Self-confidence is a Building Block

Dear loving people,

Self-confidence is an attitude which allows individuals to have positive yet realistic views of themselves and their situations. Self-confident people trust their own abilities, have a general sense of control in their lives, and believe that, within reason, they will be able to do what they wish, plan, and expect. Having self-confidence does not mean that individuals will be able to do everything. Self-confident people have expectations that are realistic. Even when some of their expectations are not met, they continue to be positive and to accept themselves.

Self-confidence is extremely important in almost every aspect of our lives, yet so many people struggle to find it. Sadly, this can be a vicious circle: People who lack self-confidence can find it difficult to become successful. After all, most people are reluctant to back a project that's being led by someone who was nervous, fumbling, and overly apologetic.

Self-confidence is exactly the difference between feeling unstoppable and feeling scared out of your wits. Your perception of yourself has an enormous impact on how others perceive you. Perception is reality — the more self-confidence you have, the more likely it is you’ll succeed.

One way to start boosting your self-confidence is to affirm your worth, truly, affirmations work magic. Write a list of statements that say what you want and how you want to be in life such as, "I get more confident everyday". "I am an expert at what I do, I know I am". State all affirmations in the present. Some people stand in front of a mirror and say them. I also encourage you to record them and play the tape over and over. Read your affirmations at least once a day.

Then you have to evaluate your relationships. Assess the relationships in your life. Do they support you or sabotage you? All relationships change with time; some get better, some get worse. If you have relationships in your life that are more of a burden then a joy, it may be time to get rid of them.

Evaluating your existing relationships give room for you to start new relationships. Identify people that have the qualities you admire - people you feel you could learn from and who could learn from you, as well. Look for people you can have fun with. Boosting your confidence can be really fun, if you want it to be. This may be time for a traditional support group. Chatting over a cup of palm wine with your pals might be a remedy. Organize your own group of confidence boosters and support each other in making changes. Remember my post on Fulcrum Of Success (FOS)? You might want to read that again.

Above all and most importantly, you will have to change your behavior.
What do you do that boosts your confidence and what do you do that brings it down? Exercise, getting enough sleep, speaking your mind, and dressing well are behaviors that tend to boost confidence. Staying up late, spending all your time with some lousy friends, and saying "yes" to avoid confrontation when you really want to say "no" will bring your confidence down.

Never forget to speak up. When we withhold communication because we are afraid of how we will be received, we chip away another bit of our confidence. Share your thoughts, opinions, and preferences. Speak up in all situations. As part of a formidable human potential development organization – Gold Touch International, I learned that you should make it a point of duty to speak-up wherever you are. The insignificant situations will be practice for the important occasions that are sure to follow.

In doing all of this, ensure that you take a risk a day. A risk is something you would do in an instant if you knew you would be successful. It is the fact that you do not know how it will turn out that makes it a risk. The best way to bolster your confidence is to start doing things you are afraid to do. Make a list of risks for you and start to do them one by one.

Sometimes, it takes a few days to boost your confidence, sometimes, it takes a few weeks. Occasionally it can take a few months to overcome a confidence deficiency. Know that if you are consistent with your confidence boosting techniques, you will eventually find yourself renewed, stronger, and more confident.

Failure is a Stepping Stone. Use It

Dear loving people,

Five of the twenty seven messages I got from Living Lectures subscribers this morning enquired about the fear of failure in the quest for success and so permit me handle that in this post.

The fact is that failure is part of the human condition.  Everybody fails at something.  People who achieve a great deal fail at many things. But! You can choose to regard failures as negative experiences - defeats, losses, setbacks.  Or you can choose to regard failures as positive experiences - opportunities for you to learn what not to do, what needs to be changed, and what needs to be fixed.  Failure can accelerate our success. Yes! You got me right. This will happen if and only if you take the time to extract clear lessons from your failures, and then apply those lessons to your next endeavor. 

Therefore, “If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived”. It’s a good reminder because as we live our day-to-day life, we tend to forget this very important message. We end up thinking that everyone that succeeds has had nothing but luck all their life and that they had it easy. Who can blame us too, I mean by the time we hear about someone making it, the focus is on the success, not on the long hard struggle to get there.

Don’t get me wrong here but the point is that recognizing failure as a potential positive experience gives you a new freedom - the freedom to try new things, be more creative, and stretch outside your comfort zone.  If you don't achieve the results you seek, ask yourself, "What did I learn from this?"  Of course, accepting this concept intellectually is one thing.  Dealing with failure emotionally is another matter entirely.  Before you can learn from your failures, you must learn to fail.  And, in order to do that, you must understand failure and put it in its proper perspective.

Failing is trying. Without trying we never have a shot at succeeding. The quicker you can deal with failure, the quicker you are ready for success. Each failure is a building block to success. Some people cannot deal with failure, so they never try anything. The result: nothing. Nothing can happen without action. Life is all about action, and taking risks.

There is value in failures, as you can see. And most importantly, failures are lessons. What you can draw out of each failure is experience and knowledge that will help you succeed better. That is why you should never ever be afraid of failing, because there is absolutely nothing to fear. In the game of life, nobody plays a perfect game. If you think that some people lead perfect flawless lives, it’s your perception, but certainly not reality.

Accepting is not expecting! You should never expect to fail. The ones that expect to fail realize their wishes very easily. You can be logical and accept that the possibility of failure does exist, but you can be confident in your chances to avoid such failure. This is crucial, as you do not want to become a habitual failure. Just knowing that even if you do fail, you will get over it, and that it won’t destroy you is so empowering that simply having that frame of mind increases your chances of success even more.

Michael Jordan is a great example about success through failure.  There are many lessons that can be learned through his experiences.  Use his six lessons as an opportunity for self-examination.  How do you respond to failure?

1.      Take the Shots: Michael Jordan often talks about how many shots he missed.  He missed shots because he was willing to take them.  Are you willing to take the shots that will help you succeed in your goals?

2.    Don’t Let Failure Stop You from Trying Again: A missed shot didn’t stop Michael Jordan.  If he had stopped shooting because of one miss, or not been willing to take the next game winning shot simply because he missed the last one, he would not have become the championship player he was. Is a past failure stopping you from moving towards your goals?

3.    Don’t Let Failure Get You Down: Michael Jordan didn’t let a missed shot create discouragement.  You cannot dwell on your failures – you must move on.  It is hard to overestimate the importance of a positive attitude on life especially when you fail.  If you are able to keep a positive attitude when you fail, you’ll be able to be ready to try again more quickly.  Have you let failure get you down?

4.    Learn Every Time You Fail: There is no doubt that Michael Jordan learned from his failures.  By learning from your failures you will gain more success.  Every lesson you take from failure can be used to help you succeed the next time.  Failure simply shows you what doesn’t work, allowing you to go do what does work the next time. What can you learn from your most recent failure?

5.     Know your Game Winning Shots: Your game winning shots are the activities which push you over the edge as you work towards your goals.  They are the things you can do that allow you to win. Your game winning shot might be making sales calls to your top prospect list, or submitting another book proposal to a publisher. You need to know these most important activities and look for opportunities to take shots. What are the game winning shots for your business?

6.    Your Response to Failure Impacts Your Team: Not only was Michael Jordan a basketball superstar he was part of great teams. With Michael Jordon the Chicago Bulls won six NBA championships. Similarly, you need a team to succeed. Your team will follow you lead.  If you respond negatively to failure, your team will follow. If you dismiss failure, learn from it, and quickly move on with a positive attitude your team will do likewise.  How is your response to failure impacting your team?

Always remember, you can at all-time either make or mare your life because you and you alone are the CEO of your own life.

Take Action - Now!

Dear loving people,

I had an interesting call yesterday from a Living Lectures subscriber in Belgium and she asked me an important question. “You’ve been talking about taking action for a while now, what is it really all about?” let us now reflect on what taking action entails…

We all desire almost at all times to succeed in whatever we do right? To go from where you currently are in your life, to where you desire to be in the future, requires that you have goals. Depending on how big your goals are, will determine how much you grow to feel motivated to achieve them. Your future thus, is the continuous manifestation of what you are planning to do!

In other words, what you plan today, determines what you are going to do tomorrow! Your goals must be achievable and reachable; and with this in mind, they must be scheduled in a plan to the point where you conjure up enough emotion inside of you that drives you achieving them!

Imagine yourself 5 years from now... What would you like to achieve? What would you like to manifest for yourself? After you create success, how will you help the people around you? This requires you to make a 'present' decision, in this very moment – To Take Action!

Your daily actions are governed by your everyday decisions! Can you remember a time when you got fed up with something and you decided 'enough was enough' and it pushed you to create success? Start thinking about what you want to create, and then think about what will happen if you don't create it; what would be the ultimate price if you don't take action?

 

Dreams, wishes, and hopes, whilst all an important part of success in life they won't do anything for you - except to potentially cause you to become frustrated - unless you take successful action. The most successful people in life are committed to taking action on a regular, consistent basis.

Napoleon Bonaparte (the great warrior of 1769-1821) said “Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.”

What I understand in Napoleon’s statement is that it’s often easy to procrastinate and over-think things. Often the most successful people are those that simply tried many different approaches until they found one that worked.  This is equally in line with Mark Twain who said “80% of life is simply showing up.”

People often look at business leaders and successful people and wonder how and why they are so successful – a large part of this is that they simply chose to take action. Instead of talking and thinking about what they could achieve, they more often than not did something about it.

Leadership is essentially nothing more than swift and responsible decision-making that in turn creates consistent action. Ensure that you are taking action but without trying to over-control the outcome. So, what can you do today to take some action towards a goal?

1.    Choose something today and take action immediately!

2.   Don’t get stalled by negative feelings of ‘fear’ or ‘what ifs’

3. Don’t worry if your idea is not 100% perfect – it never will be. You can fine-tune it as you go.

4. Remember to be open to different outcomes and to relax and enjoy the productivity of ‘doing something useful’!

5.  Learn from your choices. Even if you don’t get the result you want, you can learn from your experience

I guarantee you that by taking action and doing something useful (no matter how small) you will come out feeling positive, enthused and energized. It may take a little practice to build up the energy in your body and then release it gradually.  Your ability to use this technique will surely improve over time.

Give this simple technique a try, and allow your own thought waves to drive you into action.

Face Your Difficultires Boldly

Dear loving people,

One of the only ways to grow in whatever area you choose is to develop a strong problem-solving strategy. It could be very difficult to evolve if you are fear challenges. Isaac Asimov said “It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.” When you face your challenges boldly in the face by solving the problems they generate, success becomes easy.

The strategy for solving problems almost always includes five steps irrespective of the angle from which you tackle the particular problem. Let’s examine these steps:

1.      Identify the problem: Firstly you need to identify and name the problem so that you can find an appropriate solution. While there might be numerous problems in your life, but you must be able to focus and pinpoint the problem that you are really passionate about finding a solution to. In my case, I had to think about what my purpose in life was and my passions. This took me back to school when I was greatly impacted by development work in Africa.

2.    Research the problem: You have to see the problem clearly enough to determine what action you are going to take. Getting a clear view of the problem may take considerable research. You aren’t going to be able to effectively fight against something until you have a good idea of what you’re fighting against. Doing your homework also focuses your sense of urgency and compassion; it helps you define what you object to about the problem. I know the more I researched on the issues surrounding development work in Africa, the more passionate I became about social science and finding and implementing development solutions.

3.    Identify solutions: Next you need to identify all the potential solutions before deciding which one(s) you want to implement. The more possible solutions you find the more likely it is that you will be able to discover an effective solution. You can brain-storm for ideas. The purpose of brain-storming is to collect together a long list of possibilities. It does not matter whether the ideas are useful or practical or manageable: just write down the ideas as they come into your head. Talk to other people and get their ideas. The aim is to collect as many alternative solutions as possible.

4.    Select a possible solution: From the list of possible solutions you can sort out which ones are realistic and manageable. Some smaller solutions actually lead to bigger ones. Think about the outcomes to possible solutions and also check with other people what they think the outcomes may be. When you have explored the consequences, you can use this information to identify the solution which is most likely to have the best outcomes. The light bulb comes on!

5.     Implement the solution: Once you have selected a possible solution you are ready to put it into action. You will need to have energy and motivation to do this because implementing the solution will take a lot of time and effort. Begin by planning a strategy which will include goals, policies, programs, actions, decisions and allocation of resources.

Problem solving is bridging the gap between where you are and where you want to be, what you see and what you want to see, who you are and who you want to be.

You can problem solve anytime you experience a challenge or have a goal to achieve. You can use the problem solving model to look for solutions to concerns connected with your study or other aspects of your life. You can take the problem solving steps by yourself, with a friend or others. Problem solving with others is often very effective because you have access to a wide variety of viewpoints and potential solutions. The problem solving model is a useful resource for you to utilize in all aspects of your life and when dealing with challenging situations.

Remember, your success rests in part on tapping into the public capacity for compassion and being able to get others involved.

If you require further assistance, please make an appointment with Living Lectures.