Quick Tips to a Strong, Confident Personality

Quick Tips to a Strong, Confident Personality
By Pierre Laval Ah-Fat, MBA, Transformational Coach

So you crave to become that person you dream about. But there is a you-don’t-know-what which blocks you. What is it? You may not be doing the thing that you would most like to do in life. For example, gardening, playing golf, visiting a remote countryside, reading books that you like, writing your blog, launching that small business, spending more quality time with your family. You may have been doing something else which does not bring you that longed for happiness. Like most of us you simply had to earn a living. Or you may not have discovered yet what you were meant for.

Who are you?

What about if you were told that you must first know yourself. Who are you? When we discover who we are and are meant to be, we realise our value, our competencies and our limits. We regain self-confidence.

I’m not saying to you: `Just be confident. Everything will be alright!’ Nor am I saying that the miracle will produce itself overnight. You will certainly feel better for a while, but it is with practice that you will be able to feel more confident as the days go by.

To help you discover yourself, there are many personality tests you can choose from on the internet.

What I am proposing is practical. Here then is your first package of quick 15 tips to become more self-confident. The choice is now yours:

Love Yourself

I can hear a few people saying `But this is selfish!’ We have been told to love others. We feel a bit guilty when we are asked to love ourselves. No, I’m not inviting you to fall in love with your own reflection like Narcissus.
What do we all want basically?

We want to love and be loved. It’s as simple as that. Each of us has a Personal Emotional Bank Account. If we do not make deposits in our Bank Account, it will soon be depleted. How then will we be able to help somebody in need? The deposits in this special account consist of kind and gentle words, valorising talk, a compassionate listening approach without judgement, caring actions, touching the other one, being helpful, offering gifts, gratitude, counting our blessings, enjoying the good things of life. We like being appreciated and praised. We like to express our talents, to succeed in our career. We simply want and deserve to be happy.

We often hear: `They do not like me’ or: `My parents rejected me.’ Have we ever asked ourselves if we loved ourselves? If you do not love yourself how can you expect others to love you? How can you love others? If the doctor is not in good health how can he heal his patients? It is when your cup of love is full that it can overspill and fall into your neighbour’s cup. Fill your cup first. Love yourself first.

What does loving oneself mean? It means accepting ourselves as we are, not as we would like to be. Look at yourself in the mirror and smile saying `I accept myself as I am. I love me with my strengths and my weaknesses.’ Be kind and tolerant to yourself. When you have some time, sit down alone and ask yourself: `Am I a good companion to myself?’
Trust yourself: Know that you are unique and special
There are no two persons resembling you in this world. You have special talents some of which have been developed, while others remain to be tapped. You are not jealous or frustrated because you know that you have your special contribution to make to this world.

What is the difference between those who succeed and those who do not?

Those who are successful know that they deserve being happy. They know how to seize happiness when it passes by. They transform threats and setbacks into opportunities. They have learnt to say yes to life. They accept themselves as they are. They have a dream and each day they accomplish two or three things towards its realization. They know how to canalise their positive and negative emotions by writing, sharing or on their pillow, or praying. Many have also discovered the virtues and joys of journaling where they describe your feelings not only events.

Talk nicely

You will soon notice that when you talk nicely, most people respond in a nice way to you. `Thank you’, `I love you’, `I appreciate what you do’, `Pardon me’ are among the rarest expressions used. If people are being unkind or aggressive to you, it may be useful to examine your own way of addressing them. This can be enlightening. Remember the saying: `We reap what we sow.’ If we have planted a lemon tree, how can we expect to get apples?

Positive self-talk.

We often find ourselves talking silently to our own selves, especially when we are in trouble. To restore our self-confidence, we need to cultivate positive self-talk habits. Recall past successes, celebrations and happy, gratifying moments of our life, our blessings.

Have a Gratitude Diary

Write down your daily blessings and say thank you for them. Gradually you will notice how your outlook on life becomes more positive.

Review your day

Apart from counting your blessings find out where you need to make an effort. What were the high and low energy happenings and encounters of the day?

Make a present of everything you do

Excellence is your motto. Doing the right thing, at the right time and in the right way. This is different from doing a thing right. When you do something, wrap it up in an attractive gift package and offer it first to yourself. You will feel good about yourself and your self confidence will grow.

Be resilient.

Rudyard Kipling in his poem `If’, recommends to treat both victory and defeat in the same manner, as two imposters. Resilience teaches us to overcome adversity and strengthen ourselves. The greatest inventions, the greatest songs, or literary masterpieces, the greatest achievements in life, were preceded by the most dramatic failures. Let us learn to accept what we call failures and draw lessons from them. Learn to accept changes and to transform them into opportunities. Learn to bounce back when adversity strikes.

Write down your vision

Every day add a few things to embellish your mental image of your life dream. You will be surprised how visualising your goals and planning boost up your self-confidence. You know that you can realise what you have set your mind to do.

Mental imagery

Develop the habit of visualizing what you desire, adding emotions and feelings, colourful pictures. Human beings have been using mental imagery since the beginning of time. All our actions, inventions, feats, are preceded by mental images although we may not be aware of it.

Through visualization we create visions of what we want in any sphere of our life and how to make them happen.
Why does it work? When you see yourself performing at your maximum and being or having your best, your neurons create patterns in your brain, just as when the action has really been performed. We all know the positive effects of rehearsals before a play for example. Athletes visualize their peak performance in their mind before the competition starts. Sports coaches say that that the physical element in sports accounts for10% whereas the mental aspect represents 90%.

However, successful visualization requires relaxation, regularity, reinforcement and above all faith. Certain people may choose to write, draw, sing or talk about their vision. Don’t be surprised that success comes naturally if you visualize yourself at your peak performance in the field you most like, being your best and leading the life you want. Aim at the moon, at least you may land on a star.

Planify your actions.

How to put your vision into action? You need a plan, a map to reach your destination. This is called your mission. Once you have your plan with set time frames, you can move ahead without stress knowing that all important things will be done in time.

Be detached from events.

This attitude is often called equanimity. Observe a reasonable distance from events. You are not the events that happen to you. Similarly, what others think of you is their own business, not yours. It’s you who choose who you want to be.

Overcome your fears

Fear is a great destroyer of self-confidence. It’s human to feel fear at one time or other. However if we face circumstances with courage and composure, this reinforces character and builds our self-confidence.

Physical exercises

It is said that chemicals like endorphins and serotonin are among substances that are secreted when we practise exercises. These are substances which in appropriate quantity bring a good feeling factor to the organism. Practise walking or jogging, listening to inspiring music, contemplating nature, recalling a pleasant mental image, when you feel energy is depleting.

Listen to music that lifts you up.

Check the type of music you are listening to. If necessary shift to more positive music which creates more energy in you. Why not work with light music in the background?

Be happy and fully confident!

(c) Pierre Laval Ah-Fat