It`s okay for them they always know what to say and how to behave. Have you ever had thoughts like that? Do you have people in your life that you think of as Born Leaders and definitely positive thinkers? Do you look at them and think `no one would dream of speaking down to them`

Well I have some news for you. I`ve never known anyone who was naturally a born leader, most people have had to learn how to assert themselves and develop a positive attitude to life.

When I think about self-esteem I think that at its simplest it is a negative belief that somewhere along the line something went wrong, and the end result is that the person assumes I am not okay as a human being. Someone with low self-esteem may find themselves with thoughts that they are unlovable, stupid or even unworthy. It may be that they feel guilty about what they have done or not done throughout their lives.

One of the very first things to be addressed to building self-esteem is to address the issue of your own self-worth. Low self-worth and low self-esteem are simply habits. No one was born with these things. Okay you may have learned them, you may have learnt from the family or from school when you were small. It may be that when you were a child you were told that you were no good that you wouldn`t amount to much. Such statements can have a profound effect on children as they grow up. They can grow up into adults who think that they cannot attain, that they will not achieve, that no one will love them, because they are not worthy.

Thoughts like this are merely the result of long-term habits. That`s right it is a habit. A habit that will have quite a destructive effect on your life unless you learn to do something about it.

Articles like this will help to re-build your life, and develop a strong sense of your own self-esteem and your own worth. You are unique there is no one in the entire world exactly like you. That is not to say that you simply have to put up with the way that you have become. There is a whole new world waiting for you to explore and discover.

Today we are going to look at what steps you can take to begin building your own patterns of self-worth. Now before you groan and switch off let me assure you that you, yes, you are in control of your own life, and you have the ability to change your life for the better whenever you choose to take action, the change you will experience comes from within.

Ready to get going? I want you to begin by simply noticing your own self-talk, that is what you say to yourself about yourself. Whenever you catch yourself beating yourself up, or saying anything negative about yourself turn it around and say something more positive. I want you to begin to believe really believe that you are a special person and that you have a life.

Every achiever that I have ever met says, `my life turned around when I began to believe in me`. Dr Robert Schuller, Minister and Author

Today I invite you to begin – to believe in you and your own self-worth. Practice believing in yourself today!

Shirley Caldwell [http://21stcenturywoman.com/] Shirley Caldwell is a Life and Business Coach she specialises in writing articles on self improvement, especially self esteem. The website attracts interest from both men and women who are keen on self development.

You are welcome to publish this article on your website or in your newsletter providing the full resource box is included.

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The Process of Developing Self-Awareness: Susan’s Example

Having the motivation to understand how you harm your relationships and getting up the courage to ask questions and honestly report to yourself what you find out is a process worth-taking. The insights that you gain enable you to stop sabotaging your relationships and make the necessary changes to develop a satisfying intimacy.

The process Susan goes through as she develops her Self-Awareness is an example of how to go about developing Self-Awareness. As you observe her process, her way of paying attention to what’s happening with her relationships, the questions she poses and the answers she comes up with, you will get an “inside-look” into this important process.

Susan’s embarking on the process of Self-Awareness

Susan is restless. In spite of having a strong desire for a relationship and after having had quite a few, she hasn’t managed until now to develop one that’s right for her. Something always seemed to go wrong: it either turned out that the partners she fell in love with weren’t suitable for her; that the arguments and disagreements they had made the bond unbearable and the relationship always ended, sometimes at her initiation, sometimes against her will, leaving her angry and frustrated and blaming her partners.

Now, that she met Jerry, she decides the time has come for her to understand, once and for all, why do her relationships always fail. After all, she feels she has so much love to give and such a strong desire for a serious, intimate bond. Isn’t it time to stop blaming “all these men”? She asks herself. “Is it really possible that not even one of them was right for her?” “Could it be that it’s something her that’s preventing her from finding and developing a genuine, intimate relationship?”

In a heart to heart talk with her best friend, Susan is encouraged to get up the courage to look inwards; to finally figure out what makes her relationships fail time and again. While afraid to look inwards, she hopes to understand what’s happening; to see whether there’s something she can do to make things differently. She really wants to be able to save her current relationship with Jerry from collapsing, like so many in the past.

Questions Susan asks herself regarding past relationships

Susan gets up the courage to ask herself questions she’d avoided asking until now. To examine and check, in all honesty, her modes of behavior. Re-constructing past relationships, she is examining whether she was authentic and genuine with her partners. She is wondering:

* Has she given to her partners out of love or on condition that… (and eventually got angry, aggressive and frustrated)?

* Did she approach them with demands or complaints?

* Did she have unrealistic expectations?

* Did she have unrealistic fantasies?

* Did she refrain from expressing her own desires for fear that her partners might leave her (and ultimately she got revengeful, hostile and unpleasant)?

* Did she accept them for whom they were (or tended to criticize them)?

* Did she love them “so much” that she made them feel smothered? Or was it that she clung to them all the time out of dependency (to the point of suffocating them)?

* Did she make jealous scenes?

* Did she try to stop them from doing things with their friends?

It takes Susan some time to ask herself these and other questions; to think, recall and honestly answer to herself. It isn’t easy. At times it’s frustrating, annoying, and even scary. But she knows, deep down inside, that she’s doing the right thing.

As she contemplates her past relationships and writes down what she finds out, she feels that she’s discovering things about herself she hasn’t known before. She will make it with Jerry, she promises herself, she will!

Observing herself and asking questions in a specific situation with Jerry

Susan and Jerry are having a quick lunch at a cafe. They’ve just arrived. Jerry’s cell phone rings and he answers. Susan, with natural curiosity, asks herself: “who is he talking with?”

Thoughts begin racing through her mind. But this time, not as on previous situations in which she reacted too quickly, she decides to stick to the decision she made a short time ago: to learn more about herself by observing and understanding how she handles herself.

Observing her thoughts

Susan is curious to know who Jerry is talking with. Since she’s decided to observe and learn about herself, she doesn’t ask him while he’s still on the cell phone, as she used to do in the past. Instead, she chooses to focus on the thoughts passing through her mind: “Why didn’t he turn off his cell phone when we came into the cafe?”; “How much longer will he talk?”; “Is he talking with a man or a woman?”; “Why is the call more important to him than I am?”

Observing her thoughts enables Susan to become aware of the connection between her thoughts and her self-esteem, between her thoughts and her reactions. Susan wonders whether the thought “Why is the call more important to him that I am?” stems from her poor self-esteem; from the feeling that she isn’t worth enough.

She tells herself she doesn’t have to jump into any conclusion right now. It will present itself later, before she’ll go to sleep or while writing down her observations. What she has to do now is just pay attention.

Observing her feelings

Susan observes Jerry’s behavior as he speaks on his cell phone, and is aware that he isn’t even looking at her during the call. She feels that he’s ignoring her. She knows that Jerry is concentrating on the phone call, which may be the reason why he isn’t looking at her. This knowledge doesn’t prevent her from feeling different emotions that arise within her: anger, fear, jealousy, sadness, helplessness.

However, not as on previous situations, when she used to react with outbursts of anger and jealousy, she doesn’t react automatically. She prefers to continue observing herself. She is aware that she’s angry and jealous and asks herself what it is about Jerry’s phone call that arouses these emotions in her. She will later decide how and if to react (including the option of clarifying things with Jerry when he ends his phone call).

Observing her judgmental reactions and interpretations

When the phone call goes on and on, Susan begins to ask herself: “Is he showing contempt for me?”; “Doesn’t he appreciate me?”; “Is he taking me for granted?”

Susan notices that she doesn’t jump at the chance to interpret Jerry’s behavior as contempt for her or as lack of appreciation as she might have done in the past. Instead, she’s considering whether she really should interpret his behavior that way.

Is it possible, she dares asking herself, for the first time ever, is it possible that such interpretation might stem not from Jerry’s attitude towards her, but from vulnerability and pain she is carrying with her as unfinished business from her past (a feeling of contempt she felt from previous partners) which hasn’t healed yet? And, come to think of it, is it possible that the feeling of contempt she felt from past partners actually stemmed from her relationships with her father?

Observing her expectations and fantasies

While Jerry continues to talk on his cell phone, Susan observes the expectations and fantasies she had about their meeting at the cafe: she had planned to sit and hold hands with him without interruptions; tell him about how her morning went; feel that they were together, just the two of them in the cafe, regardless of other people who might be sitting there. In short: she was hoping to have a sweet romantic interlude. And now everything was ruined.

But she reminds herself that she has decided to observe and hold off her automatic reactions. To become aware of herself once and for all and to consider different modes of reaction and behavior than the ones she used in the past.

So she takes the time to observe what’s happening within her and ask herself questions:

* Could it be that her expectations were unrealistic?

* Could it be that Jerry has actually hoped to be there for her one hundred per cent, but he met her while distracted and preoccupied with work issues?

* And is it possible that he knew in advance that he would not have time for her, but decided to meet at the cafe anyway, just so that they could spend a few minutes together during the lunch hour?

These thoughts pacify her. Rather than judging Jerry for being insensitive (which she might had done in the past) she can now feel more love for him, feeling that he does love her and does the best he can to be with her. It downs on her that the anger and jealousy she often felt were caused by her expectations.

Observing her reactions and behaviors

Susan looks at her watch and notices that Jerry’s phone call has been going on for 10 minutes. She does feel angry and disappointed, in spite all the insights she is gaining. Soon their time together will be over. She considers what to do, how to react. In the past, in similar situations with Jerry and previous partners, she would simply have gotten up, pushed her chair back noisily, and dramatically stormed out of the place.

This time, for a change, she tells herself: “Susan, calm down”. She is observing herself from aside and finds herself talking to herself as though someone else were speaking to her.

She wants to react with full awareness to the situation. This decision helps her halt the automatic reaction and behavioral patterns she has been using in the past, and to take the time to consider what to do. Maybe she’ll simply wait for Jerry to end the phone call and then speak to him, share her thoughts and feelings.

Writing down what she’s observed and found out

Susan is devoting part of the afternoon to write down her observations. She rather note them down as soon as she can, she tells herself, while they’re still fresh in her mind; while she still remembers her thoughts and feelings; while she still remembers the insights she has gained.

As she writes down her observations of her meeting with Jerry during lunch, she’s trying to see whether she can identify any common patterns between her thoughts and feelings during today’s meeting and previous ones (with Jerry and past partners). The more commonalities she’ll identify, she tells herself, the more accurately she’ll be able to pinpoint the issues she needs to work on.

Developing Your Self-Awareness

As Susan’s example shows, having the motivation to understand how you harm your relationships and getting up the courage to ask questions and honestly report to yourself what you find out is a process worth-taking. The insights you gain enable you to stop sabotaging your relationships and make the necessary changes to develop a satisfying intimacy.

Doron Gil, Ph.D., is an expert on Self-Awareness and Relationships with a 30 year experience as a university teacher, workshop leader, counsellor and consultant. He is the author of more than 100 articles on the subject and of: “The Self-Awareness Guide to a Successful Intimate Relationship”. Available as eBook and paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Self-Awareness-Guide-Successful-Intimate-Relationship/dp/143925141X/

Using more than 200 real-life anecdotes Dr. Gil explains the ways in which women and men sabotage their relationships, shows how to become aware of it and make the necessary changes to develop a successful relationship.

More on Dr. Gil, his book and articles: http://self-awareness-and-relationships.blogspot.com

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Developing-Self-Awareness-to-Succeed-With-Relationships:-An-Example-of-the-Process&id=6464521

Many women suffer from lack of self confidence and low self esteem and it frustrates them to no end. They want to do more, speak up more often, and feel better about their presence in the world. Basically, they want to audition for, and land, the lead role in their own lives! This article offers some suggestions from a life coach for women on the process of developing self confidence.

Often the root cause of lack of self confidence is the messages we received in early childhood, somehow given the message that we are never worthy or good enough. Since these are things that happened in the past, we can’t change those events. But, with support for self acceptance, we can heal the wounds from those events.

What needs healing is the emotions that we feel whenever we want to take confident action, but something stops us. Suddenly, we’re triggered into a place of fear, doubt, or even shame at the idea of stepping up and taking action. What is often not realized is that it’s the physical sensations in the body that are aroused from childhood wounds that have never been healed. The event requiring confident action is the trigger of the same body sensations you felt as a child when you were somehow made to feel unworthy. So perhaps when you want to take self confident action, you notice your chest tensing up, or your stomach feeling sickly, or your heart racing. The body is where we want to focus our attention for healing.

Rather than try to resolve the lack of self confidence on the mental plane – with explanations, justifications, better self talk, understanding, different stories, or new mental imagery – I am suggesting that we face the deeper issue, the physical sensations that come with the sense of unworthiness, low self esteem, or poor self confidence.

The physical sensations that go with the concept of unworthiness are so deep and so unpleasant, we’ll do just about anything not to experience them. We might avoid any event that would trigger it (don’t even audition for a role in your own life) or distract ourselves from it (I’m really too busy to try out.) or fight it (I’ll just push through this so other people think I’m brave, while telling myself I’m really a coward). Fighting the sensation can look like courage sometimes, but sometimes just disguises the fear of feeling the awful feelings of shame and fear.

As a life coach for women I suggest a mindfulness practice I call Awareness of Emotions, which takes you into experiencing the body sensations, pure and void of all the mental judgments and evaluations. When we can simply observe and experience the body sensations, allowing the body to feel whatever it feels without judgment or trying to chase it away, no matter how yucky it feels, we will begin to grow into true self acceptance. And self acceptance completely undoes the notion and feelings of unworthiness. The realization of “I accept myself just as I am,” means you can have whatever body sensations you have without labeling them right or wrong. We can begin to learn from the body. It really is just an energy source that wants our attention. When we no longer fear our own sensations, we will not need to run or avoid or fight to cover them up. Instead we can enter into the flow of sensations and accept them just as they are. And as we do that, we discover the reality of an openness, a calm, a Presence that is very loving and peaceful – just waiting to be discovered through our awakening.

We are meant to be free to act, speak, and flow with life without judgment of right or wrong, unworthy or worthy. We begin to see that all of the judgments are unreal. What IS real is you, your aliveness, all your body sensations, and your free expression.

Blessings for your awakening to experience true self confidence for women through self acceptance!

Brook Montagna, Life Coach for Women in Transition, helps you live a more mindful and successful life. Learn more about mindfulness practices and self confidence in women from Life Coach for Women with Brook Montagna at www.MindfulLifeCoach.com

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Self-Confidence-in-Women-Begins-With-Self-Acceptance:-Tips-From-a-Life-Coach-for-Women&id=6684620

Have you ever met a tyrant? A tyrant is someone who wants to have control over you. It is a person who tries to restrain you from living your greatest life. Mostly, tyrants maintain that they just try to help you. They justify taking control over your life by saying “I just want what is best for you.”

When we face a tyrant, we can either choose to claim our power or to let the tyrant gain control over our life. Since we would like to live our greatest life, we choose to claim our power. If we have to cope with a persistent tyrant, claiming our power will be a difficult task if we don’t know what claiming our life means and how we can claim and protect our power.

Claiming our power means claiming our life and our dreams. When we claim our lives, we take matters into our own hands. This means that we make our own decisions, create our path, take action and take responsibility for our lives.

In other words, claiming your power means expanding your own abilities in life. You increase your power, and therefore you also expand your borders. You don’t make yourself small; instead, you accept and use your power for people’s greater good.

Sometimes, there are people who intend to interrupt us for different reasons. They don’t let us claim our power, since they are interested in having power over us. Their goal is to keep control over our lives to increase their power.

An example of this could be a husband who wants his wife to do everything that he tells her. Another example would be a supervisor in the corporate world who tries to suppress his employees.

Different ways of claiming your power

Never forget that what someone says about you says more truth about himself or herself than about you. Never forget that there might be people who try to get power over us. Again, it is not about us, but about them.

What different ways of claiming our power can we think of? The different ways can be derived from a Martial Arts fight. Some are described in Sun Tzu’s book “The Art of War.”

· Remind the opponent to be respectful.

· We can ask someone for support who helps us defend our borders.

· We look out for the opponents’ weaknesses, use them against the person strategically, and transform them into our own strengths.

· We ask ourselves why the other person is an opponent. Even though there can be very different reasons for this, I would like to give you some common examples: Is it because of my gender? Do they feel threatened by my power? Are they afraid that they might be replaced? Are they envious because they haven’t done what I did, but they would have liked to?

· Choose your battles wisely. Reserve your power for those cases that are important to you.

· Withdraw yourself from the battle as long as you are inferior in strength. Then grow strong, and join the battle again when the conditions are better.

· Attack when you have good chances to win.

· Surround the opponent and attack from different sides at the same time. In life, you could follow different paths at the same time.

· Show yourself as weak even though you are strong in order to irritate the opponent.

What about the inner opponent? The inner opponent is worse than outer opponents, because he is hidden and he is always where we are. We claim our power against the inner opponent the same way that we claim our power against outer opponents.

Andrea Brigitte Klee
Author and Speaker
E-Mail: andreaklee@gmx.net

Official Website: http://www.AndreaKlee.com
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Do you know what the secret is to improving low-self esteem? Is it a magic potion found in cosmetics, hair dye, or diet pills? Do you remove low-self-esteem in a yoga pose, a gym or the latest weight loss plan? Whether or not you have high or low-esteem is determined by how you-not your husband, not your friends, not society-but how “you”–feel about you.

When do we ever learn to love and accept ourselves? How many people do we need to say that we are beautiful for us to believe it? How many opinions does it take to validate our own self-worth for us to believe that we are valuable human beings? How many times do we have to hear that we are beautiful, successful, wonderful creatures for us to own it? Who has to say it for us to know that it is true? We do. We must validate our own beauty, our own self-esteem and our own self-worth. No one owes us. We owe ourselves.

For the most part, the majority of people are as screwed up as we are. They are searching outside of themselves for what is inside of their souls. The person who is 5’7′ and 104 pounds wish they were ten pounds bigger and curvier like their best friend. The friend weighting 114 pounds wishes she were 10 pounds thinner like her 104 pound friend. The blond beauty dyes her hair brunette and the brunette bombshell dyes her hair blond thinking that true beauty is the right shade in a bottle of hair dye.

The tall girl wears flat shoes so that she appears shorter and the short girl wears 5 inch heels so that she can appear taller. The person you envy envies someone else who she thinks is much more attractive than she is. When is it okay to accept the body you were born with? When and under what circumstances will this body be good enough for you? How many pounds do you need to lose to get to the core of your real beauty?

What shades of hair are you looking for that will give you the beauty that you so desperately seek? What’s the magic number that will make you perfect? How many pounds do you need to lose to be really gorgeous? Who do you think you need to look like to be beautiful? Why do you think this person is more attractive than you? What’s wrong with you the way you are? No matter who you think of as being extraordinarily attractive, there is somebody who won’t agree with you. So why not claim your own unique divine beauty!

There are many people who died today because their bodies were not healthy enough to carry their souls on earth. These people would give anything-anything-to be able to hug their child one more time, tell their mate that they love them just one more time, or merely watch a sunset one more time. They would gladly take your body. Appreciate your body it’s your soul’s only source of transportation on earth.

One of the most important things that you can do improve your confidence and self-esteem is to stop comparing yourself with people on televisions sitcoms, big screen movies and fashion magazines. Look at the people in your community, at the grocery store, malls, schools, doctor’s office these are the lovely people who make the world go round. These are people who have not been airbrushed and their image is not projected from an angle of a camera. The secret to eliminating low self-esteem is to simply stop comparing yourself to anyone and appreciate your life.

Dr. Cassandra George Sturges MA, MA, is a mother of two teenagers, a full-time psychology professor, author of “A Woman’s Soul on Paper” ISBN: 0595171435; The Illusion of Beauty: Why Women Hate Themselves & Envy Other Women; Men Interviewed Tell: 101 Things Women do to Turn Men Off; Success & Beauty is an Attitude: A Woman’s Guide to finding herself and making her dreams come true.

https://sites.google.com/site/junglebeautygoddess/ or YouTube Videos: Authentik Beauty Blogs

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I find it extremely insightful to observe the difficulty some people have in receiving an acknowledgement. A lump swells in their throat, their palms begin to sweat, tension rises in their neck and they become fidgety. They also begin to misread the acknowledger by asking themselves questions. “Are they lying?” “How am I to believe them?” “What do they want?” By giving an acknowledgement the feelings were pretty well the same. The acknowledger doubted what they wanted to say and questioned whether it was appropriate to give the acknowledgement. “They won’t believe me.” “I’ll sound stupid.”

When was the last time you acknowledged or validated yourself? Or acknowledged or validated someone else? Funny thing is many of us seem to believe that this beautiful gift is not important. Why is this so? Because many of us have never experienced many acknowledgements growing up, so it doesn’t come naturally. And because we haven’t experienced many acknowledgements growing up, they sound foreign to us. This leaves us neither knowing how to give nor receive a simple yet powerful tool.

Here’s what others’ acknowledgements and validations can look like:

- Having someone endorse you when you are afraid to forge ahead.

- Focusing on your strengths when all you see are your weaknesses.

- Wanting a better way for you when you find it hopeless.

- Holding your vision high when you are down.

- And recognizing your talents and accomplishments when you are blind to see them.

These can be something unknown to most of us, yet it is a gift that will move someone into action.

A simple acknowledgement is a way to bring out the best in others. It is a way to shed the light so they can see their true and unlimited potential. And to give them strength and courage as they are cheered on through their endeavours.

As an acknowledger, you are sharing something extremely precious and invaluable. There is not enough gold or diamonds on the planet that will bring that sense of empowerment, warmth and love to someone’s heart as they grow in acceptance towards this gift.

Don’t wait for someone to acknowledge you either. Begin acknowledging your strengths, talents, character, emotions, feelings, attributes, skills and all the things you’ve done in your life to help, encourage, support and love yourself and others.

Also remember to embrace your weaknesses, awkwardness, vulnerabilities, dislikes or disheartened relationships. By embracing your dark side, you begin to heal yourself with the power of love and self-acceptance. You also acknowledge the completeness of who you are. By acknowledging the completeness of who you are, you begin to see yourself as already perfect and whole just the way you are. By doing this you stop the resistance or the “dis-ease”. Ultimately, the resisted and unacknowledged dark side impacts your health in a negative way. You wouldn’t be where you are today without your so-called dark side. Wake up and use your acknowledgement skills. Once they become a well used positive habit, you’ll be amazed how you can help transform the lives of others as well as your own.

“You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.” -Bob Nelson

Discover the #1 Rule to Live By! Wake Up To Life is the monthly ezine for women who seek direction, change, meaning, purpose and passion in their lives. Visit http://www.desireeleigh.com/ezine.htm to begin designing the life of your dreams!

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Many people go through life’s usual phases of ups and downs which are common and normal stages in life, but when your self- esteem is low, you may need to know how to boost your self-esteem, since it can lead to problems you may not have thought of.

Self-esteem is the measurement or the value of how a person knows his worth and it’s effects are life-changing and dramatic, since it makes up a person’s attitude and outlook towards life.

Simply put, self -esteem is the fuel that makes you feel important or loved by others, but when self-esteem is low, you can either sulk and be sad or be afraid to try out new things or take risks and chances with your love-life, career, relationships and self – improvement.

Self-esteem plays a key role in the maturity of a person, especially when trying to get away from a precarious situation, weathering a personal crisis or going through a series of trials in life – our normal responses to these circumstances and situations are governed by how we value ourselves and how our decisions are dictated by these conditions.

Faced with tough decisions in life, the more self- esteem one has- the better it is for that person to make sound decisions, even under the face of peer pressure or stress at work and at home. Let us try to look into some of the common and best practices which have been tried and tested to help boost self -esteem.

Always compliment yourself daily, especially by trying to look for specific tasks you did good for that day and congratulate yourself for it.

It will give you a regular motivation to work harder and better to improve yourself and develop your sense of maturity as a person. List down all things you are good at doing and achieving, be it a talent, skill, sport or building up other people.

You can add more focus to these good points and fuels our passion to do better and make you not only understand yourself more, but also give you the true meaning and measurement of self worth and this is how you see yourself as important.

Appreciation of one’s physical appearance and bearing can also be your source of self -esteem, be it the size and shape of your body, your overall physical structure or unique features.

Your body can be your source of pride and will help you understand how you would like others to see you, or work on your physical appearance to boost self -morale and satisfaction.

Although you may regard yourself as important or having a sound mind, there are just some things you cannot change.

Sometimes when you tend to see things in a different light or perspective from others, don’t focus too much on making sure that what you think will cause things to change- more oftentimes it will not, but don’t let that cloud your perception about yourself.

When you have good self-esteem you will realize that what you did was right and was made under your own good judgment, sound principles and concepts based on your personal outlook and attitude towards life.

Do not let negative feedback affect you. Of course, one cannot help but feel bad about negative comments or reactions, but you have to consider that these are tests against your character and personality. When your self-esteem is high, you are less likely to be affected by these situations.

So try to look at yourself and see, and if you feel less important or are not satisfied with how you see and look at things, then think about techniques for improving self esteem – you’ll thank yourself for it.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Aidan_Hughes
http://EzineArticles.com/?Techniques-for-Improving-Self-Esteem&id=6794086

I had two major speech therapies in my life. One took maybe 6 months when I was 13 and the other one about 1 year when I was 21. But the biggest problem with my speech wasn’t actually the speaking technique, I knew I could talk as I was fluent when talking to myself or to my therapists. The problem was that I did not want to open my mouth in front of more than one person. Improving confidence was the key.

I worked with two psychologists between my age 14 and 21 and one of them got it. Unluckily, when I visited him 2 years ago his colleague told me he had died. I did not have the chance to tell him, that he was right. I told the other one though. She is a lovely lady and I explained her, what was the biggest issue.

As you can now guess, it was the lack of improving self confidence. I was told all the tricks, did the exercises, explained all the feelings from my childhood and underwent everything else I had to in order to be fluent, but no one gave me exercises that I could use in real life. And that was the missing link in my therapy. I had to discover that in another country.

After I moved to London my speech was terrible. I was hired as a receptionist at a 4 star hotel, don’t know how, and that was the start of everything. But first I was terrified of talking in front of the guests and I never made it to the check-in / check-out process. Three days later I asked to be transferred to the Concierge desk as I wanted to escape this hell and that department seemed the best shelter. I was still running away from talking. It was actually even more talking demanding as I discovered later…

The head of Concierge hired me and later he told me he had doubted so much after my interview. But he gave me a chance and I did not let him down. I was the best one in his team, although my daily tasks involved 100% communication about things I had no idea at the beginning. I had to answers questions, was under stress 24/7 and had to make difficult decisions and supervise people. I would have never imagined I could do that. Honestly.

I still stutter, but you would not sometimes notice. The main point is that with improving my self confidence I started to see the world from a different perspective. I do not hide as before although I have my days. But everyone does, no one is perfect. Now I just do what you have to do. I got into this stage being thrown into the wild river without knowing how to swim. And it helped…

Hope you found valuable information for your particular issue. Wish you all the best!

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Does your teenager show signs of low self-esteem and confidence? Do you know what to look for if they do? What is low self-esteem anyway?

Low self-esteem is defined as not having a high regard or trust in yourself or your abilities. In other words, you don’t believe that you can do what you say you can do.

Do you think, if your teenager was experiencing this problem, you could recognize the warning signs? Studies have shown a serious connection between low self-esteem and problems with drinking, abuse, domestic violence, low grades in school, and eating disorders. Some case studies have even been fatal.

So, with that in mind, let’s view 10 Ways to Identify Low Self-Esteem in your Teen:

1. Deep desire to impress people.–These teenagers want to have the latest fashions and the newest technology to keep up with the “In” crowd.

2. Always trying to prove themselves.–They want you to believe whatever they are telling you, even when they don’t believe it themselves.

3. Manipulate people to get what they want.–They request favors from you and special treatments by giving you empty promises of repayment or chores.

4. Show disrespect to themselves and others.–They use language that is unacceptable to their current environment, dress in a way that is not suitable for a teenager, or talk down to you with little or no remorse.

5. Lack of trust in their accomplishments.– They don’t acknowledge the hard work they put into projects they create or perform. For example, they could have just won an “Honors Award” at school and all they can say is “No Big Deal”.

6. Strong desire to be perfect.–Nothing they do is ever good enough for them.

7. Strong need to be accepted.–They always want to go to the school dances, parties, the mall, or the movies, just because everyone else is going to be there.

8. Doesn’t believe they deserve what they achieve.–They use phrases like “I don’t know why you’re giving this to me, I didn’t do anything to get this.”

9. Blame others for their actions.– They don’t want to be responsible for doing anything wrong, so they say someone else did it to cover up their negative actions.

10. Fear of taking risks.–They know they have outgrown the friends they hang around, but they don’t want to take a chance on losing their current friends by finding new friends.

And now I would like to invite you to claim your FREE Instant Access to 3 Bonus Chapters of my book 31 Ways to Brighten your Days when you visit http://www.stressrelief31ways.com Antoinette Capri–The CapriiCare Mentor and Founder of Caprii Communications.

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People who can motivate themselves to use their skills toward reaching positive goals often feel good about themselves. Here are some techniques to motivate yourself:

Outline for Motivation

1. Think about what you want to accomplish in life (for instance, writing a short story or directing a school play). I suggest you have a list of three of four things you want to accomplish and then write them down.

 

2. Look at these goals and determine how close you are to reaching them.

 

3. Compare these goals to your past experience with using these skills or you may decide to pursue a new skill.

 

4. Figure out how much it would cost in terms of finances and time to accomplish the goal (you are more likely to succeed when you focus on one goal at a time).

 

5. While pursuing that goal, give yourself positive affirmations regarding that goal. For instance, if you are directing a school play, you would tell yourself you are able to adapt the script to your viewing audience and to the students, and you tell yourself the play will be successful in terms of reaching a large audience and making money for the school. Then focus on making the play successful before the opening night.

How These Steps Work

When you think about what you want to accomplish in life, decide which things are important to you. I decided to start a blog because I enjoy writing and I enjoy helping other people. Your motivation for doing specific things may be different. However, I suggest you pursue goals for the benefit of society. People feel good when they help other people, and that builds the person’s self esteem.

While looking at these goals and deciding how close you are to reaching them. You may feel good about goals you have almost or completely reached and then think about other goals that are important to you.

The third step is to compare these goals and decide whether you want to use skills you already have, skills you may want to improve, or try something new. I already had writing skills. I had to relearn how to write articles, because I did not write articles for many years.

Then figure out whether the goal can be easily reached financially and whether you have the patience to work toward that goal until you have reached that goal. Blogging doesn’t cost me very much money. However, it takes time to build a blogging business. I decided I enjoy this enough to pursue it even if I don’t make much money during the first six months or a year.

The last step given above would be to give yourself positive affirmations. I tell myself I am a good writer and I am helping people lead better lives. I tell myself I am helping people, and even if my articles are occasionally rejected, I can learn from the rejected materials and keep focused on improving my skills related to article writing and blogging. Positive affirmations build my self esteem. It tells me I am a good writer whether other people agree with me or not. Without positive affirmations, you may decide to give up on your goal. When you have low self esteem, you may tell yourself you are lousy at what you are doing. If you give up, you will not reach your goals.

This article talks about getting motivated, and then deciding which goals to pursue. Once you have decided to work on achieving that goal, you can encourage yourself to them. As you make progress in reaching your goal, you start telling yourself you are doing the right thing. When you have accomplished one goal, you can move onto other goals with more confidence. When you are confident, you have high self esteem.

Sarah Mathews has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She used to suffer from low self esteem. She has a blog on self esteem because she wants to help other people improve their lives.

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