Self Improvement
Top Two Ways On How To Improve Self Esteem (Improving Self Confidence )
Improving self-esteem can be very difficult for most of the people. This is because the mind and body had accepted the negative suggestions internally and externally. The mind and body can be too comfortable of what has been processed that not allowing changes easily. Knowing the root factors and taking the right and effective steps can gradually improve your self-esteem.
The studies show that there 2 main ways on how to improve your self-esteem.
1. Change your internal opinions about yourself:
Since your younger age, you might have experienced many difficult situations and disappointments. Those situations have been fixed in your subconscious mind and have concluded some negative suggestions about yourself. For an example, if you have seen your parents earned money in hard ways, you might have fixed in your mind that you are poor and earning money can never be easy. This mind-set will affect your self-esteem on getting richer or earning good money in your life. The same thing happens on your failures that you face in your life. When you have failed in your driving test a few times, you might feel that you will not be able to drive well or you have no capability to drive. Your mind accepts this statement and makes your self-esteem level to go down and bring more failures to you.
Your self-esteem level that caused by your own mental block can be improved by writing down all your negative thoughts about yourself that have been collected in your mind. Take time to think back all the things that you have concluded negatively about you. Remember that these conclusions are just suggestions by your experiences and they are not true. You can change them with right steps. After you write down all the negative conclusions that you have about yourself, you can just think if those thoughts are worth having by you. You are naturally powerful and capable of doing anything. All you can do now is take action to change all the things that you think you need to change. You can challenge yourself to prove that you are capable to do anything. For an example, you can attend separate driving courses to improve your driving skill to see yourself to pass the test the very next time you take it!
2. Change You Negative Opinions That You Have From External Factors:
You meet many people everyday in your life. You friends, family members, relatives or even strangers might give you negative comments about you most of the time. The comments can be about your physical appearance, about your capabilities or anything else. More you listen and accept the negative comments about you, your mind can believe that statements and fix them to yourself. This can make you to lose your confidence on that certain area and make you to not able to success. Again, you must remember that people can say anything about you from their opinion. They are just opinions and they might not be true. It is not fair for you to accept their suggestions and ruin your own life and talents.
The steps are similar and easy. Write down all the suggestions that you have accepted from outside. Read them again and decide they are worth having in your beautiful life. You have to decide to change those negative suggestions by taking them away from your life. The only way to eliminate them away from you life will be writing down all the actions that you can take to improve in the specifically suggested areas. Remember that you have to decide to take actions to change only those things that important to be changed. Do not have to struggle by changing all the suggestions. Choose the best that need changes to improve your self-esteem and take the steps. For an example, if people say you look fat, and if it affects your self-confidence and if you think it is necessary to reduce down your weight, take action and join gym sessions! You will see yourself losing weight and gain your self-confidence back.
Using the Fear of Failure to Motivate You
In most cases the fear of failure 'intimidates' people and this is why it can turn so many away from their intentions or goals! On the other hand this same fear can also help strengthen or renew your motivation as well! People often use the benefits they will experience if they successfully reach their goals as a way of getting motivated. Why not turn that around and consider what you stand to lose thereby making you fear failure and as a result giving you the drive needed to succeed!
Let's look at how we can turn these fears into a source that will make getting motivated a relatively simple act!
Establish Realistic Goals
Making your goals realistic is the key and the only type of goals you should EVER set! These objectives should be achievable in terms of your abilities and resources otherwise you are setting yourself up to fail! This is very dangerous since you may be discouraged from ever attempting to set or reach any other 'challenging' goals again! This means you'll be forever content with not improving yourself or your situation or in other words you stop living! If what you established is achievable it makes it easier for getting motivated to tackle each and every objective you've set! No sense overwhelming yourself since nothing will get done other than increasing your own frustration!
Take Action
Setting realistic expectations for yourself makes taking the 'first' step easier and increasing the probability that you'll take any action at all! Your motivation should be at its highest level once your embark upon your quest to accomplish what you have set out to do! As progress is being made you realize you 'can' do it and if you consider the consequences you face if you decide to quit you should fear failure enough to keep moving forward!
Accept Who You Are
After establishing 'doable' objectives which you have actually undertaken all that stands between you and their successful completion is a total meltdown on your part! You ready to accept that and embrace your motivation or lack thereof as who you are? We're talking pride and a admission that you are voluntarily ready to accept what appears to be the fact you are a loser! Ouch! Harsh but true! Get your ass moving and finish what you started since once you do I promise you'll set the bar a little higher for yourself the next time and succeed once again! Congratulations you now fear failure more than you do the effort it takes to succeed! Amazing what we all can accomplish by getting a little air between our butts and the couch isn't it?
The fear of failure is a common one that keeps many from even attempting to establish or reach certain goals and objectives. But what if you fear failure and all it may represent to you in such a way that it can actually strengthen your motivation to succeed! This can and is often done and the discussion above 'chronicles' the process involved in using the prospects of falling short of any goals for getting motivated! In it human nature to focus on acquiring benefits more so than doing without or even losing them simply because the prospects are more attractive! However when facing the prospects of a loss of any type the feelings that you experience are another effective way for getting motivated to prevent this from happening!
The 7 Secrets of Magic
In my life I've been fortunate to witness many healings and miracles. From this direct experience I've noticed seven essentials ingredients to allowing magic in one's life:
1. Realize that there are no real "secrets" to magic
The keys to successful manifestation are apparent and obvious if you know where to look for them. These clues are not actually secret or hidden. It's simply that in our Western culture we're not taught where and how to look for manifestations of magic.
To discover more magic in your life, you can ask yourself, "If I knew where to look for magic in my daily life, where would I look?" Then, let go and allow whatever unfolds to unfold.
Pay attention to whatever occurs that's fresh and different in your everyday life. By paying attention to what's new, you'll find magical happenings. The miracles will occur outside your old frame of reference and expectation.
2. Learn to "see beyond"
If you look at the surface appearance of the world, you will only perceive what you "think" is there. For instance, if after first glance, you've decided your car keys are not on the hall table, then you won't be able to observe them lying there. But if you decide instead to focus your perception on what "might possibly" be on the hall table, you'll greatly increase the probability that you'll be able to see the keys lying there.
If you only look at the superficial appearance of your world, you'll only perceive what you've been told (or told yourself) to notice. You won't (can't) perceive anything else because you've been told (programmed) to believe it's not there. But if you direct your perception toward what is there that "you've not been told about," you'll greatly increase the range of possibility of what you can see. In my experience with friends, only the people who genuinely allow for the possibility of levitation are able to see a person levitate when it actually happens in their presence.
Also, if you focus your perception on what you can "see" (feel) behind the surface appearance of things, you'll perceive a whole magical world of pure energy. When you play with the creating energy patterns behind the surface "object" reality, the apparent world becomes infinitely malleable. It's much easier to heal a bone that you perceive as made of densely packed energy than it is to heal a bone you hold in mind as solid, hard, rigid physical matter.
3. Look past the obvious and normal
If you direct your attention to what is "obscured by the obvious and normal," you'll be able to perceive a world of fresh and different possibility. You can consciously decide to "override" your conditioned perceptional filters by deliberately deciding to only look for what is new and different. Then you'll see options that were always there, but you didn't see before because you weren't looking for them!
For example, if you're brought up in a culture (ancient and native societies) in which it's "normal" to perceive the spirits of deceased loved ones, then it'll be easy for you to see them. In these cultures it's not only socially acceptable to see dead relatives, it's socially expected! Even as late as the Middle Ages it was common and perfectly acceptable for people in Europe to see angels and ghosts.
If you're raised in a culture (the modern West) in which people are labeled "crazy" if they see angels or "spooks," then you either are not be able to perceive other dimensional beings (out of self preservation). Or you'll actually see them but keep your mouth shut!
4. Stalk the unusual
If you look for what is "out-of-the-ordinary," you'll perceive a whole different world of opportunities. Look for what is "out-of-sequence," what is "out of context" and "out of character."
Decide to notice what is "outside-the-box"--that is, outside your regular realm of experience. If you look into that "empty" space with openness, innocence of expectation and welcoming surprise, you'll be rewarded with unexpected (magical) occurrences!
5. Look in the "gaps"
As you conceive, so you shall perceive. If you conceive of the world as individual, separate objects--as we are conditioned to in Western culture--you'll only perceive individual, separate objects. But, if, instead, you look at the "gap" or space between these objects, you'll "see" into the energy field that connects all "separate" objects. You'll see into what I call the "creative void" or "creative vacuum." This magical space is void of human thought form--that is, free of conditioned perceptional filters.
Seeing into the energy field of the Gap, you have entry into the world of free-flowing, flexible, fluid energy reality. It's much easier to make radical changes in this fluid reality that you know is connected to you energetically--than it is to alter a rigid "objective" reality that you feel is separate from you.
6. Feel into the void
If you feel into the "creative void," you discover a dynamic powerhouse of creative energy that we are all actually already using unconsciously to manifest our dreams. However, a wizard uses this creative energy consciously, deliberately, to attract what the wizard desires in life. The ordinary programmed (asleep) person doesn't know how to tap into this "hidden" creative energy.
7. Feel from your heart space
If you feel into the creative void with your heart, you'll have the power to invest your dreams with enough creative energy to actually manifest your dreams in the real, physical world (money, career, body, relations). If you use only the meager power of your mind, you won't generally have sufficient creative energy to physicalize, materialize, your goals.
Mental thoughts, affirmation and positive thinking are helpful, but very limited in the amount of creative power they can provide to materialize your dreams. The heart space, however, is the center of our very being. It has all the creative power necessary to manifest all the aspiration of your soul.
A Few Helpful Hints
You might say, "This all sounds attractive--but very challenging (hard)!" You might feel that these seven secrets to magic sound exciting, but tricky to put into successful practice.
Here are three approaches to allow yourself to attract more magic in your life:
A) Consciously decide to "temporarily suspend your normal conditioned state of disbelief." In the West, "temporary insanity' is an acceptable legal defense that will keep you from being locked away!
B) Be willing to be open to the possibility that something could occur outside your "normal" realm of expectation or experience.
Setting Your Goals For Wealth Creation
The basics of setting a goal is well known by top athletes, successful businessmen and lots of top achievers in various fields. Setting goals gives you short-term and long-term motivation and focus. The goals help in acquiring knowledge and to plan and organize your resources and your time to get the best out of your life.
Setting clearly defined short-term and long-term goals will enable you to measure your progress and get lots of personal satisfaction once you have successfully met them. Charting your progress will also enable you to actually see the steps leading to the actual realization of your wealth goals. Your self-confidence and level of competence will also improve as you become aware of your abilities as you achieve your goals.
The basics of goal settings will involve deciding what you really want to do with your personal life and what goals you need to meet to achieve it. Then you have to break down goals into the smaller and manageable targets to complete on your way to achieving your wealth targets. Once you have your plan set out, immediately start tackling your goals.
One way to have a manageable plan is to have daily and weekly goals. You will always be in the position of working towards you goals. Everyday will give you the opportunity to fulfill a certain goal giving you the feeling of accomplishment.
Here are some pointers to be taken into consideration when setting wealth goals and achieving them.
Attitude plays a big role in setting and achieving wealth goals. Ask yourself if any part of you is holding you back from completing your simplest goals. If you do have problems in this areas then immediately address this problem. Solutions may include a psychiatric evaluation to control your emotions.
Education is a key in achieving your wealth goals. If your goals require that have a certain degree or require a certain skill, then make plans to get the appropriate education.
Your family should always be included in your plans. If you are just starting out then you need to consider how your family will be affected. What sacrifices are you prepared to make in order to create your wealth.
Present financial realities also play a major role in achieving your goals. Have a realistic goal on how fast you want to create wealth. Also, create plans through which you will reach your earning potential.
Physically gifted people may be able to achieve sports-related goals like being in the NBA or The Olympics. With wealth creation, you must also assess your health and physical capabilities. Physical limitations could however be handled by proper planning.
To start achieving your lifetime wealth creation goals, set a 20 year plan, then break it down to 5 year chunks, then again to 1 year, monthly plans, weekly and daily.
Create a list of things to do for the day.
Review your plans and prepare for the unexpected.
You'll find that goal setting becomes quite routine once you're familiar with the process If you continue to use this process for your wealth creation, I can guarantee that you will not only achieve your immediate goals, but eventually, one day your efforts will pay off and you'll have created HUGE WEALTH!
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Are Your Goals Aligned With Your Passions?
You may have heard about the importance of writing down and setting your goals for the future. And as the famous quote says, "if you fail to plan you plan to fail!"
Consider the following questions however:
Are your goals aligned with what you are truly passionate about?
Are your goals just based on what you think you should do or should have or should be?
How much do you really care if you achieve your goals or not?
It might seem like a nice idea to own a gigantic yacht, have it moored at Cannes marina, wear designer clothes, drink copious bottles of champagne an party all night, because that's what the celebrities do! But if this isn't really your thing and you would rather have a romantic night in with a DVD and a takeaway curry then chances are that you won't be bothered whether you achieve the goal or not!
When setting your goals for the up and coming year, 5 years or 10 years it is a great idea to start from the standpoint of your passions. It is then that you will feel really, dare I say it, "passionate" about achieving them. Your goals will also be closely aligned with your values or guiding principles. Your values are the things that are so important to you that you wouldn't want to live your life without them.
When your goals have been created from this starting point and you achieve or experience them, you will feel a whole host of positive emotions. How about feeling a sense of aliveness, freedom, joy, pampering, excitement, confidence, recognition, or success to name but a few!? This also has numerous connotations for helping us to lead a life free from stress.
So, what things do you love to do, what excites you and which of those things would you really not want to do without in your life?
Make a list of 10 things and write down the answer to these questions "Why, do I love doing that" or "why, is that important to me".
To give you an example; when I was trying to whittle down my list of passions to just 5, I realised that if I could connect with the feelings and qualities that I love to have in my life, then I am more likely to set goals which come from the heart. Goals that would feel truly satisfying and fulfilling, once I had achieved them. So for me, the feelings I love to experience are: joy; aliveness; a sense of being connected to others and the universe; a sense of luxury or being pampered; vitality & energy; feeling successful; confidence, honesty and intimacy, amongst others.
The next step was to ask myself "What things do I really love to do which help me to get in touch with these feelings?" Some of my answers were: travelling to new and exciting places; meditating & practising yoga; dancing (salsa); giving personal or wellness coaching to others; having the opportunity to attend workshops where I can learn more about myself and grow as a person; enjoying great food (but definitely not cooking it myself!) being in nature; enjoying open and honest communication.
In order for me to be able to experience and recreate the feelings that mean so much to me (as it is then that I feel like I am really living my life fully!) it makes sense for me to set my goals around the achievement of such feelings.
Following on from this, some of my goals (in a very general form) are:
1)To be a great Life Coach and continue to expand my business.
2)To continue my Meditation & Yoga practice - as this is where I feel abundant and connected and peaceful.
3)To travel to new places and attend workshops where I can learn more about myself & meet like-minded people.
4)To Dance (with my husband) as often as I can.
5)To work on having honest, open and authentic relationships.
Once you have worked out what you really want from your life, how you would like to feel and what you love doing, you are then in a great place to set your goals.
The following step would then be to be more specific about the goal itself and give it a time frame. Make it a SMART goal (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time specific) or in the coaching world replace the R with Resonant (does it get you excited?) and the T with Thrilling (does it sound thrilling to you?).
I am passionate about helping people to feel good about themselves and their lives. I love that coaching enables me to see people at their most amazing selves,! I am a qualified Life Coach, Yoga and Meditation teacher. I enjoy working with a number of UK Television personalities and coach individuals from all walks of life.
ways to reduce stress
Hiring new employees: Get the rockstars
I'm looking for a UI Designer, 2 Web Engineers (developers) and a Product Manager.
I've heard the old saying many times that you can always expect to have a mix of "A" players and "B" players in any team... I understand that in medium and large companies, to grow to scale, you inevitably have to accept this to some degree.
Luckily, we have a small team and I have no plans to hire 50 people in the near future. So, my approach is different: I want a 100% A team.
Get a 100% "A" Team
Now, this is hard to do. I already have an all-star team but I know how hard it is to grow while keeping the quality bar super-high.
It can take 6 to 12 months to find the right person, but as we all know, once you've found them and add them to an already solid team, you can do magic. Also, it's just so much more fun for everyone on the team when you're working on big ambitious projects, with great people, every day.
So, that's what I'm trying to do. But it begs the question: How do you find these gems?
Finding the Gems
It's a good question I've been thinking about a lot lately. The average person has probably only ever worked with--or even heard of--two or three talented people like this in their career. They're hard to find.
Here's my current thinking around how to recognize these rock stars:
They've never, or have VERY rarely, been let go... when they resign everyone stumbles all over themselves to try to keep them. It does happen that a rockstar falls victim to politics or cut backs, but I still think this is a huge signal.
They're the smartest people in the room when you've worked with them. I prefer finding someone who's super smart than someone who knows the exact stuff I need them to know. Smart people can learn fast.
They always get stuff done much faster than you'd expect and faster than others do.
When they're asked to do X, they do X. And Y. And they suggest clever ways to do Z.
They're the first person(s) you'd call to hire if you started a new company like TravelPod tomorrow.
When they work somewhere they quickly become the "go-to" person.
They're likely currently employed (that's ok though, we offer a very sweet package and work environment here).
Bonus: Recruiting and Selection FAQ
"Does rock star talent get referred more often?"
Yes, in my experience, rock stars are typically found by referral because the only way to be sure if someone is any good is by working with them. Everyone who's worked with a rockstar knows how good they are. Referrals from your network of contacts (inexpensive) or a talented recruiter (expensive) is the best source to find these gems.
"Can you tell if someone has rock star talent from a resume? If so, how?"
It's tough. There's no silver bullet but some of the thoughts I included above help. The big ones for me are:
1) Looks for signs of excellence. Have they excelled at anything in their life? Do they just play soccer or did they win the championship? Do they play piano recreationally, or are do they compete (and win)? Are they working for the pay-cheque or because they love what they do and would do it even if they weren't paid (side projects usually are good signs of this).
2) What's their work history like? Have they moved up, mastered what they did (ie: became the go-to person) or taken on more responsibilities in their past jobs? Have they been laid off or fired? The best predictor of future performance is past performance.
Again--and this is a big caveat--there's no silver bullet. Basically, unless you know the person or trust the referral they're coming from, you're stuck trying to sniff out talent from a resume or an interview. The more signals you can identify, the more you can stack the deck in your favor. There's nothing worse than a terrible hire.
Sure, looking at these signals might mean that you miss up a rock star but as Steve Kaufer (TripAdvisor's CEO) once told me: "You're better to pass on a rockstar than to hire a dud." This has become my hiring philosophy.
"I would imagine people with rock star talent are quite humble, how would a person know they have rock star talent?"
Yes, absolutely. They are humble, and aren't prima-donnas. The best way to know if they have talent is to look at what they've done and what they've accomplished in their careers and lives and in their side-passions. Whether it's excelling at school, having the guts and determination to successfully launch a startup and product, or surviving waves of layoff, try to sniff out excellence from their past experiences.
Obviously what you look for will vary based on the type of role you're looking to fill but talent and passion always trump skills.
In the end there's just no substitute for having worked with the person or a trusted referral.
"I don't think that never being let go and being currently employed should be [a signal for talent], given the [job market and economy]."
I agree, it's not a perfect signal but with a stack of 20 resumes and no referral from your trusted network, it's definitely a signal that helps focus in on the ones with potential, at the risk of missing out on a rock star. When I see that someone's been laid off or fired, I try to understand very hard why. It does happen that big companies chop out good people but it's a rare event. There would need to be many other signals showing how great the person was to counter the fact that they'd been let go.
"… the most brilliant people I had a privilege to meet would never admit they were the rock stars. … "
Absolutely, I 100% agree. Big egos do not make for rockstars. I have a blog post in the works that echoes this. You're 100% spot on.
"What isn't a rockstar?"
Here are my thoughts on this:
They aren't prima donnas. The best rockstars are humble but ambitious, hard-working and respectful.
They aren't job hoppers. They commit to a project/company and stick around for years, not months. The ones who spend their time hopping around because the grass always seems greener somewhere else don't make the cut.
They don't just want to work on the cool stuff. Everyone likes to work on fun stuff and luckily for us at TravelPod almost all of our work touches some pretty cool things like Facebook, mobile, viral & SEO... but the reality is rockstars know that there's always some grunt work that needs to get done.
They aren't passive contributors. They have (intelligent) opinions but understand that sometimes other opinions win out.
They aren't shameless self-promoters. They're good, they know it, but they are good listeners and work well on a team.
They aren't just in it for the money. Don't get me wrong, money is important and they deserve to be compensated well, but ultimately they care deeply about making a big impact on the company mission.
Also pulled from the University of Waterloo, Paul has nearly completed his Honours Bachelor degree in Knowledge Integration, Psychology, and International Studies. Before coming to TribeHR, he was heavily involved in the non-profit sector. Paul spends much of his time reading, proof-reading, writing, re-writing, and looking for creative ways to spread HR wisdom. He likes travel and classic literature. He dislikes cold weather and typos.