A
female
age
51-59,
Abella
writes:SELF CONFIDENCEI started writing an answer to a question, namely http://www.dearcupid.org/question/my-boyfriend-wants-me-to-change.html and my answer just grew and grew. I recognized it had become an article rather than an answer after I exceeded 2700 words. The poster used the flag from Lebanon so the article has some examples that I hoped might resonate with the poster. And I will also post a link to this answer on the question above as well.And I had been thinking of writing an article on self-confidence for some time. So here is the article.Isn’t it amazing to see people who have so much confidence and yet see others who have no confidence but should have confidence in themselves?VALUE YOUMost people are not born brimming with self-confidence, but it can be learned. A few people are born with unlimited confidence in themselves. Lucky them.First off: you need to value YOU and learn to love YOU. If you can do that you are part of the way to learning to respect who you are and to value you. AFFIRMATIONSEven if you need to start saying Affirmations every morning and every night before you go to bed. A good example is something simple like:“Good Morning (your name) today you can go forward confidently to face your brand new day. You have the skills to deal with today.”And “Good night (your name) you are a lovely person and I like you. Sleep well. You deserve a good rest. You did your best today.Say your affirmations out loud to yourself when you are alone. Do not be embarrassed. You need to say them every single day for two months. You are retraining your thought processes and how you feel about yourself.TRY NEW THINGSOne important way to gain more confidence is to try new things and visit new places. Now that sound impossible but it is not. Here are some examples. (a) Aim to try a new fruit or a new vegetable every week for six weeks. You may or may not like these things you try but work out how you can use the things you try. So if you want to try a different vegetable then at first research how to prepare it and serve it. I recall the first time I tried star fruit. I did not like it much. But I could see how good it looked on a plate alongside a sliced strawberry and a slice of melon. The plate looked really nice. (b) Try a new skill. It does not mean you have to enrol in a course. With the Internet you can explore sites like etsy.com and see all the other crafts that people are creating at home. So if you want to learn how to make every-day jewellery then all the findings you need are cheap and easy to buy on the internet. And YouTube has some great ‘how to’ presentations you can watch. (c) Change what you have for lunch. If you normally have x then try something you have not tried before. A nice light salad with some walnuts added and a light dressing can be so refreshing.(d) Read an author you have never read before. Books can take you into different worlds. I love reading Philippa Gregory. http://www.philippagregory.com/ She takes you into different time periods.WHY TRY NEW THINGS?The reason why trying new things is good is because when you make small steps to try something different you grow a little more confidence in your abilities. Just as starting school improves your confidence in you. Continuing to do everything the same way allows you to sink into a rut and eventually, doing that, you lose confidence in your ability to move forward and grow. BUILD NETWORKS WITH PEOPLE WHO GIVE YOU POSITIVE SUPPORTJoin a women’s group where the other women are achievers. Not sure what is available to you. But I joined a women’s public speaking group where we were given a critique each time we spoke. The feedback was wonderful and helped me to learn. You could just as easily join a group of women who embroider or who discuss a book they read last week. Sometimes at University such groups exist. Mixing with women who are capable shows you role models who have succeeded and who are just like you, that is a woman who can succeed in life.WHY BEING POSITIVE WILL HELPStaying positive is very important. With persistence and the drive to persevere you cannot fail. Never never give up if you are committed to learning how to grow and develop more self confidence in YOU. Here is an article I wrote on this subject of being self-confidence: http://www.dearcupid.org/question/tunnel-vision-positive-thinking---used-to.htmlHAVE SOME BALANCE IN YOUR LIFE You are not someone’s servant and you have a right to balance up what you need to do for you, the time when you relax and enjoy yourself and the time you provide support for others. MANAGE THE THINGS IN YOUR LIFE THAT YOU SHOULD MANAGEWhen it comes to your life you have a right to your own money and the right to determine how you spend your money. And the right to give a proportion to charity, if you wish. But at all times you need to be able to save some money and pay your bills and leave a little over for what gives you pleasure in life. So no one area should be determined by someone else. No one can tell you how to spend your money.PLAN YOUR OWN DIRECTION IN LIFE Don't allow others to steal your life and take over your life.Never give up the power that rightfully remains your power.You have a right to plan your direction in life and associate with people who show you respect. Once you are part of a couple you always have a right to be respected and listened to and in a couple relationship. TOXIC PEOPLE WHO YOU DO NOT NEED IN YOUR LIFE.You should never live in fear. Since that is not a healthy relationship if you have to walk around on egg-shells and live in fear. In fact fear in a relationship is a red flag that something is very wrong. Please open this .pdf and scroll down to Chapter seven and the Biderman’s Chart of Coercion. This is about abuse. Because abuse stages are the same, whether the abuse is at home, in a school, in a jail or in a sporting club or in a business. It is just the intensity of the abuse that changes depending on how dangerous the abuser is. http://www.williamwilkie.com/bullying.htm - thenChoose: Bullying-From Backyard to Boardroom (FTF Rich Text Format)Especially the Biderman’s stages of coercion in Chapter Seven in the above .pdf It is a chart that shows how a bully systematically works on a target to make them lose confidence in themselves. Trying to change a bully is impossible. The best thing is to quietly leave without telling them. Now after that diversion about not putting up with abuse I shall return to the confidence raising issue.FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN DO WELL.THEN CONCENTRATE ON BUILDING THAT SKILL.Find something that you do well and find opportunities to do it more often. If you are good at arranging flowers ask if you can do some work experience with a lady florist and see how you like learning and working in such a field. This is an example only. But I am sure you can think of something that you love doing and you are good at doing it. Finding something that you are successful at is a great confidence booster.So if you knew that several of your Aunties are very good at cooking and you wanted to learn more you could visit each of your Aunties and start collating all their best recipes for a private family cook book that your cousins may love to read in years to come. Start mixing with others more often. It will help your confidence to grow. ESTABLISH GOALS THAT YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE FOR YOUStart making some goals for you. Where do you want to be in five years? How do you want your life to go in the next ten years? Visualize it. Think about it. What additional skills do you need to work on? WHAT, OR WHO, MAY BE HOLDING YOU BACK? Realistically is your current partner the right person to travel this dual journey with you? In the same direction that you hope to go? Sometimes success is about discarding those who are not right for us. AND may hold us back from reaching our dreams. FIND ROLE MODELS WHO YOU RESPECTFind a role model who you admire. Perhaps a woman who you think is worth studying. And honourable woman who is the way you would like to be in 20 or 30 years’ time. Think how she behaves and how she carries herself and the way she interacts with others. She can be a public figure you have never met. But she must have admirable qualities that are worth emulating. THE PUBLIC FACE YOU SHOW THE WORLDPeople often make a snap judgement about who you are by how you present yourself. Do you slouch? Then walk tall and respect who you are.Is your hair clean - if not make sure you attend to your personal presentation. If you do not respect yourself enough to look after your skin and your body and your hair people will know that you respect you.If your slacks are too long and drag along frayed and tattered on the ground near your heels people will wonder if you really respect yourselfCheck yourself in the mirror before you leave home. Presenting well does not mean expensive clothing. It means dressing appropriately for the occasion and making sure that your clothing is clean and well presented.Dress in a way that makes you feel good. Dress in a way that already shows that you are in control and you know where you are going. Appropriately for your age. This is about pride in the way you choose your clothing. Think of women you admire and respect. Think about women who you find hard the respect and how they present in the community. Learn from the former and avoid what the latter does.A FIT BODY INDICATES CONFIDENCE.Keep your body fit. When you are fit you know you can achieve so much more.This is important. You do not have to go to a gym to get fit. There are DVDs that you can watch at home and do a workout to at home. But fitness and a fit body will give you mastery over your body and that will make you feel more confident. Being fit and healthy will make your skin look good and inspire confidence in you. YOUR LIFE BALANCE.Your life balance is very important. If one person is consuming too much of your emotional energy that will drain you very quickly. Life and relationships need balance. Balance is about your health, your relationships, your work or your studies, if you have enough time left over for leisure activities and even for altruistic activities (helping others)You will know if your life balance is "out" if you feel tired all the time and you have no time for friends and family.TOXIC PEOPLE. HOW TO SPOT THEM AND AVOID THEMIf someone tries to suggest that you are always wrong and they are always right then perhaps that other person is Toxic.I call Toxic people “people poisoners” as they want you as miserable as they are. I think they are best avoided. IT IS OK TO MAKE MISTAKES. YOU LEARN FROM THEMBut there will be times when you do make a mistake. This is not the end of the world. It is a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow and find out what not to do next time. Every time you make a decision you could be right or wrong. The more decisions you make for yourself then the more often you will be right. Because every time you do make a mistake and you examine why then you are far less likely to ever make that mistake again. You will learn to trust your judgement and that WILL improve your confidence in you. FIND INTERESTING LEISURE ACTIVITIES. Fun activities should not have to cost a lot of money. There are many lovely things to do that will improve your confidence and cost next to nothing. One such example is a way to reach out to others and grow as a person is to try to learn a new language. One where there are enough people to practise with. Not through book learning. But by learning the words. Practising daily and learning PHONETICALLY. To do this you keep a small note book with you. Ask for the first key words you need from someone whose native language is that one. Write the word in your language on the left and the other side write the word from the other language in phonetic spelling. I will give you an example:The word in English is SHOP. We all know what a shop is. On the other side write in the phonetic (the way the word sounds to you) in the other languagePhoenetically the word for shop in countries that use Arab words is DOO-KARN or DUH-KARN or DUKK-KARN - depending on which country you are in – Punjab, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia This is NOT the correct spelling. It is just how the word sounds to Western ears. And the English word is BOOK – but try saying KIT-TAABA or KIT-TAAAAB and I think you will be understood in Punjab, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia This is NOT the correct spelling. It is just how the word sounds to Western ears. Just start small and learn the words for good morning, good evening, yes, no, the days of the week, the colors and simple things a child would learn before they turn two.Then start to practise the words you know. It will take a while. It is fun to do.BEING APPRECIATIVE. ACCEPTING and GIVING COMPLIMENTS Find ways to be appreciative to others. Find ways to give a genuine compliment to others. That makes others feel good and you get good feedback in return. And if someone compliments you then please accept the compliment. To negate a compliment. As that insults the person who complimented you. So if someone says” I love that scarf on you”, then say “Thank you” back with a smile. Never negate a compliment.FREE ONLINE QUIZ EXAMPLES - these retrain your brain.You gain confidence the more often you can succeed with these FREE quiz options.There are some good online quiz options. Just stick to the Free stages. A quiz for you http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTCS_84.htmhttp://www.lumosity.com/ = just try it to the free stageYOUR OWN PRIVATE ACTIVITY BOARD TO SET GOALS.Another thing I have tried (and it worked) is an Activity board that you create and keep inside a wardrobe door.On it you put your immediate short term goals in the middle - no more than two. Something that you want to get done within the next month. Then in the next outer circle from the center you can write up to five goals that you want to achieve in the next 6 months.Then in the next outer circle you can write up to eight smaller goals that you hope to get done in the next 12 months. I had a board that I kept for 5 years. I took it down the other day because I realized I was already meeting my 5 years ago goals. Every time you meet a new goal you put a gold star on top of that goal. You write the goal and you also put a picture that is inspirational. So if you wanted to move house to live near water you would put a picture of the area you would like to live in against the written goal in the correct circle. Obviously a big goal like that would rarely go into the middle centre circle. Such an activity board is very private. But you can see it every time you open the wardrobe door. Written goals are more likely to be achieved. And you grow in confidence every time you do achieve a goal.A SPECIAL RULE TO ALWAYS REMEMBERAnd here is a very important rule. Oprah Winfrey was the first person I ever heard say this. It is very wise advice: What OTHER people think of you is none of your business. You cannot spend your life worrying what OTHER PEOPLE think of how you live your life. That is their problem. You have a life to live. You don’t have time to worry about what other people are thinking of you. Live your life and enjoy it.hope this helps?
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cheap, confidence, cousin, flowers, gain confidence, money, period, text, the internet, university Reply to this Article
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female
reader, cloran14  +, writes (16 September 2017):
Great advice it perked me up this morning
A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (29 December 2015):
Abella is verified as being by the original poster of the question hi
thank you Songwr1ter for your very nice comments
regards
Abella
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A
female
reader, Songwr1ter +, writes (29 December 2015):
I really needed this article!! Thank you for posting it! I'm certain it's helped a lot of people..Well, it's definitely helped me! And I'll try your tips!!
Keep on writing more of these articles, because they are great!!
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A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (6 June 2015):
Abella is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you Ashly
your comments were very well written and reasoned out.
Glad if it helps
regards
Abella
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A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (21 December 2014):
Abella is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThe link was current when this article was written in 2013. But I just checked the link again today and found that the site seems to not be available now,
So the link to the FREE site and the FREE .pdf below for williamwilkie.com now seems to have expired.
The book Bullying from Backyard to Boardroom is still available.
The FREE .pdf was a really good resource. As detailed below. Perhaps the good Dr Wilkie has retired?
http://www.williamwilkie.com/bullying.htm - now not working.
The book was: Bullying-From Backyard to Boardroom and it used to be freely available as a .pdf online.
If you can find the book then I do recommend the following chart:
Biderman’s stages of coercion in Chapter Seven in the above book on bullying
This article was written with a female poster in mind. But some of the suggestions could still be applied to a male poster.
Alternatively perhaps one of the good uncles on this site can write an article on building confidence for male poster affected by a loss of confidence?
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