My Essay Blog

This article is about how to gain confidence and how to increase self-esteem. I am a person who used to be a very negative thinker, I would always believe that I would fail in whichever task I was attempting to do. I have to say that I did not really like myself and seemed to be constantly down and depressed. I have managed however, to turn my life around and will explain in the article how I managed to do this. I hope you find it enjoyable to read.

As I was growing up through childhood into adulthood I felt that I was rather unlucky. I had a speech impediment (a stutter/stammer), a bald patch on my head which was the size of a ten pence piece, I constantly struggled with my weight (I was basically fat) and I am quite short for a male at five foot four. I looked at other people in my community and especially my friends and felt very jealous of them. I would often think and ask myself why I had so many issues to deal with.

The problems in life which I had, especially the speech impediment seriously dented my confidence and I became a bit of a loner. I felt uncomfortable mixing in groups and always believed that people were laughing behind my back and talking about me.

I had an inner voice which I call my demons. They would be constantly talking to me, advising me to avoid situations and to avoid taking on tasks which they said were beyond me. They made me feel very stupid and worthless. I would listen to these demons and would basically do or not do as the case may be, whatever they told me to. I agreed with them, that I was not good enough or able to take on those certain tasks. I often wondered what life would be like if only I get these horrible gremlins out of my head.

I was not happy with where my life was heading or how it had been in the past. I wanted to be successful, confident and free from these demons.

At the age of twenty-two I decided to wage a war on these demons, a war I was determined to win. I started to read many books on self-confidence, thinking positive and mind over matter. Progress was not exactly quick and it took me many months to start to make any headway.

I needed to basically think more positive, be more assertive, and far more care-free. I learnt that in life all you can do is to try your best. Life is very short and can end at any point, therefore I need to make the most of it and live life to the full and not as a scared rabbit, which is what I had been doing. Stressing or worrying about a situation makes it harder not easier, therefore why do I do it.

These are all easy to say and write, however are extremely hard to implement. Implement I must, I thought. During my war, there were many battles with these horrible demons, some of which I certainly lost. I kept on talking to the demons telling them that they may have won the battle but that they will not win the war.

I did eventually win my war after quite a long period of time. I now like myself and am pleased to report that I have also overcome the speech impediment.

The main lesson that I learnt is to do the opposite of what the demons tell you to. They are the devil and they lie therefore we have to stop listening to them.

Have you ever thought about what really creates self-esteem? Having a deep sense of inner worth is important to all of us, but many people have some false beliefs about what creates confidence in our own merit as individuals.

Some of the common false beliefs regarding what creates self-esteem are:

* I will feel good about my self when I’m making $______(fill in the amount) a year.

* I will feel worthy when I am in a relationship with a (beautiful) (handsome) (wealthy) (loving) (fill in own) person.

* I will feel worthy when I get enough approval from enough people.

* I will feel adequate when I have a baby.

* I will feel adequate when_______( fill in desired outcome that you attach to your sense of worth).

However, there are many people who have all of the above and still do not feel a deep sense of self-esteem. That’s because self-esteem has nothing to do with anything external, such as looks, approval, money, relationships with others, or having a baby.

Self-esteem, or the lack of it, is solely the result of how we treat ourselves. Those people who attend to their own feelings and needs with loving action on their own behalf feel good about themselves, while those people who ignore, invalidate, or judge their own feelings and needs feel badly about themselves.

For example, Anna grew up with parents who were hardworking and very caring about their children, but who didn’t take good care of themselves. Both of her parents smoked, drank too much, and didn’t eat well. Neither of them took responsibility for their own feelings, so both of them were anxious or depressed much of the time. Even though her parents were loving to her, Anna does not take good care of herself, having had no role modeling for personal responsibility, She doesn’t eat well or get enough exercise, doesn’t stand up for herself at home or at work, and doesn’t get enough rest or playtime. She is very attractive, makes lots of money, has a husband and children, yet often feels very insecure.

If you imagine that her feelings and needs are like a child within, you can begin to see why she doesn’t feel good about herself. Treating herself badly will always result in feeling badly. You might be tempted to think that she treats herself badly because she doesn’t feel good about herself, and that’s true, but she will not feel good about herself until she treats herself as a worthwhile person. Her good feelings will come from her loving action toward herself. The more loving action she is willing to take on her own behalf &ndash taking physical, emotional, financial, organizational, relationship, and spiritual responsibility &ndash the better she will feel about herself.

How can Anna be motivated to take loving care of herself when she doesn’t feel good about herself? It seems like a vicious circle, yet there is a way out. Anna doesn’t feel motivated to take care of herself because she thinks that who she is, is her ego, the wounded part of herself whom she doesn’t like. Yet if Anna opens to knowing who she really is - that she beautiful and perfect child of God, that her essence, her true Self is a spark of God, created in the image of God - she will want to take loving care of this wonderful soul within.

When Anna begins to take loving care of herself, her wounded self &ndash the part of herself that has low self-esteem &ndash begins to heal. The more Anna feeds herself well, gets enough exercise and rest, speaks up for herself and tells her truth, takes care of her financial situation, organizes her time and environment, treats others with kindness and compassion, and opens to her spiritual Guidance or Higher Power, the better she will feel about herself. Self-esteem is the result of taking loving action, not the cause of it. Since we all have free will, we each have the choice to take loving action on our own behalf.

It doesn’t matter how badly you were treated as a child, or how badly your parents treated themselves. Your actions need never be governed by your past. If you devote yourself, moment-by-moment, to taking loving action on our own behalf, you will discover that the result is high self-esteem.

What is it in moms’ that makes us feel we have to take on the SuperMom identity? What makes us put on that cape?

If you talk to working mothers that you know, or even examine your own experiences, falling into the SuperMom trap is common. We all know SuperMom…faster than the microwave, more powerful than steel wool, able to fold laundry in a single bound. SuperMoms’ scare away the monsters under the bed, creates wonderful family meals, as she works, runs a business, or fosters a career either outside or inside the home.

I have tired to be SuperMom, but the cape kept getting caught under the wheels of my office chair, it did not take long to realize that persona was not for me. I was not going to fit into the kind of mother or woman “they” thought I should be. Now, when I say “they”, I am talking about, television, movies, the experts, the writers, parents, relatives, friends, and the neighbor next door, there is this exaggerated set of standards that has been generated that women hold themselves to, so they put on the cape to try to live up to everyone’s expectations.

Being a wife and mother are important jobs; we are the ones that not only carry sometimes the majority of the home and childcare responsibilities, but also the majority of the “emotional labor”. The hugs of reassurance, the kisses that make the hurts better. We are the ones that cry at night after the children go to bed because our little ones had to learn one of life’s lessons the hard way. We are the nurturers, we hold those little hands throughout their lives, no matter how big they are, we always see those tiny hands in our own. No mother takes that responsibility lightly. It is our job to provide our children with emotional sustenance, and so we put on the cape to give our children everything we can, and everything we are.

We forget that we are women…individuals; we struggle with the duality of our work selves and mommy selves as the two selves collide in conflict again and again. As guilt starts to overwhelm us for wanting something for ourselves, we are tempted to give in to be Supermom and leave a huge part of ourselves behind. We ignore our own needs because we were taught to give to others continuously and keep nothing for ourselves. We are haunted by the images we see on TV, in movies, maybe even the examples we saw in our lives of what a mom is suppose to be. These images have a hold on us, as a whisper in our head that feeds on the very concept of ourselves. We put the cape on and assume the role to try to make peace with the inner conflict.

Like the famous man of steel, we take on a cover identity, one that is not real, because we sacrifice ourselves for mommy hood and for careers. We get lost in conference calls, paperwork, school plays and soccer practices. We forget about ourselves as we stay up into the early hours finishing work, or sewing that Halloween costume that was not done even though we were on the go non-stop all day. Therefore, we put on the cape, just to maintain.

By understanding what makes us buy into the illusion that the way to happiness is through being SuperMom, then maybe we can start to understand why we neglect who we are and where we want our lives to go. The understanding will reveal clarity, a hope, and a desire to reclaim ourselves, our real selves and not just the mild manner identity that we created. It takes a desire to reconnect with our inner selves, a willingness to abandon the out dated expectations and the commitment to stop trying to fit into a unrealistic mold.

You do not need to be someone you are not. Leave behind the thinking that life is an either or proposition. When we realize we can merge our duality back into one, healthy identity, then and only then can we take off the cape and let our true selves live and find the life we deserve.

When you look at your life, how do you feel about it? Does it appear to be chaotic, confusing, overwhelming at times? Or does it appear to be a unified, continuous, joyful whole, progressing triumphantly towards your life goals?

Most of us live somewhere between these two extremes. Some days we’re “on a roll”, full of confidence and unstoppable. Some days we just seem to be running round in circles, burning all our energy, full of doubt and apprehension and getting nowhere.

So how to we get to spend more time in unstoppable mode, building our self esteem?

One key thing that we need to do is to live our lives congruently…

LACK OF CONGRUENCY IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH!

Do you tend to compartmentalise your life &ndash maybe you break it up so that your work life you do what has to be done to earn a living, in your home life you do what you enjoy and from time to time you try to make sense of it. And your health just gets a back seat

Or maybe you break your life down in other ways &ndash you’re this person to your family and another person to your friends, someone else to your boss and so on…

When you live this way life gets complicated and stressful. You are constantly rushing from A to B, juggling different balls, trying to be different people in different contexts &ndash and what happens when inevitably when two compartments that you have so carefully created overlap - your family meets your friends or your boss!!! Very stressful.

Trying to maintain all these different compartments burns a tremendous amount of mental and even physical energy. When you spend too long in one of your compartments the others start to feel neglected and your only solution is work even harder to juggle all the balls and keep them all in the air. Inevitably one gets dropped, all too often it’s your health or your personal relationships, and then you have real problems.

THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY TO LIVE

Luckily there is a better way to live &ndash make sure you live your life congruently.

What if you only had 1 ball to juggle instead of 10 &ndash you’d have no problem keep it in the air would you? That would be so easy &ndash you could do it confidently, your self esteem would rise as you mastered the skill and your could even learn a few fancy tricks:-).

Carrying that analogy over to your life then, congruency is simply the decision to stop compartmentalising your life and to start treating it as one unified whole. Making sure you live your life by one simple set of rules where everything fits together is the best form of mental self help.

It may well take you some time to rearrange yourself and your life to get into the state of congruency, but when you do, all the different areas of your life will fit together perfectly and mutually support each other. Your work will fit in with your own beliefs, your family and friends will fit together perfectly, your health and wealth will go hand in hand.

IT’S TIME TO REVIEW YOUR LIFE

To some extent we are all living lives that are out of balance, so take the time today to think about your life &ndash where are the fault lines? Where are the incongruencies? You may be a very lucky person and already have a well balanced life, but there is still room for improvement.

Then think about how you can rearrange things so that you can bring your life back into balance. What are the common themes and threads running through all areas that you can strengthen to make your life more congruent?

Oozing with confidence is not something that comes naturally to everyone; however it is something that everyone can acquire. I have listed some tips below for all those of you that want to get a little more confidence when it is needed. Follow one, two or all of them and watch your confidence start to grow.

1. Think fitness and health… Healthy body, healthy mind! Keeping yourself fit and healthy will keep you feeling happy and confident. Eating the right things at the right times will certainly help you to feel the way that you want to feel. It is great for your waistline too, which is ultimately good for your confidence also.

2. Mind your inner talk… What you think about yourself is so important with regards to the way that you feel and just how confident you are. Don’t rubbish yourself in any way when you are thinking or talking about yourself. Say things like ‘I would love to learn how to do that’ instead of saying ‘I can’t do it’.

3. Create a new you… A change in appearance can always help to boost your confidence and make you feel great. The way that you dress, act and look is part of your communication to the world around you. If you look and feel fantastic then that’s how others will see you too!

4. Change career… You may find that your current job is causing you a lack of confidence. If this is so then grab hold of the fact that you set the limit on what is impossible. This means that if you want to find a new job then you can choose to be whatever you want to be. Sure it might take a bit of work, but if you really want it then, isn’t it worth the effort?

5. What is so good about you..? Make yourself a list of all of your good points. Are you a good listener, advice giver, hard worker or good friend? List down all of your achievements &ndash things that may have happened in your education, your career or your social and family life.

6. Make new friends… Surround yourself with positive friends that encourage the best in you. Happiness and positive attitudes are contagious, so by surrounding yourself with confidently happy people you will feel more confident too.

I really hope that this article has been of some help to you and has given you some ideas to go away and actually use to build your confidence.