I had a friend who was always unhappy. He had the
habit of quitting half way on whatever he started and was always complaining
about his predicament. He would say to me “Mart, when on earth am I gonna have
my own penthouse by the beach with a fleet of cars”? “I don’t enjoy this job. My boss is an ass,
I’m quitting next month”. “I think my girlfriend is seeing another guy.” He
always found something wrong with every situation. So I called him one day and
laid it straight to him. I told him “Dave, your negative thought pattern is the
root cause of your perpetual sad state. You keep seeing a problem even when
there’s none”.
I gave him a long lecture on self-confidence and
optimism. Dave found himself happier over the next few weeks as he applied the
tips I gave him. He no longer cared about some of the ‘problems’ he was always
whining about.
He started seeing the silver lining in every situation.
Self- confidence or self-belief is the key to success.
This cannot be over-flogged. When you develop a rock-hard belief in yourself,
you are able to go through with anything and be successful. You are able to go
through life with an aura of happiness. A self-confident person believes that
he has what it takes to face the world and succeed. He is resilient and sees
failure as an opportunity to learn from his mistake and a step closer to
success. He is not crippled by fear of failure or disappointment. He succeeds
because he believes he can.
The following tips can help boost your
self-confidence permanently:
Be
grateful for what you already have.
Sometimes
our problem lies in thinking that we can only be happy when we reach a certain
level in life. That level others are operating at. Unfortunately, it takes a
while before you get there and when you get there, you will likely have a new
destination in mind. You may end up spending your whole life working on
something new or whining about your lot without ever stopping to enjoy the
things you have achieved. So take a quiet time everyday to appreciate what you
already have. I am a firm believer in gratitude. While being grateful for what
you have in life, for what others have given you, is a humbling activity, it
can also be a very positive and rewarding activity that will improve your
self-image. So, make a mental list of all the things for which you are grateful
or write them down. Read through the list when you wake up in the morning, and
before you go to bed at night. Do this every day. Do not skip a day for as long
as you can. This is very good for your self-confidence.
Get
active
What’s
on your to do list that has been sitting there? Do it first thing in the
morning and get it out of the way. Doing something is almost always better than
doing nothing. Of course, doing something could lead to mistakes, but mistakes
are a part of life. It’s how we learn. Without mistakes, we will never get
better. So don’t worry about making mistakes or failure. Just do something,
even if you are afraid to do it. So go and give that speech. Go for that job
interview, start that business. Get off and risk it. Get active – physically, yes
get in some routine of physical exercise and raise your energy level. Exercise improves health, does
a great lot for your confidence and will help you gain the motivation to
accomplish other goals. more on How exercise affects your health.
Be
honest with yourself about everything.
Be
honest about what’s right and what needs to be changed, about what you want to
achieve and who you want to become. Be honest with every aspect of your life
always, because if you are never honest with yourself, you can never trust
yourself to do anything right. Search deep down for the truth so that you truly
know who you are and what you stand for. Once you do, you will have a better
understanding of who you are, where you are now and how you got there, and you
will be better equipped to identify where you want to go and how to get there.
This gives your life purpose and direction and your motivation will be
naturally forthcoming.
Let
go of negative thought pattern.
Most
of us are held back in life because of our negative thought pattern and the
negative energy we attract. Positive people are drawn to positive energy while
negative people are drawn to negative energy. Negativity can be so ingrained in
a person over time that it goes unnoticed. That is because negativity sometimes
wears the disguise called ‘reality’. You could easily rationalize that you are
‘being realistic’ in not daring to act on a dream. You may even believe that
positive people are not being real or they are just happy fools. But their
optimism carries them through. If you always focus on problems or are a
complainer, you will not have the will power to compete or achieve a goal. You
may find yourself always jumping ship before the waves set in. Change your
focus now. Focusing on solutions rather than the problem is one of the best
things you can do for your self- confidence and your career. Learn to replace
negative thoughts with positive ones. You have to learn to be aware of your
inner dialogue- the thoughts you have about yourself and what you are doing.
Trick your mind into believing you have succeeded and it will become a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
Set
a small goal and achieve it
People
often make the mistake of shooting for the moon and when they fail, they get
discouraged and recoil into their shell. Instead, shoot for something much more
achievable and achieve it. Change a small habit, not a big one like quitting
smoking. Just a small one, like writing things down, waking up 10 minutes
earlier, or drinking a glass of water when you wake up. Do it for a month. When
you have accomplished this, you will feel like a million bucks. Soon you will
be setting bigger yet achievable goals. The more you achieve small goals, the
better you will be at it, and the better you will feel.
In all, for you to build
self-confidence you need to take concrete steps to change your thought pattern
and retrain your mind to focus on positivity. This is the key to achieving your
life dreams and stay happy always.
No comments:
Post a Comment