taught to little babies and toddlers. It is an innate
sense that drives them to roll over, to crawl, to walk, to begin speaking, and to
learn how to get their basic needs met. Children are naturally self-confident. Babies
and toddlers do not say, “What if I can’t accomplish this goal? Perhaps I should
settle for less and just do without that toy. I don’t really need to learn to walk.
I can lay here forever.” We do not have to coach a baby to feel good about themselves
so that they will learn how to hold their own bottle or how to manipulate a toy.
The toy exists and they simply want to reach for it. The bottle is there and they
simply want to hold onto it. Learning new things is just what they do without any
thoughts about self-esteem and their ability to succeed. Either we reinforce their
sense of self, or we systematically destroy it.
Cheerleaders
This article assumes that you have chosen a goal, dream, or task for yourself. You
may or may not have started implementing your step-by-step plans yet. Are you a
bit shaky in your faith though? Maybe you have a tendency to doubt your ability
to carry this thing out to completion. You need a support system that will hold
you up when the road gets rocky.
Practice, Practice, Practice
It may sound silly but the key to self-confidence and building more self-esteem is
through practice. Practice what it is you want to feel more confident about and
eventually, the confidence will show itself. That makes sense if we are talking
about a skill like playing the piano. With enough practice, you naturally begin
to get good at it and then you feel more confident. But what about tougher things
like public speaking or meeting new people? How do you practice something that you
are terrified to do in the first place?
Living To Be Over 100 Years Old
I was about ten and a half years old when we celebrated the Bi-Centennial anniversary
of our country's birth. At the time, I thought it would be cool if I could live
to be 111 so that I could see the Tri-Centennial anniversary too. Back then, my
parents and other adults thought my idea was crazy and unobtainable. People do not
think that way anymore. Now it is quite common to read stories of people who live
beyond their 100th birthday. Take a moment to search for the term "living to be
100 years old" in a search engine and you will find many websites telling us how
to live that long and plenty of other websites showing us profiles of interesting
people who are living well past their 100th birthdays.
