Create Change in your life

• Are there times when you don’t stand up for yourself either at work or dealing with other people?
• Do you immediately wish you had said something right after someone has spoken to you?
• Do people always ask you to do things because they know you will never say no?
• Do you deliberately keep your opinions to yourself so you don’t offend anyone?
• Are you self conscious when you go out?
• Do you struggle to put forward your opinion or ideas?
• Are you unsure that you could make a go of a new career?

Take a few moments now to discover how confident you really are by taking part in the following confidence quiz…..

1. Your boss asks you to deliver a presentation tomorrow in front of 20 delegates from a potential new client. Do you:

a. Accept the challenge, telling your boss they won’t regret choosing you and start to develop your slides right away.
b. Ask them if they are absolutely sure they want you to do it, suggesting that it may be better to offer it to someone else.
c. Panic, start to get an uncomfortable feeling in your stomach causing you to take the next 2 days off work sick with worry.

2. You are at a restaurant, when the waiter arrives with the bill, you notice you have been charged for 2 extra glasses of wine. Do you:

a. Immediately remind the waiter of exactly how many glasses you had and that you have no intention of paying for any more.
b. Politely ask the waiter if they are sure the bill is correct, but still pay anyway.
c. Start to question if you did actually have 2 extra glasses of wine and pay the bill to avoid any fuss.

3. You are on holiday and have just arrived at your hotel, you booked a room with a sea view overlooking the swimming pool, however when you arrive you are told this room has already been taken, and instead are placed in a room at the back of the hotel right next to a building site. Do you:

a. Ask to see the manager right away, explain to them that you have paid for a sea view and will not accept anything else. Tell the manager that either they move you to the room you were promised or they refund you the cost of your holiday.
b. Ask why you are not able to have the room with the sea view, explain that you have paid for a room with a sea view and ask if they have anything similar.
c. Gladly accept the new room next to the building site and remind yourself that these things happen from time to time.

4. You take a taxi journey you have taken many times before, however when you reach the destination you realize the driver has not used the meter. He then asks for 5 times what you have paid previously. Do you:

a. Explain to the driver you have travelled this way many times before and that you know how much it costs, and will not pay any more.
b. Ask the driver why he didn’t use the meter and tell me him the price seems excessive.
c. Pay the fare, and remind yourself to walk next time.

5. You are at work and your boss half an hour before you are due to finish asks you to stay for an extra 3 hours, however it is your best friends birthday and you have already arranged to go out for the evening, do you:

a. Refuse your boss, explaining that you have made alternative plans, and that if you are required to work extra hours again you are to be given much more notice.
b. Tell your boss you had made plans but agree to work the hours anyway.
c. Happily agree to work the hours, even though you don’t want to.

6. You set a goal for yourself to lose some weight in the next 3 months, do you:

a. Not only complete the goal, but also lose more weight than you first anticipated.
b. Lose some weight but start to get discouraged and eventually change your original goal.
c. You rarely set goals as you never succeed at anything.

Mostly A’s

You are confident; you can handle yourself well in all situations and are able to get what you want most of the time.

Mostly B’s

You are somewhat confident and can be assertive although occasionally you do let people walk all over you.

Mostly C’s

You are not very confident at all and rarely get what you want, you very easily taken advantage of. You know you need more confidence and to learn to be more assertive in most situations.

To increase your confidence right now, download and listen to the ‘confidence exercises’ MP3, and for more information on what confidence really is read the ‘Blueprint for creating change’ eBook from www.createchangeinyourlife.com

admin Confidence Confidence, Self-confidence

To develop yourself, grow and improve your life situation. In order to grow as a person it is essential that you push your boundaries, doing so will expand your capacities, capabilities, enable you to experience new realities that previously you thought were unobtainable and to some extent it will allow you to re-invent yourself.

Will it be easy?

Probably not, but it needn’t be excruciatingly painful either, especially if you take it bit by bit, a little at a time.

What will happen if I don’t?

Probably nothing, you will be the same person in 6 months time as you are now. Is this OK with you? For many it might be, but if you are looking to make changes in your life, especially personal changes, then it is important you take action to do something about it, and stepping outside of your comfort zone is one way to do this.

What exactly is a comfort zone anyway?

Your comfort zone is an imaginary set of boundaries which are defined by you, keeping you safe in your own reality away from anything that you feel would cause you or your life situation discomfort or pain.

For example if you are shy and feel you need more confidence, maybe social confidence then unless you go out and start socializing and making an effort to overcome your shyness (moving outside of your comfort zone) then you will probably always feel shy and insecure. But if you start to take initiative and make changes to your life, then in time your confidence will improve.

I am not sure I need to step outside of my comfort zone.

Maybe you don’t, but when you look in the mirror every day is the person who looks back at you the best they possibly can be? Is it a person who has grown and stepped up to life’s challenges or somebody who has kept themselves hidden and out of the way? Is it a person who has always deliberately distanced themselves from any unpleasant situations that may cause them discomfort, real or imagined but that could provide major benefits to their life?

We are who we are but that doesn’t mean we have to remain as we are forever. The only way you will ever change yourself and to some extent your life is just how far you are willing to push the boundaries and make life uncomfortable by stepping outside of your comfort zone.

Life very often will require you to step up and be counted, now some people will and some won’t, never the less there will always be times when more is required of you then you are willing to provide.

And then there are people who actually create circumstances that actually require them to do something which they are not comfortable doing, deliberately pushing themselves to go on and reach the next level, and most of the time they will. They don’t wait for life to offer its challenges, they go out and create their own, thereby providing a ready made platform from which they can grow and develop.

Some people will always be just plain happy the way they are and won’t really see any need to step outside of their comfort zone. I wonder what lives these people will lead in the future. For some maybe it will be quite successful, but for most it will probably be mediocre just like 99% of the people out there.

Can you be successful without stepping outside of your comfort zone; I am not sure, perhaps. Can you grow and develop as a person without stepping outside of your comfort zone? No, I don’t believe you can.

I believe that if you do not take steps to move outside of your comfort zone from time to time then realistically how different can you expect to be months or years from now? And I am not just talking about wealth or financial status I am talking about you as a person.

Many people (and you will know if you fall into this category) will have to step outside of their comfort zone if they are to accomplish anything in their lives. You see life won’t meet you half way, it doesn’t work like that. But if you do push yourself into unfamiliar territory in order to become a better person, one who is capable of greater successes then the rewards will more than make up for any pain you have to go through in the short term.

For some people doing tasks that at first seem impossible are necessary before any real growth can take place, and sometimes it is this growth that needs to occur before any progress can be made in relation to completing other goals such as wealth, happiness etc.

Is it such a bad thing to step outside of your comfort zone?

What is wrong with having to do activities which we would not like to do in order to grow? For some people it is asking too much, perhaps some people don’t think the rewards are worth the hassle, or they could be content with the way they are already and see no reason to change. Others on the other hand will relish the challenge and know only too well how much they can potentially benefit.

So whatever it means for you to step outside of your comfort zone, go for it, with all the confidence you can muster, do whatever is necessary and remember to reward yourself for the progress that you will inevitably make and to enjoy the benefits when they arrive.

admin Confidence Self-confidence

Ten steps to confidence

1. Calmness - no matter what happens I accept and respond appropriately.

2. Openness - There will always be something to learn and so I keep this awareness when facing situations and in interactions with other people. There is no failure only feedback.

3. Nurturing - Within the word confidence is ‘confide’ - I confide in myself, I talk and counsel myself. I look after my inner world of thoughts and feelings with care and attention.

4. Faith - Everything that is happening to me is for my own progress. I move through life knowing that whatever happens I will be able to face it and move forward.

5. Introspective - I keep looking inside and changing my thoughts and attitudes which are not helpful to my personal development. This stops me looking at others and wanting them to change, which is impossible and takes up a lot of energy.

6. Dedicated - To my own self-progress. I want to move forward and realize my potential but never at the expense of others. Even when the road seems steep, I never give up.

7. Enthusiastic - I awaken with the thought - ‘It’s a brand new day and it’s up to me to make it a great day’. No one else can do this for me but if I make the effort to be ‘great’, the whole universe will be there to help me.

8. Noble - I never try to increase my sense of self-worth by putting someone else higher or lower than me. Everyone is special and unique. I play my own unique part the best I can and encourage others to play theirs the best they can.

9. Creative - I go deep inside myself to the place of pure creativity allowing new ideas and inspirations to emerge.

10. Energize - I take time out to energize myself. I use my time wisely setting aside adequate time for self-reflection and quiet time to empower myself with positive thoughts. I connect with my true inner nature and the qualities needed to support me moving forward in life.

Created by Margaret Baron

admin Confidence Self-confidence

When you come up with negative beliefs as to why you can’t do something a lot of the time it is your mind distorting reality to such an extent that the belief seems totally real. The following are some cognitive distortions you may recognize:

• All or nothing thinking: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

• Over generalization: You see a single negative event as a never ending pattern.

• Mental filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your version of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.

• Disqualifying the positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they ‘don’t count’ for some reason or another. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

• Jumping to conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

1. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
2. The fortune-teller error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.

See part 2 here.

admin Confidence, Mind The mind

Beliefs about your identity

We all have negative beliefs about ourselves and what we are capable of, yet how many of us have actually asked ourselves what exactly we are identifying with when we speak about our capabilities? How exactly have we managed to believe this and why? Has the belief you hold served you well up to now, will it serve you well in the future. Does it empower you in any way at all?

Here are some example negative beliefs and ways you can reframe them.

I won’t be able to get out of debt; I’ll probably be paying off my credit card forever.

Do you really want to be labeled as somebody who never managed to get out of debt and was al

admin Confidence, Positive Thinking Beliefs, Positive Thinking

If someone was to find the formula for confidence and sell it in a bottle that person would make a lot of money. Confidence is something we would all like and need at certain times in our life. Are you waiting until you get older before you get confident, or maybe waiting until you make a lot of money or until you successfully start your own business? Why not just start feeling confident right now. Why don’t people succeed? Difficult one to answer but a lack of confidence might have something to do with it.

What is confidence?

1. A sense of power within yourself.
2. A sense of being able to pull something off.

Not everyone is 100% confident all the time. I believe a lot of people think they don’t have confidence when actually they do. Let’s say for example you start a course in acting to gain more self confidence, yet does it not to some extent take a level of confidence do even make this initial step of starting an acting course. A lot of people would not even be able to do that. I believe there are many times like this example when people claim to not have confidence yet their actions suggest otherwise.

You may even meet some people who say they don’t have confidence, but when they start talking about their life and the things they have done, there is an in-congruency. They will tell you about how they traveled overseas on their own and started their own business when they returned or they will just start talking about themselves, and as they do you realize by what they are saying that they are confident or at least they have been in the past. This is true about everyone; we have all been and experienced feeling confident at some point in our lives. Sure everybody’s confidence can get knocked sometimes, but when you say you are not very confident, how sure of this are you exactly? Maybe you should say you are not very confident about being not very confident.

So when we need to get instant confidence, how could we get it?

One way it can be obtained is by changing your body and your mind.

When you meet someone who is confident you know they are confident long before they have opened their mouth to speak.

1. Physiology - How you use your body. When you are in need of confidence, try changing your physiology. Start moving in a confident way. Breathe strong. Take deep slow breaths. Move like you are in control and that nothing can faze you. If you move through life with certainty you will feel confident.

2. Mental focus

Think of something you really want in your life and hope that it will happen.

How does it feel?

Now expect the same thing to happen, (with absolute certainty).

How does it feel?

Do you see things differently when you do this?

Maybe you see 2 things when you hope (something happening and also not happening) and only one thing when you expect. Instead of hoping something will happen in your life, expect it to happen because you will make it happen.

admin Confidence Self-confidence

Do you have enough confidence? To succeed in anything you do in life you are going to need confidence. Confidence in your abilities to do whatever it is you need to do to get where you want to go. Sometimes we could all do with being more confident in certain areas of our lives, I know I certainly could. But what exactly is confidence? Confidence is often thought of as something you have or don’t have, for example ‘I have confidence’, ’she doesn’t have much confidence’. But confidence is not something you have or don’t have, it is a state of mind.

When people say they aren’t very confident, what exactly do they mean Confident in what respect, I bet the same person who says they aren’t confident could go down to the local supermarket, buy groceries and fill up their car with petrol with confidence.

Confidence is a state, it is a feeling and thoughts which come from a particular combination of chemical reactions in your brain. It is a series of pathways which connect to give you a feeling of confidence. People can change their states very quickly, ie from non confident to confident, from happy to sad etc.

So is confidence all situational? In some situations we feel it and in others we don’t? In some situations we are in a state of confidence and in others we aren’t in a state of confidence.

Did you know that it is our right to feel confident in any situation we find ourselves in?

Yet there are many times when it seems to elude us, when we need it most. Everybody is confident about something at sometime in their lives. And because you are confident at some things in your life, you already know how to feel confident. It’s like anything in life, the more you do something the easier it gets. If you don’t feel confident doing something, just keep doing it and soon your mind will become accustomed to the act which will cause you to develop a certain level of confidence.

So how do we gain confidence? Isn’t confidence just self-belief in yourself and your abilities to do something? Well yes, self confidence is related to self-belief. But believing you can do something and actually doing it can be quite different.

Are some people born with more confidence than others? No, nobody is born with confidence. People can change from being unconfident to very confident. Normally as people get older they become more confident through the life experience they have gained. But people can also develop their confidence at any time in their life by working on themselves and making a commitment to make themselves more confident.

For example, if you feel nervous when speaking in groups you can go on a public speaking course. When the course finishes you will almost certainly feel more confident when speaking in front of others, likewise there are other things you can do to improve your confidence, for example:

Stepping outside of your comfort zone. (Feeling shy? Go on an acting course)

Real world experience of something new.

Hypnosis.

I’ve been listening to hypnosis CD’s lately to help with my confidence. I have been listening to them at night before I go to sleep. Hopefully they are having some influence over my unconscious. Why not give them a try if you feel you could with some more confidence?

I used to be envious of people who were confident, I used to look at them and say ‘they have confidence’. Why wasn’t I confident, well I guess it was because I chose not to be? Listen you are entitled to feel confident just as much as the next person, it’s your world as well.

Who decides how confident you feel? Are you going to let people take away your confidence? Only you can do that. Other people are moving through the world with confidence why aren’t you one of them?

Feeling confident is all about how you feel about yourself. It’s not about anyone else or the environment you are in. It’s all about how much you believe in yourself. The more you believe in yourself the more confident you will be. Remember confidence is a state you can decide to be confident whenever you want.

So when don’t you have confidence? Is it social confidence you need, I know I could do with more of this, so what’s the best way to do it, well no surprises here ‘ Get out more!’. Go out a lot, the more you go out and interact with people the more natural it will feel, you will stop feeling so nervous and realize there is nothing to be worried about, in fact you might even start to enjoy it.

What about confidence in your abilities to do something? There was once upon a time when we couldn’t do all that much. Now just look what you can do. With enough time and commitment you can accomplish whatever you want, there is literally nothing you won’t be able to do if you spend time working on yourself or whatever area it is you want to see improvement in.

admin Confidence Self-confidence

For some people shyness can really hold them back in life, if this is applicable in your life, then you should want to do something about it. Shyness can really affect your life in a negative way, either at work or your social life. It can make it very hard to form any kind of relationship with anyone. Sometimes it can even be hard to have fun when you are shy.

Anyway how do I propose to d

admin Confidence Self-confidence, Shyness

Did you know that body language can affect how you feel, and how you feel can affect your body language? It is known as physiology. Think for a moment, what does a confident person look like? How do you know they are confident? What are some physical characteristics of confidence? Here are some hints:

• Eye Contact
• Good posture (standing up straight)
• Smile
• No nervous movements
• Head looking up

I think this is important, because we all benefit when we project a confident image.

Or what about this, what does a non confident person look like? How could you spot a non confident person?

• No eye contact
• Head looking down
• Not smiling
• Bad posture
• Fidgeting with body (biting nails, holding clothes)

Your body can affect your thoughts. If you adopt the physical characteristics of a confident person you will feel more confident. Over 90% of our communication is non verbal, so when you adopt these characteristics of confidence, you are already telegraphing to people that you are confident, and this is before you have even opened your mouth.

Just walking down the street with your head up, good posture, and a smile on your face will make you feel good. I know sometimes that we all get caught up in our own worlds and our own thoughts, and sometimes we simply don’t feel like smiling, but just try this, it really does work. I believe there are great benefits to it.

Why do I think this is important? I think that good body language can show to others that you are happy in who you are. This one little thing can give out the right message when you meet people, and when you are out and about on a day to day basis. You don’t need the flash car or the large wallet to be someone, you just need to show people you are happy being you, and one way to do this is by having confident body language.

admin Confidence Self-confidence