By Margi Matters

Building self confidence and self esteem are key foundations for personal power.  Improving self confidence and self esteem comes from working constantly on establishing and then maintaining a “right relationship” with  yourself. Every choice and decision we make, every word we speak, the thoughts we think, the actions we take all reflect the state of our relationship with ourselves. They reflect whether or not our self esteem and confidence is strong or weak.  Whether or not we are living from a place of personal power or disempowerment.

What state is your relationship with yourself  in? Could it do with some tweaking or maybe a major overhaul?

How to build self confidence and self esteem.

Building confidence and self esteem is a process.

This process for building self confidence and self esteem has four essential ingredients:

1. building awareness
2. increasing understanding
3. a willingness to make the necessary changes and
4. actively creating the best and necessary conditions for the changes you desire.

The first step is to examine and assess your relationship with yourself. There are three key areas. Take the time to reflect and write in a journal about each of these areas as they may apply to you. For more information about how to journal for awareness and understanding you can download my free self awareness report from this page, if you haven’t already done so.

• How you relate to yourself . This includes your self concept, self esteem and how you think about yourself. How strong or weak is your self confidence in who you are and how you manage all the areas of your life? What are you  here  for – your role, purpose and identity?  Are you here to keep everyone else happy or to live your own life and seek happiness and fulfilment for yourself? Are you your own best friend, supporter and encourager or are you your own worst enemy? Do you trust yourself? Love yourself? Accept yourself?

• How you treat yourself . Do you treat yourself with understanding, compassion and kindness or harsh criticism, judgement and rejection? How well do you take care of your physical health and well being?  How well do you take care of your needs, desires, opportunities, emotional life and mental life? Do you go for your dreams or hold back?

• How well you know and understand yourself. The most critical and essential area to understand is your belief systems because as you have no doubt heard already, beliefs are the computer programs that run the whole show. What are all the beliefs you carry around? Many of our beliefs have become unconscious, running on automatic. You also need to become aware of and understand what is important to you (your values), what you need and what fears have power over you. It’s about understanding what makes you tick, what pushes your buttons and why.

Improving self confidence and strengthening self esteem is a natural consequence of gradually working on making your relationship “right” with yourself. Step up and take charge of your “programming”! You are the programmer! No matter what has happened in the past, you have total control over the kind of relationship you have with yourself now. And yes, you can have total control over building confidence and self esteem to where you would love it to be!

Related posts:

1. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – The Foundations of Personal Power
2. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – The Initial Assessment
3. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – How Fast Can Change Happen?

By Margi Matters

Building confidence and self esteem is a process, however it is possible for change to occur in an instant. We can in one moment decide to change a belief or change a behaviour. We can in one moment decide to see things differently. We can decide right now to no longer believe the things that have always held us back. We can decide right now to believe something different, to take on board beliefs  that support  us and help in building confidence and self esteem. Notice what your response is to what I have just written!

However most of us are not free enough, or trusting enough to do this kind of instant change. At least not in the beginning. We need to prepare ourselves , we need to learn more how to trust. We need to understand our fears and anxieties and learn how to put these to rest quickly. We need to become aware of and understand our inner programs of beliefs. We need to become aware of and understand how to better manage our “filters” that determine the meaning we give to our experience and what we see, take notice of and expect. The more you work on developing your relationship with yourself, the stronger your self esteem and self confidence becomes, then the easier and faster it is to change anything. Profound change can happen in an instant!

Change is the natural state of things. Everything is in a constant state of change, movement, flux.

Most of us are not so comfortable with change. We actively and sometimes violently resist change. Why is this? Well, it really comes down to our basic survival programming. We need to be and feel safe and secure because this is the key strategy for survival. Most of the time this is unconscious, just running in the background and flagging us when our system detects a threat or a potential threat. When this happens, we start to feel uncomfortable.

Most of us seek and feel  more comfortable with what is familiar. Why? Because we can have a sense of mastery, some measure of confidence. Some sense of security. We know what to do, what to expect.  A lot of times, it is true that change is not so comfortable! However the main difference between those people who embrace change and those who resist change is how they deal with the discomfort and what they tell themselves it is all about.

This is the key to being able to embrace change. You have the power over what you tell yourself, what you believe and what you expect.

The more we are exposed to change, the easier it is to tolerate or at best embrace further change. If you have changed your hairstyle a lot, moved your job or moved house several times, a kind of familiarity builds and you can feel more comfortable with changing your hairstyle or  job or house again! However if you have never had the experience of change in these areas, if you have always kept the same style, been in the same job or lived in the same spot, the prospect of moving to something new and different can be so frightening we just hold on and fight hard to keep it all the way it is. The way we are used to it being! No matter the cost. No matter how much better the new changes may be for us!  Consider the makeover shows! How fantastic the guests looked after they embraced change. People love these shows so much because they excite us about what is possible.

You have the power to make the same kind of miraculous makeovers of your own life, through building your confidence and self esteem.

Related posts:

1. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – The Foundations of Personal Power
2. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – The Initial Assessment
3. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – Having a “Right Relationship” With Yourself

By Margi Matters

You can start immediately building confidence and self esteem by doing an initial assessment of the current state of your confidence and self esteem (literally this means the esteem or regard you have for yourself).

You need to be clear about how it is and what you don’t want before you can change it to what you do want.

Do you generally have low self esteem or high self esteem? Rate both your self esteem and then your confidence on a scale from “0” (none at all) to “10” (bulletproof, high ).

Are there situations where you feel more confident or less confident? Can you list these situations from those where you feel least confident to those where you feel most confident.

Are there people with whom you feel more or less confident? Are these specific individuals (such as a parent, sibling, friend or colleague) or “types” or categories – for example what is it like to be around very confident people, or very successful people, or people in some position of authority?

With whom and in what situations do you feel better about yourself or worse about yourself?

There are six core areas to assess when you are building confidence and self esteem.

1. Beliefs. Self esteem is based in beliefs so a major task in building self confidence and self esteem is recognising and replacing old beliefs that no longer serve you, beliefs that limit you in some way. Beliefs that feed low self esteem or rob you of confidence
2. Emotional life. What are the feelings or emotional states that you experience most frequently and most intensely. In what ways do these impact your confidence and how you feel about yourself. With the emotions you do not enjoy, how would you like to feel instead?
3. Behaviours. What habits, patterns and reactions can you recognise that either contribute to low confidence and self esteem (for example withdrawing, being defensive) or support high confidence and self esteem (for example letting things go, encouraging and rewarding yourself).
4. Your relationship with yourself.  Do you allow yourself to enjoy life, to have adventures, to go for the best for yourself and your life? Do you believe in yourself? Trust yourself?  Do you put yourself down, criticise yourself, and give yourself a hard time? How often? Do you deny yourself or allow other people to abuse you or treat you badly? If you do 9 things well and 1 badly, do you focus on the one you did badly or the 9 you did well? What is it like for you when someone compliments you? Do you ever say “I hate myself” or “hate” something about yourself? Maybe you punish yourself in various ways, directly or indirectly?
5. Your relationships with other people. Do you let yourself get close, to love and receive love? Or do you have such fear of rejection that you keep a safe distance emotionally? Do you worry about what other people think and have that as your benchmark, trying hard to please or keep others happy. Or are you true to yourself, confident in being yourself, trusting your own truth and stepping out of the firing line if others are aggressive or unreasonable.
6. Fears. See if you can list all the fears that have negative power over you, the fears that make you feel less confident or that contribute to low self esteem. Notice what beliefs you are carrying around that feed these fears.

For more detailed information you can visit my blog at www.howtobuildselfconfidencefast.com

The initial assessment may take some time so don’t expect to do it all in one sitting! Observe yourself through the day, noticing and thinking about some of the points I’ve made. Building confidence and self esteem is perhaps the best investment you can make in yourself so it is definitely worth the effort so start now!

Related posts:

1. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – The Foundations of Personal Power
2. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – How Fast Can Change Happen?
3. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – What Gets in the Way?

Think of a continuum with assertiveness in the middle ground. This is where people with strong self esteem position themselves. People with low or weak self esteem tend to be either down the submissive end of the continuum – anxious about pleasing people, maybe being the doormat getting walked over or exploited –  or they may be down the aggressive end, keeping people at a distance in various ways. Both submission and aggression can be seen as ways of trying to avoid rejection or hurt.

Many people confuse assertiveness with aggression – the main differences relate to personal power or powerlessness. Assertiveness comes from a position of personal power and strong self esteem. Assertiveness skills are based on an attitude of respect and consideration of the rights and feelings of others, staying calm, clear and in control of your emotions and reactions.

Generally, aggression escalates the more powerless we feel in the situation – for example if you feel the other person is not listening or acknowledging something that is important to you, or if it seems to you like they are trampling on your needs or rights. If we don’t have the words or the words aren’t working, we tend to resort to physical force in some way from pushing and yelling to more extreme violence.

Rather than reacting or escalating to a point of losing control or saying something you may regret, or attacking or defending, it is about learning to stop, think and choose how you wish to respond. Sometimes this may be to politely and firmly end the conversation, take time out to think it over, agree to disagree or apply one of the other subsets of assertiveness skills. (You can find more information on assertiveness skills if you visit my blog at www.howtobuildselfconfidencefast.com )

Importantly, assertiveness is a critical skill for building confidence and self esteem. You may not always get the result or outcome you want however assertiveness will give you the best chance of a satisfactory outcome and at the very least you will walk away feeling better about yourself and how you handled it.

Rather than being submissive, upset, stewing, losing sleep, implying or hinting in the hope that people will get the message, assertiveness is about speaking up, keeping it simple, accurate, direct, respectful, honest and open.

The basic formula is using “I” language. As much as possible ban the “you” word! It is often inflammatory and can take the focus off the main issue or point you are making.

State as accurately as possible what you are feeling or experiencing in that moment or situation.

The second part of the formula is  the “because” -  the reason or reasons for feeling or experiencing what you are feeling.   Briefly state the facts (not opinions or judgements) about the behaviour or situation at issue as they relate to you. For example be specific about exactly what was said or done or not done.

The third part is to request what you do want instead, rather than what you don’t want, for example “please turn the volume down” rather than “don’t have that music blaring!” – or the red flag at a bull version “Shut up that !*#! noise!”

For example “I feel angry because I’m not getting the help with this project that I was promised and I want us to make a time to sit down this week and sort out some solution that suits us both.”

Aim to be factual and accurate, neither overstating nor understating. Avoid words like “never” and “always”.

Avoid judging or labelling the other person – telling someone “you’re lazy” or “you don’t care” risks defence and attack reactions. Keep it about yourself and as clearly as possible express your needs and rights in the situation.

Giving other people feedback about your experience with them does not need to be unkind or cruel, even though it may not be pleasant. Keep clear about why you are giving the feedback. Keep it relevant. This is not about putting the other person down or interfering in their business, but about negotiating solutions to problems that impact on you.

Stick to the issue and avoid justifying, defending, taking the bait or getting sidetracked. Sometimes you may need to persist and repeat yourself calmly and firmly, using the “broken record” strategy.

Prepare what you want to say and anticipate possible reactions or objections and how you might respond to these. Then rehearse out loud. Rehearsal is more important than you may realise, especially if you are likely to feel anxious – it helps to remember what you want to say when you are under pressure. Practise makes it easy, and you can look forward to assertiveness becoming virtually an automatic response!

As your assertiveness skills improve you can enjoy more positive experiences and outcomes and this in turn will help with building confidence and self esteem.

Related posts:

1. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – The Initial Assessment
2. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – What Gets in the Way?
3. Improving Self Confidence and Assertiveness Skills

Building confidence and self esteem requires several interlinked processes. Both confidence and strong sustainable self esteem are essential ingredients for personal power.

Improving self confidence is one of the delightful gifts of strengthening self esteem. Building self confidence and self esteem is all about working on the nature of the relationship you have with yourself.

Key aspects include examining, understanding and making changes where necessary in the following areas:

• Whether or not you have a positive regard for yourself – the “esteem” in which you hold yourself

• Whether or not you support yourself or treat yourself with harsh judgement and criticism

• Whether or not you believe in yourself

• Whether or not you trust yourself

• Whether or not you are trapped in the past and the effects of earlier negative or traumatic experiences

• Whether or not you love and accept yourself

• Whether or not you “honour” yourself

Positive affirmations alone won’t build confidence and self esteem. Having other people tell us we are wonderful, capable or worthy won’t do it either, although it can help once our underlying beliefs allow us to be receptive to compliments and positive feedback. If self esteem is low we won’t believe the positive things others tell us about ourselves!

How to build self confidence? The two core areas are 1) changing belief systems and 2) having positive experiences.

Improving self confidence begins with recognising and changing limiting and negative beliefs. We need to be aware of what we believe before we can change it!

Positive experiences that reinforce belief in ourselves, our abilities and our sense of worth are an essential part of building confidence and self esteem. We need to not only believe we are okay, we need to feel it. We need to have a direct experience of it. Personal power and the confidence it brings, is something that keeps expanding as you experience, feel and live it.

Confidence is not fixed and static. We can feel confident in some areas (like a work role) but not confident in others (like personal relationships.)

Self confidence is fluid, often rising and falling during a lifetime, changing for better or worse according to

• what is going on in your life and the nature of experiences

• the people you encounter and the key relationships in your life and how these effect you

• how well your various needs are (or are not!) being met

• your belief systems

• your social support systems

• access to resources and opportunities

• how you feel about yourself, your appearance and level of personal power

The more our confidence is shaken or eroded, the more impact people and situations can have on us. What we once could lightly toss off or not even notice, now has the power to keep us in a state of anxiety, or avoiding situations in which we once felt comfortable. We can get caught in a downward spiral.

Similarly, as we work on building self confidence and self esteem, our personal power increases to be able to further improve confidence and self esteem. Like an upward expanding positive spiral, it just gets better and better!

Take action now to build confidence and self esteem – it is an investment in time and effort that will give massive and wonderful returns every day.

Related posts:

1. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – the Key Skill of Assertiveness
2. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – The Initial Assessment
3. Building Confidence and Self Esteem – How Fast Can Change Happen?