Self-Confidence: A Path To A New You

Dog and I go to the beach every morning. Dog swims. I sit and celebrate life and how comfortable I feel with everything – well, almost.

It was not always so. For years lack of self-confidence plagued me and I often wonder what I could have done or where I could have been if self-doubt had not existed. I’m sure this is also true of many other people. To help those who suffer from lack of self-confidence, I wrote everything down in a booklet in the hope that it will encourage people to get help if needed.

If there are people in your life whom you feel you could help, perhaps you can. If they have a confidence problem, you might want to pass along the following – WRITE IT DOWN. Let me explain.

By putting thoughts and feelings down on paper, we cannot push them out of our minds – we have to face them. Just like a shopping list, if we don’t commit our needs to paper we find later that we want what we don’t have because we never wrote it down.

Today people go to the gym to tone their bodies; enjoy a massage to alleviate stress; have their hair done with a facial and a manicure to help them look more beautiful; but what about their minds? Do they do any exercises to improve the brain which governs all positive and negative thoughts?

The mind is clever, it manipulates and if we decide not to deal with something, even remotely unpleasant, the mind just shuts it out of our thinking, and periodically that something keeps coming back and gradually trouble starts. But, if that something is written down, we are not able to ignore it– it’s there and we must deal with the issue. The black and white scenario of paper and pen also helps us to think more logically, and urges us to find a solution because we can’t stand the sight of that wretched piece of paper any longer!

The negative event that triggers defeatist thinking and subsequently self-doubt can be large or small. Whatever the magnitude, the subject can be less overwhelming if the facts are written down. This can be done like a shopping list – one brief statement at a time for you to revisit on a regular basis. Slowly, as one small part of the issue is solved, our confidence and peace of mind grow on a relative scale. Gradually, the whole issue is resolved and negative thoughts are replaced by positive attitudes enabling us to move on.

Along with the shopping list comes the necessity to address areas of our lives that prompted or contributed to self-doubt initially. For example, my booklet suggests that we take a look into the following areas of our lives: our belief system, people, attitudes, self-awareness and acceptance. There are many details under these headings worth looking at twice, because we will no doubt identify with some of the points that caused self-doubt in the first place. If we recognize a personal attitude that needs fixing and make an effort to take action, as we work with either ourselves or someone else, we get good vibes and good feelings.

Many of you who are reading this article will have probably come to terms with a number of life’s problems and, like me, your inclination is to let people know that WTSWTG (what they see is what they get.) But, what about the many people who still have major problems? Can we help them realize that they can help themselves or seek outside help to combat this insidious feeling of self-doubt?

© Susan Lancaster 2008