My twin daughters are both learning to drive at present. I’ve only just recovered from helping my elder daughter learn, two years ago! If you drive, can you remember how strange it felt at first, how much concentration it demanded. Synchronizing gear and clutch, regulating your speed and direction, being aware of other road users and predicting their next move.

Today, I don’t consciously engage in the task of driving - likewise I don’t consciously think about how to tie up my shoe laces or walk (try thinking about how you walk and tell yourself out loud what to move!). Reflecting at my keyboard its quite frightening how we rely on our unconscious mind and embedded habits to propel a large metal box at great speed.

I have repeatedly touched on how much of what we do is habit. Our brains process millions of messages a day - putting most of our activities on automatic pilot makes us more efficient. If we did have to consciously engage in tying our shoe laces, or driving, then we would end up exhausted. [Read the rest of this entry →]

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My past weekend was quite chaotic, which partially explains the delay in this post. I hit the grand old age of 50, which is somewhat weird - mainly because everyone expects you to feel different. Age is just a number, and I’m sure all of us can find examples of people who act and look very different (better or worse) than their real ages.

I must confess my physical body does at times feel a bit ancient - something I would like to address - whilst mentally I feel quite young. But I got myself into a mess by being over confident and falling back into a habit of my youth - procrastination.

I spent the weekend working on my photography portfolio, which I need to hand in this week as part of my adult education course. I had taken all the photographs I needed and had done the practical work for the assignments - but I kept putting off writing everything up. I kept telling myself I was capable of doing the work, that it should be quite straight forward. But that doesn’t get the work done!! [Read the rest of this entry →]

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Self Esteem Review

As there is no “Self Esteem for Dummies” (yet!) I have decided to partially fill the gap in the market. The first issue of my newsletter “Self Esteem Review” will be sent out later this week. For those of you who read my blog through the RSS feed, you need to visit my site to sign up for the free newsletter. The content will be different to the blog, including articles by other writers and reviews of other sites blog posts you may find useful.

Unhelpful Thinking

Several of my posts have focused on thinking - today I want to start looking at the link between how you feel and your thoughts. Ultimately, self esteem and self confidence are undermined by poor, unhelpful thinking habits.

Shoulds
There is something called the “tyranny of the shoulds”. Here we set ourselves up by saying “I should” or “ought to….” It is as though you believe that you need to threaten yourself to achieve anything. Its like using a big stick approach to yourself:- [Read the rest of this entry →]

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Does your house or office have any of those commercial motivational/inspirational posters on the walls? Slick, vivid color “perfect” images with a nice quote or bland saying to match. For example a photo of “businessman’s hands” with the following:-

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Part of me likes the concept, its just that the products to me seem too slick - I cannot imagine these inspiring or motivating me. The fact that there is now good business selling “demotivational” products says that others prefer humor and honesty! For instance, a photo of the pyramids with:-

“You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.”

What brought this to mind was story in the news about a shop in Beijing selling “spirit bottles” - empty bottles with meaningful (rather than inspirational) sentiments written on them. [Read the rest of this entry →]

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One of the delights of living in the UK is I have never watched Oprah. So I was surprised when one of my favorite blogs, had “Oprah’s Top 7 Tips for Creating the Life You Want“. The writer, Henrik, is Swedish so who knows how far her influence has spread!

Oprah had an interesting take on failure - she redefined it:-

“I do not believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.”

Looking at some of my recent posts, a fear of failing can be another interpretation of the problems. With perfectionism for example, a person sets their required standard high - and anything less than 100% achievement of that target is a failure. There are no shades of gray.

If we lack confidence in our ability to do something, our thinking can revolve around whether we will fail or succeed. Failure enters the equation, rather than say “mistake”, when the stakes are higher. Usually with the fear of failing we can imagine unpleasant consequence, rather than just inconvenience. [Read the rest of this entry →]

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Do you approve of yourself - or do you seek the approval of others? When we lack confidence and in particular have low self esteem, we find ourselves needing the approval of others to feel good about ourselves.

Unfortunately, in this day and age of being over worked and under valued, the approval of others may be slow to happen. Saying “well done” or “thank you” doesn’t seem to common language in modern society - and how often do you say such things to others?

Being self critical is an easy habit to get into, and forms the basis of our needing approval from others. The root of our self criticism is usually being at the receiving end of criticism from others as we grow up. I like the expression that “criticism is negative feedback badly delivered”. Constantly receiveing messages like “you’re too slow/stupid/bad/ugly/…” etc leads to us believing that this is a reality. [Read the rest of this entry →]

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