boost self confidence

how to get rid of unwanted baggage from the past so it no longer affects you.

You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time. - Charles F. Kettering

The past lives on only in your thoughts. It is dead, but you're not. You'll grow in confidence only if you are willing to let go of the past, learn from it, and move on.

No matter what has gone before, your future, and how you feel about it, will be a direct result of what you do from now on. It is being shaped right now, moment by moment, as the consequences of your desires, thoughts, dreams, actions and words begin to crystallise.

The past only continues to affect you if you allow it. You may not be able to forget what has gone before, but you can stop dwelling on it.

accepting yourself as you are, especially those things you cannot change.

Never grow old in your mind. Your true age is how you feel inside. - Valerie J. Hayward

Self-acceptance means acknowledging that you are as you are and being comfortable with it. It doesn't necessarily mean liking every aspect of yourself.

Some attributes can't be changed, and you may as well accept them right now. Take your age. You can disguise it, lie about it, try to hide it, but you can't change it. Similarly, you can do little about your gender (without going to drastic lengths), your race, height, eye colour etc. You also have little chance of transforming the way the world works, society in general and other people. But you can find a way of making the best of yourself, by:

1. becoming better informed
2. acquiring new skills
3. changing unwanted habits
4. handling relationships and problems more effectively.

But bear in mind, self-acceptance does not mean giving up on yourself. If some disliked aspect of yourself is important and can be changed, do something about it. There's no point in feeling bad about something you can change, just as there's no point in feeling bad about something you can't!

You must learn to accept yourself before you can expect others to accept you. - David Baird

love your body, warts and all!

If we are embarrassed about our bodies, we should remember that kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies. - Michel Montaigne

What do you think of your body? Do you like it? Do you wish it were different in some way? If so, it may surprise you to discover that you're in the great majority. Most of us don't particularly like our bodies and could produce a lengthy list of 'faults'quite easily. Few people conform to the physical norms put across in the media.

People who can't accept their bodies are prone to desperately low self-esteem. They exhibit an above average degree of obsessive behaviours, eating disorders, self-hatred, sexual dysfunctions and many other problems. This is exacerbated by certain social and religious attitudes. Rumbling tummies, bad breath, bowel movements and breaking wind are part of our biology. Why be ashamed? When we get older our faces become lined, boobs and bellies droop, muscles sag, men lose their hair and so on. It's bound to happen, so why worry about it?

We must learn to accept our bodies with good grace and a touch of humour, to accept some of our so-called defects, and work on those which can be changed. If your confidence is affected by anything that can be improved, do it! Otherwise there's no point in feeling sorry for yourself.

a health and fitness guide to give you more energy and more confidence.

A vigorous walk will do more for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. - Paul Dudley White

Getting in shape physically is a wonderful way of building your confidence and self-image. It's not easy to feel confident if you're overweight, and exhausted after climbing a flight of stairs. Health and fitness are just like any other areas of life: get the causes right and the effects come right too. This means, for instance, sensible eating, good breathing and posture, regular exercise and plenty of laughter and relaxation.

The recipe for better health, maximum energy, minimum illness and an extended lifespan has a familiar ring to it:

1. Choose fitness: make it your intention to be healthy.
2. Think health and fitness.
3. Imagine yourself in peak condition.
4. Act 'as if 'you want to be as fit and healthy as possible.

Give your body what it needs, and it will return the favour!

Just 20 minutes aerobic exercise a day is quite sufficient to enable most people to maintain good health.

deep relaxation and instant calmness for instant confidence.

If you are committed to your personal growth, you must have some quiet time to yourself every day. “Make it a priority. - David Lawrence Preston

Calmness and confidence are very closely related, and they start with physical relaxation. When your body is relaxed, your mind is calmer and clearer, you are more in control of your emotions and better able to relate to others. Physical relaxation and mental calmness help you cope with stressful situations, release unrealistic fears and anxieties, and improve concentration and creativity.

To acquire these benefits for yourself, you must practise:

1. Entering a peaceful, deeply relaxed state so that you can recharge your batteries. Make the most of techniques such as autosuggestion, mental rehearsal, anchoring and reframing.
2. Instant calmers. Learn to calm down instantly and stay calm, so that you can deal with awkward people and situations with ease.

Fortunately these skills are easily learned. If it helps, you can use a pre-recorded relaxation programme (you can download some from my website for free). Most of the early problems you may encounter will disappear if you practise daily, and you will soon be able to relax quickly and easily whenever you have the need.

And remember – the world won't fall apart if you take it easy for a while!

how to produce confident feelings any time you wish.

People tell me I'm lucky, but I've noticed the harder I practise, the luckier I get. - Gary Player

Anchoring is a way of drawing on past experiences in which you felt confident to help you cope better in the present. It's another powerful weapon in your confidence armoury.

An anchor is any stimulus that consistently triggers an emotion. To use an anchor you have to:

1. Generate in yourself the particular set of feelings you wish to recreate.
2. Programme your subconscious to associate those feelings with specific words and gestures.
3. Use those words and gestures to trigger the desired feelings when required.

Sportsmen and women use anchors continually. For example, tennis players bounce the ball repeatedly before serving to calm themselves; most runners go through an elaborate routine to centre themselves, much of which is not strictly necessary to the actual performance; and the mighty All Black rugby team go through a series of rituals before each match to intimidate the opposition and fire themselves up.

You constantly anchor feelings in the nervous system whether you like it or not, so why not learn to use this to your advantage? Using anchors you can feel calm and confident, or energised and confident whenever you wish.

one that inspires and motivates you, and gives your life meaning and direction.

We act as though comfort and luxury are the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. - Charles Kingsley

How would you feel if everything you were ever going to be, you are right now? If everything you are going to achieve, you have already achieved? Life would be pretty meaningless, wouldn't it?

There's nothing more important than finding a purpose that inspires and motivates you and gives your life meaning and direction. There's nothing more soul destroying than drifting through life with nothing to strive for, no ambitions, no goals. Aimlessness destroys confidence and self-esteem.

When you find what you love to do and put your heart and soul into it, everything changes. Life becomes fulfilling and exciting. If your purpose benefits others as well as yourself, everything, yes, everything falls perfectly into place. If your motives are sound, happiness and prosperity simply flow towards you; nothing can stop them.

If you're not aware of having a purpose, it's not because you don't have one; everyone has. It's because you've never looked for it. It's lying dormant somewhere in your consciousness, waiting to be revealed.

Cherish the freedom to be yourself. Be guided by your inner voice and do what you believe in. Sing, dance and embrace life to the full. - Linda Kelham

consider what you wish to achieve in life, and get started right away.

That's not worthy of you. You came here to make a major contribution to life on this planet. - Paul Solomon

Practical goals build confidence and put you more in control of your life. When you set yourself a goal, even if you've never thought about it before, you unleash powerful mental forces. You accomplish more, often much more. Even if all you did was write down a goal and file the piece of paper away in a drawer, your life would be different in some way.

Why do clear, realistic goals make such a difference?

1. They clarify your purpose.
2. They show you're serious about achieving.
3. They stimulate excitement, anticipation, energy and enthusiasm.
4. They help to keep your mind on what you want. Goals impress your desires on the subconscious, heighten your awareness and highlight opportunities you may previously have missed.
5. They prompt you to acquire new knowledge and skills.
6. You discover reservoirs of imagination and creativity you previously didn't realise you had.

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. - Walter Bagehot

how to draw on the power of the subconscious mind to build confidence.

Argue for your limitations, and they're yours. - Richard Carlson

Most thoughts come from the subconscious, that hive of mental activity that lies below the threshold of momentary awareness. You cannot prevent a thought floating up from the subconscious; this is beyond your conscious control.

However, you can always choose whether to accept, reject or ignore a thought, whether to voice it or act on it. Any pattern of thought or action which is repeated often is impressed on the subconscious and becomes a habit. Likewise, when you withdraw your attention from an unwanted thought or habit, it eventually withers and dies.

You constantly refer to your subconscious store of thoughts and memories for information and guidance, which sets up a cycle in which what you repeatedly think about tends to intensify in your experience.

The conscious mind is the Thinker; the subconscious is the Prover. If, for example, you hold the thought 'I'm not very clever', the subconscious looks for evidence that you are what you think you are. Consequently you steer clear of anything that requires intelligence, which 'proves'you were right all along. Except, of course, you may be misleading yourself. You may actually be far cleverer than you think you are!

That's why it's so important to turn your thinking around, by deliberately and consciously planting confident thoughts in your mind. When you let go of disempowering, confidence-draining thoughts and start thinking of yourself as strong, capable, likable and deserving, the cycle is reversed.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're quite right. - Henry Ford

changing negative, restrictive thinking patterns to thoughts of confidence and self-worth.

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet. - Isaac Bashevis Singer

When you think like a confident person, you automatically feel more confident and act more confidently. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Confident self-talk includes any language that helps you feel better and cope more easily. Words and sentences that imply that you are helpless or incapable, or that things are worse than they actually are, feed the Prover with potentially damaging ammunition, which is why the negative thought patterns discussed in this section come with a health warning.