There are very many methods for achieving improvement to our personal confidence and self esteem, far too many to investigate in depth in a short information file. So on this page, we will have a look at the most popular and, for most people, the most effective.

Self Acceptance
Motivation & Goal Setting
Self hypnosis
Coaching/therapy

Self Acceptance

Self acceptance is one of the most important aspects of personal confidence and also for self esteem. The trick is to work out what you can change and set about doing so – and this page has a good few hints how you can go about that – and accept that which you cannot change.

We all have aspects of our personality and ‘way of being’ that we feel uncomfortable about; maybe we see ourselves as selfish, dim on occasions, over-emotional, under-responsive, or any one of a whole variety of pretty standard human behaviour patterns. The trouble is that when anybody mentions any of those things, our personal confidence is dented and self esteem sags. Yet accept those things as just part of what goes to make the whole of you and that overall, you are no worse and no better than the next human being and you can start to enjoy being you and all that being you means.

For example…

A child’s school reports consistently commented on his talkativeness:”Billy is very intelligent,” the teacher would say, “But he’s a chatterbox – he never stops talking.”. His parents laughed and showed others who also laughed. The child didn’t understand why talking was such a bad thing though nonetheless tried to do less of it… but all that happened was that his fascination and enthusiasm for some new discovery would suddenly burst out of him in a torrent of excited chatter. One day, when he was a young adult, somebody said: “My God, do you never stop talking?” That hit hard at the sore spot that had been created over the years and he suddenly started to stutter.

Then people laughed even more. Social gatherings, parties, dinners, holidays, even family get-togethers all quickly became no-go areas. He became introverted and timid and eventually found himself with a therapist, recounting those early experiences of people laughing because he was a ‘chatterbox’. “Tell me again about that teacher,” the therapist said.
“She said I never stopped talking,” Billy replied.
“That’s funny,” the therapist said. “I though you told me she said you were intelligent.”
“I don’t think I noticed that bit…” Billy said wonderingly.

The Ugly Duckling

From that moment on, it was like the Ugly Duckling story all over again. There was an almost instant acceptance that he was a natural talker, a communicator of ideas and concepts. Time passed. Billy talked A LOT and if anybody said anything at all about it, he would simply smile and agree with them. “I’ve always been talkative,” he would say, “Thank goodness. I love to share all my ideas.” No comments could hit any target now and there was no longer a sore spot; he knew that his talkativeness was a measure of his intelligence and his entire joy of living.

Acceptance is a wonderful thing. Accept the way you are and embrace it – warts and all – and you will become instantly more comfortable with yourself and others. When you accept those facets of self which you thought were negative, no matter what they are, nobody can push your buttons any more because you won’t be trying to hide them. More importantly, perhaps, you will discover that many others actually like those facets of self that you tried so hard to conceal!

Motivation

One of the prime necessities to achieve good motivation in life or career is to have a clear goal – if you don’t have, then it’s extremely unlikely that you will achieve much. Yet set a goal and set it well, know exactly why you want it and how your life will improve when you get it and you’re almost home and dry!

When setting your goals, it is important that you recognise the four rules that apply to any goal, if you are to have any chance of getting what you want:

- The goal must be plausible, possible and realistic
- It must be suitable for your personality type
- You must have a clear idea of what you are seeking
- Positive orientation

Plausible and Realistic

Anything that can be done, you can do. Anything that could never be done, you will not achieve, either. We are not conducting magic but simply using natural resources to achieve natural goals. If you are 65 years old, for instance, you will not become an Olympic standard athlete. It simply is not realistic. If you have only one leg, you cannot attempt to climb Mount Everest for exactly the same reason.

Suitable for Your Personality

For a goal to have a chance of success it should reflect your natural personality; always select a goal that you feel would not surprise others – although they may well be surprised at how easily you achieve it!

A Clear Idea

You have to know EXACTLY what it is that you want. It sounds obvious but an awful lot of people simply have never worked it out! Somebody might say: “I want to make something of myself.” Well, good… but make what exactly? The subconscious – and that is the part of you which will achieve success or otherwise – only works with uncomplicated and positive statements with no ambiguity or implication. After all, if you made a failure of yourself, that would comply with the above goal, wouldn’t it? ‘Make a success’ is not much better, either. One person’s success simply doesn’t ‘work’ for another. “I want to have my own business selling music CDs on the internet,” is a clear goal. So is: “I want to make xxxxxxxx money a year from my music website,” as long as you state a figure that you know can be achieved. Make your goal specific and you have a far higher chance of success.

Self hypnosis

There are very many methods of improving self worth and confidence. The most important thing to recognise, probably, is that precisely nothing will happen if you don’t put some input into the plan. You can read the best self help books in the world and nothing will happen unless you have an action plan. You can listen to self help and personal development CDs until you know them off by heart, but the result will be a big fat nothing if that is all you do.

If you want to get anywhere, you have to accept that it is YOU who must make the change – nobody, absolutely nobody, can do it for you. Nothing changes if nothing changes…

Self hypnosis can be remarkably effective for the reduction of stress and improvement in life generally. It is a specific skill and one which can easily be learned via one of the many books on the subject or via one of the many free self hypnosis courses available on the internet.

Though some people are wary of hypnosis and self hypnosis until they discover more about it, it’s used on a daily basis by sportsmen and musicians, business people and artists, housewives, policemen, engineers, shop assistants… in fact it’s used by millions of people from all walks of life all over the globe!

Let’s dispel a few of the anxieties that some visitors might have… the following ‘rules’ are applicable to all types of hypnosis:

- You cannot ‘get stuck’ – this is quite impossible
- You do not become unconscious or go to sleep
- You know what’s happening at all times
- You can exit the state whenever you wish to
- You cannot ‘lose your mind’
- It is not connected in any shape or form with the occult
- There is no such thing as a ‘hypnotised feeling’
- It is actually a totally natural state which we all go into several times a day
- It is very similar to meditation or relaxation techniques
- IT IS COMPLETELY SAFE!

Getting into a state of self-hypnosis is a specific skill and as with all skills, some people are better at it than others. It is fair to say, though, that almost everybody can benefit from learning how to use it. Among other things, you can help yourself to:

- Combat Stress – use it with the routines above for a real power session!
- Lose weight
- Quit smoking
- Improve sporting and other performance
- Increase concentration and recall
- Improve confidence and self-confidence
- Work effectively with motivation issues

As mentioned earlier, there are very many books on the subject of self hypnosis as well as free courses – but do be sure to get one that is written by a professional in the field.

Motivational therapy, and personal confidence

Finally, an excellent way of developing your life in the way you want it is to visit a motivational coach, hypnotherapist or NLP practitioner. Huge numbers of sporting personalities, stars of stage and screen, wildly successful business leaders and ‘executive climbers’, amongst others, have achieved their success via this route. Hypnotherapy and/or NLP can provide somewhat faster and more long-lasting results than coaching and often with fewer sessions.

If you decide to investigate this route, your local Yellow Pages is a good starting point; initial consultations are often at no charge, though you should make clear exactly why you are consulting.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Looking for direction? Not sure if you are being guided? Spiritual guidance is all around us when we know what to look for. Here are some helpful ideas on how to recognize, tap into and work your inner guidance.

There is spiritual guidance all around us… are you listening for it?Spiritual or inner guidance is available at all times, everywhere. It is found in casual conversation, in books that fall into our hands, in “wrong” numbers dialed… always available when we listen. After all, we believe that the Divine presence is everywhere, so why would the Divine voice of guidance not be everywhere, too? And so it is, provided we are not too busy to listen!I find that listening to my inner guidance can save a lot of time and effort. Being goal-oriented, I used to have a tendency to move ahead without waiting for clear guidance. I soon learned that trying to hasten the outcome only inhibits and may even delay the outcome. When this happens, the wisest move is to simply step back from the frenetic activity and to return to center. From that place of inner balance, guidance gently emerges to lead my steps, and life flows with synchronicity and ease.

Maintaining neutrality is an important aspect of receiving inner guidance. In kinesiology testing, attitudes of judgment or skepticism are found to calibrate at a level that undermines truth and can be destructive. When we ask for confirmation of guidance, it is important to do so from an attitude of desiring to know and align with truth, and to be detached from the outcome.

When we are open and receptive, we are also more inclined to recognize guidance we are given throughout the day. I have had people tell me how they asked for guidance in a difficult situation, only to have the business card of someone who could help, fall from a wallet. At times, I have asked for clarity on an issue and when the phone rang a few minutes later, the caller presented the solution to the issue without any prior knowledge of my predicament!Guidance often arrives in synchronistic ways, like the humorous experience I had on a first date. Throughout the evening, I felt vaguely uncomfortable: my companion was doing and saying all the appropriate things, yet I could not shake a vague sense that there was something amiss. I silently asked for guidance and clarity.

Soon after, my companion decided to perform a karaoke song and as he was singing, the words of the song hit me like a ton of bricks: “…these boots are made for walking, I’m gonna walk all over you!” The instant I heard the words, a sense of profound clarity came over me and I knew they expressed a deeper meaning about the person’s intent. I found out later that the person indeed had a reputation for taking advantage of others.

At times, we may not feel comfortable enough to act on the initial guidance given and so we may ask for confirmation. I am always encouraged by the Biblical story of Gideon who put out a fleece at night and asked for his initial guidance to be confirmed by the dew falling everywhere except for on the fleece. At the appropriate time, the guidance was confirmed.

The timeliness of inner guidance became clear to me while driving home one day. I noticed that someone had posted bright cardboard signs along the road, directing traffic to a yard sale on my street. There were signs posted at all the major intersections approaching my neighborhood – every place where drivers had to choose which way to go.

I realized that spiritual guidance comes to us the same way – there are always signs to guide us at the important intersections in life. When we don’t see the signs we’re looking for, we are perhaps just not in need of those directions yet, and we can go with the flow. When it is time, the necessary guidance will appear!I use a very practical method to receive guidance. Whenever I am not sure what to do, I say to the Universe, “Just show me what I am to do here. I’m willing to do whatever is in the best interest of everyone involved. Give me a clue, and I will follow.” Then I release the situation. I give up any preconceived notion about how things are supposed to turn out, and when I am supposed to know. Sometimes the answer comes instantly and sometimes it takes a while, but it always comes.

Spiritual guidance always arrives at the appropriate time, although recognizing it may require some adjustment in our expectations. To understand this, we can look at the two different words used for “time” in Greek. The first is chronos, which is equivalent to our concept of time as a chronological sequence of seconds, minutes, and hours. The second word is kairos, which can best be translated as “Divine timing” or “appropriate timing.”

In our culture, we tend to live in chronological time, yet guidance emerges outside of chronos with the synchronicity of Divine timing. When we shift our perspective away from the linear paradigm of chronological time, we discover that guidance and answers always arrive at the perfect time.

When seeking direction, simply ask for guidance. Then allow the answer to show up in its appropriate way, place, and time. If, upon voicing your request, you do not hear a voice from heaven bellowing, “This is what you must do!” don’t freak out. Allow for Divine timing to deliver your answer at the appropriate time. It will surely come!

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Scholarship essays are ones of the most important types of the essays. Effective and well written scholarship essay can help to you to resolve your financial problems and might change your destiny.

Many students write this type of the essay and most of them in my experience commit one important mistake – they treat scholarship essay as though it was another academic project, whereas it is not. The most important element of this type of the essay looks more like an advertisement of your best features and possibilities. Some students don’t underestimate the importance of this type of essay and prefer to buy essay, entrusting this assignment to professional writing services. We will attempt to do it ourselves, following these guidelines. First, you should make the list of your major achievements. Try to list as many achievements as possible regardless whether you have received some award or other recognition for them or you still have not been rewarded for them. If you think that this is an achievement in itself, that required much time, energy, aptitude, skills and tenacity than make sure it is mentioned in your list. When writing your scholarship essay try to make some self analysis, which is usually based on several important factors such as what events, individuals or some books, movies have influenced your life. If you have a favorite play or movie, try to answer why you like them.

It might not be so easy to answer this question as it may look. Sometimes you can like some movie, though not always understand why you like it. Try to analyze what features of this movie make it so appealing. In order to impress scholarship board one should state clearly what do you intend to do in the future and why you would like to do it. Some of the scholarship boards try to understand how the knowledge you are going to acquire will be used. Apart from pure academic achievements have achieved something in sport or music? If you have any hobby you should mentioned it as well. Try to describe why you evince the interest in these activities. Once you have decided on the topic you intend to write about you can start amplify your essay. The final advice – your scholarship essay, despite the fact that it should enumerate as many advantages as possible – should be succinct and must not be too long.

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Source: High Quality Article Database – 365Articles.com

The Thorns of Opportunity…Part I

What are you trying so hard to do?

Do you ever find yourself saying “If I just had a little more time life would be great!” or asking “Where did all the time go?”

In this story you will learn how you can have more time and actually begin to enjoy your day.

Imagine, if you can, three separate fields of roses. Each field tended by it’s perspective owner and brimming with life.

This writing will look at two of the fields and the contrasting results experienced between the two gardeners.

Each of the gardeners seem to have a green thumb as the plants are healthy and green. Still on any given day you may notice that one field is filled with the many colors of the blooming roses, while the other is filled with thorny bushes and not a single bloom in sight.

In the one field filled with blooms the gardener is tending to the weeds. There are not many weeds as it is a practice to remove them each and every morning.

With the weeds out of the way the rest of the day is spent enjoying the many colors and gentle fragrances of the roses.

In the other field the weeds are many as the gardener is very busy tending to the rose bushes. In fact this gardener works from sun up to sun down to keep the field healthy and still there is not a bloom in sight.

You see there is no time to manage the weeds, because the gardener is busy clipping the buds off of the 1000’s of rose bushes.

Never having seen a rose bloom, let alone smelled the fragrance of such a bloom, the gardener sees each bud as a defect, an imperfection, a disease, or something that can harm the beautiful thorny bush.

So, it is with great care, and as much love as the first gardener, that the buds are clipped everyday, by the “thorny” gardener, until the season has passed.

Once the season has passed the weeds will then become the gardener’s focus. Yes, from sun up to sun down, regardless of the weather, the weeds will be tended.

Life has a way of being perfect and things sometimes happen in our day that are so unique or profound that we suddenly find ourselves seeing and experiencing life in a new and different way. Quite often such a change will last a lifetime.

This leads me to what many call the “ah ha” moment. Still others may call it a “light bulb” moment, and you may even say it differently.

What is an “ah ha” moment, what is it when one experiences such a break through?

It is much like that moment when the “thorny” gardener, by chance, missed a bud. The bud was not clipped. As a result on one very special morning, while franticly clipping the buds, a rose bloom suddenly appeared.

In a field filled with thorny bushes that first rose bloom was easy to see and it’s fragance could not be missed.

It is that first moment when we suddenly find ourselves, much like the “thorny” gardener, standing in a field of thorns, holding in our hands our first experience of a rose bloom.

As we feel the tender pedals caress our hands and experience the air as it fills with the sweet and gentle aroma of the rose. It is then, as we look around that we realize what we didn’t know. It is then that we experience the “ah ha” moment.

We can suddenly see that our field of life can be filled with 1000’s of rose blooms.

It is then we come to understand that all we have to do is stop clipping the buds, start tending the weeds, and enjoying the blooms.

It is in that moment that life begins a new unless your like the third gardener who won’t except anything less than the best.

If it’s not perfect why bother!

Join me in 7 days for part 2 of “The Thorns of Opportunity…” The quest for the ultimate victory.

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