Think Positive About Your Self Confidence!

A person’s self confidence is their ability to believe in themselves. People with a high self confidence are optimistic, assertive, and eager individuals ready to take on the world and conquer the goals. On the other hand, people with a low self confidence find themselves often distant and despondent, constantly questioning themselves and often passive or submissive.

Self confidence is the key to succeeding in your academic pursuits, athletic activities, employment field, and private life. Individuals that entertain a high sense of self confidence usually go on to phenomenally succeed, whereas individuals with a low sense of self confidence tend to be brought down by their inner demons and fail.

The trap of low self confidence is extremely easy to fall into and extremely difficult to remove yourself. That tiny voice in the back of your head that criticizes, questions, and insults can easily grow louder and louder the more you listen. Instead of traditional angel on one should and devil on the other, someone with low self confidence finds the devil there more often than not. Instead of boosting themselves up by enjoying their accomplishments or congratulating themselves on a job well done, individuals with low self esteem find their shoulder devil is constantly picking and finding fault in the midst of triumph.

They key to maintaining a high self esteem is positive thinking. Individuals that think of themselves in a positive light are more likely to have a higher self confidence than those nay-sayers in the crowd. One way to remain positive and keep and upbeat aura is to surround yourself with positive people.

Avoid individuals who criticize, nit pick, and put down. These negative individuals are a sinking ship and will only bring you down with them. By surrounding yourself with positive people, you will find it easier to maintain your high sense of a self worth and banish that devil from your shoulder. If you find yourself in a situation where you must deal with individuals with a negative outlook, confront them on the matter.

Often, office gossip, school yard taunts, or home issues bury themselves deep within our minds and wreck havoc on our self confidence. Instead of allowing yourself to be burdened by these harmful words and thoughts, fight back! Refuse to stoop to their level, but insist the back biting and drama cease with the negative words.

This task is certain to be difficult and the easiest thing to do is to walk away and let yourself moon over the hurtful words and thoughts, but the right thing to do is to attempt to put a stop to the situation. If the individuals refuse to cease, continue, or even worsen their actions, then break apart from the trend. Unfortunately, this may mean ending relationships, both personal and job related.

If you find yourself surrounded by so-called friends who constantly make you feel poorly about yourself and lower your self confidence, it might be time to part ways. Remember, friends, family, and loved ones are supposed to make you feel good about yourself and have your best interest at heart. This is not always the case and friends by title alone can do more harm than most enemies.

Furthermore, personal relationships can have the same—if not worse—affect on one’s self confidence level. Quite often, individuals in abusive relationships find themselves despondent and upset about their situation. If a loved one is making you feel poorly about yourself by constant criticism, abusive language, and distrusting actions, drastic circumstances may be due.

Make the case for a change in the relationship and make your loved one understand what his or her words, thoughts, or actions do to your self confidence. If this fails, you may need to make a painful break, but remember, your loved ones are supposed to love and support you at all times. If someone is failing to do so, they have not fulfilled their role in you life

Regaining Your Self Esteem After an Abusive Relationship

Abuse relationships have the capability to inflict tremendous physical and psychological distress on the individual in the relationship. In addition to emotional and literal scars that are caused by abusive relationships, an individual’s self esteem can be completely demolished.
Many individuals in an abusive relationship have been consistently told and shown they are not of value, nor of worth. After constant reminders, both men and women who are victims of abusive relationships begin to think these derogatory remarks are true. Instead of the inner feeling of self worth and confidence, these individuals have little or no self esteem left after the destructive effects of an abusive relationship.
If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, you should immediately remove yourself from the situation. Quite often, this is easier said than done as abusive relationships are initiated and maintained under the pretense of love and affection. If an individual has your well being in mind and truly cares about you, he or she will not verbally or physically abuse you.
Even though this abusive individual apologizes or begs your forgiveness, abuse is cyclic and this behavior is part of its final cycle. Usually, individuals in abusive relationships say their partner is loving and supportive, then violent and abusive, then apologetic and loving. This cycle continues until either party decides enough is enough and ends the cycle.
Individuals in abusive relationships often find themselves trapped and feel their options are extremely limited or nonexistent. If you are in an abusive relationship and feel there is no way out, reevaluate your situation. Turn to friends or family members who will support you in your decision to break ties and end the relationship.
Individuals who are truly your loved ones will want whatever is best for you and support you in any decisions you may make. If you have no one to turn to, seek help from shelters or different organizations that are in existence to help people in your specific situation. With the help of these individuals, you can begin rebuilding your life and renewing your self esteem.
Once you have made the decision to break free from your abusive relationship, begin the process of rebuilding your life. This rebuilding process may take some time, so be prepared to invest a great deal of time and effort into rebuilding your life. You may need to make serious choices regarding your future, including changing locations to another city and changing your choice of career.
Leaving an abusive relationship will most likely mean moving into a new home. You may need temporary housing, so consider staying with friends or family members or staying at a shelter that specializes in abusive relationships. This is an incredibly difficult decision, but the best boost to your self esteem will come after you have made the decision and begin to piece your life back together.
After you have begun the rebuilding process, you may need to seek professional help regarding your mental or physical state. Speaking with a psychologist or counselor may be the initiation necessary to continue rebuilding your self esteem. Seek out a professional that will assist you in that specific area using a variety of different exercises and techniques.
Furthermore, you may wish to join a support group so that you can speak with other individuals who have suffered similar abuse. If you do not have access to a support group or feel attending a support group is not for you at his point in time, consider accessing the World Wide Web and finding a chat room that will serve as support. Once you start on your road to recovery, stay strong and remember you are an individual of worth and value. This will continue to build your self esteem and rebuild your life.

Ten Tips to Improve Your Self-Esteem

The best way to improve your life and earn the respect of others is to improve your self-esteem. This is not a very difficult task. All that it needs is good guidance. Here are ten tips that can happen when you improve your self--esteem.

1. You should surround yourself with people who are positive and supportive, and shun friends who are cynical and negative. This will generate a huge swell of positive feelings in you. You will respect yourself more, and your self-esteem will grow.

2. You should be clear about what you want to achieve in life. Set goals, and work for their achievement. To make your task easier, break your main goal into several smaller goals which are relatively easier to achieve. This will make the task of reaching your main goals seem easier. It will also give you a feeling of satisfaction whenever you achieve one of the smaller goals.

3. Always be positive about yourself and keep reminding yourself about your good qualities, your accomplishments and how you help your family, friends, others and yourself. Don’t make the mistake of brooding over negative things, and never put yourself down.

4. Develop the ability to accept criticism about yourself, without getting upset or defensive. This will help you eliminate your weaknesses one by one. However, make sure that the criticism is constructive. Don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed by criticism that is cynical or meant to lower your self-esteem. This will be a great mistake, and do irreparable damage to your self-esteem.

5. We all need to accept the fact that we will fail from time to time. We should not let it get us down or to have too much of a negative effect on us. We should think that we have not been successful this time and that we will succeed the next time. This will help us to pull ourselves together and move on. Such an attitude will help us overcome the most difficult conditions.

6. Never compare yourself with others. This is the easiest way to feel inferior and lose self-esteem. It is much better to rate yourself on your achievements. Such an approach will give you self-confidence. At the same time it will make you feel better when dealing with your peer group.

7. Never put yourself down. Failures are like parasites. If you allow them to grow they will eat away your self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem. The best is to push negative thoughts out of your mind, if you want others to treat you with respect. This can only happen when you project a positive exterior, even in most adverse situations. Make it a point to filter out all self-criticism.

8. Don’t give in to bullies in your place of work or in your personal life. You must learn to stand up to them. This can only happen if you are assertive about your rights. Of course, this does not mean that you should pick up physical battles to make your point. On the contrary, you should exercise restraint and make your point in a dignified manner. This will not only make others treat you with respect but also increase your self-esteem.

9. You may be self-conscious and because of this you may avoid talking to groups of people. Try to approach groups of people and introduce yourself to them. Ask them questions about themselves and try to be genuinely interested in the answers. Listen carefully and attentively to what they say and respond to show your interest. Interacting with people will make you feel more relaxed. You will realize that it is easy to speak to groups of people and to relax by concentrating on what others are saying, rather than on yourself.

10. Self-esteem is also dependent upon the felling of well-being. A lazy person or a poorly groomed person will always feel inferior to a confident, smart individual. So, you need to take good care of your body. Remember, a healthy body is essential for a healthy mind.