February 5, 2012

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You ARE Worthy: Five Ways To Boost Your Self Esteem and Start Believing In Yourself Again

January 23, 2012 By Lena 11 Comments

believe in yourselfWhen your self-esteem is at a healthy level, everything seems to flow so much more smoothly in your life. You are happier, healthier, and more able to live life to the full potential you were meant to. But so many people don’t live up to their full potential because they don’t believe they are worthy of success, happiness and even love.

When you don’t believe in yourself, and your self esteem is in the gutter, it’s really hard to see just how you could be worthy of love, happiness, or success. After all, who can love you when you can’t even love yourself.

I know it’s hard to change the belief that you are not worthy. Especially if you’ve been in a relationship where there was emotional or physical abuse. It’s hard to believe in yourself when the person who was supposed to love, cherish and protect instead spent their time breaking you down and destroying your self esteem. It took me over ten years to recover to the point where I wanted to even try to go out and face the world. Writing an article like this to tell you about it would have been unthinkable before now.

Fortunately there are ways to overcome low self esteem — ones that won’t turn you into a hermit like me. Here are five ways you can boost your self esteem and start believing in yourself again.

1. Learn to say thank you.

One of the hardest things to do when you have low self esteem is to accept a compliment. Since you have this ingrained belief that you are ugly, stupid, unlovable or whatever you’ve been told is the reason you’re unworthy of love and success, it’s almost impossible to believe that there are still people out there who will see through all that and tell you how beautiful you are, inside and out.

Learning to say thank you and just accept the compliment instead of trying to explain why someone is wrong about you is one of the best things you can do to boost your self esteem. While it may be hard at first to accept a compliment at face value, it does get easier the more often it happens.

Knowing that there are people out there who do see the good in you is an incredible boost to your self-esteem. The more you smile and say thank you, the more you start to believe it for yourself and the stronger your own self-confidence becomes. Before you know it, you will be accepting compliments like a pro.

2. Accept Yourself and Your Uniqueness

It’s easy to compare yourself to others and find yourself lacking when you suffer from low self-esteem. There’s always someone who is prettier than you, smarter than you, richer than you.

In order to break this habit, remember that you are your own unique person, and you have qualities and strengths that no one else has. Focusing on your strengths and what makes you unique will go a long way toward improving your self-esteem.

3. Affirm your uniqueness.

It’s not enough to just say that you are unique. It’s believing it in the very heart of your being that makes the difference. Using affirmations to remind yourself that you are unique and worthy of love, happiness, and success is a good way to build up your self esteem. The more you tell yourself you are worthy, the more you being to believe it.

Affirmations are great because they belong totally in the present moment. The instant you say “I AM worthy” you ARE worthy. Even if it’s only for that moment, and you go back to thinking you’re not in the next … that one moment is enough to get you started on the way to improving your view of yourself. The more moments you can string together where you affirm and believe in your own self worth, the stronger your self-esteem becomes.

4. Avoid negative people as if they were the plague.

Really, negative people and negative energy ARE a plague on your self esteem. Do not let other people steal your dreams or make you feel bad for following your heart just because they are too afraid to follow their own.

If you can, avoid them at all costs. Sometimes it’s the people who are closest to you who do the most damage because they think they are helping. If you can’t avoid them do your best to limit your exposure and don’t share your goals and dreams with them.

5. Get professional help if you need to.

There are times when our self-esteem has taken such a beating that the only way we can get it back is with professional help. If you can afford it, a life coach is an excellent option to help you see that you are worthy and give you the tools you need to start believing in yourself again.

If hiring a coach is out of your budget range, you can find excellent books and online programs that can help you boost your self-esteem and start living up to your full potential.

Knowing you are worthy of all the good things life has to offer is an important part of being able to live your life to the fullest potential. Yes, it may take some work to get your self-esteem back up to the healthy levels you want, but the results are well worth it.

You can do anything you put your mind to, as long as you believe you can do it. Improving your self-esteem gives you that belief and the ability to achieve!

Filed Under: Ezine Issues, Self-Confidence Tagged With: , , ,

Need a Little Inspiration? Five Ways Affirmations Can Help

January 17, 2012 By Lena 2 Comments

It’s not something that most people like to admit, but there are days when inspiration is hard to come by. You wonder why you bother getting up in the morning, and that big idea you were so passionate about a few days ago seems to have gone on vacation without you. When that happens, it’s no wonder that it seems like your inspiration, along with your motivation, your creativity, and your energy jumped in the suitcase and went along for the ride.

There are ways to end your inspiration’s vacation early. Journaling is one of them. Writing gratitude lists is another. Other times, it’s an inspirational quote or photo that really helps to fire up the creativity engine. But when nothing else works, sometimes all it takes is an affirmation to wake me up and get me inspired again.

1. Affirmations are yours and yours alone. You choose them or create them based only on how they feel to you.

One of the reasons that affirmations seem to do the trick when nothing else does is because they come from you. When you think about it, inspiration that comes from within really is the best form.

Sure it’s nice when others say things that get you thinking and moving in the right direction again, and that card or photo that you received might have touched the right chord inside. But when you can motivate yourself and remind yourself why you are passionate about your purpose and why it used to excite you to jump out of bed first thing on a cold winter morning, you will be that much more inclined to believe it. It doesn’t matter how much others tell you that you’re smart, funny, beautiful, or worthwhile if you don’t believe it yourself.

2. Affirmations get you creating again.

You may be asking yourself how this works. Affirmations work best when you either write them out, or read them to yourself. When you start writing your affirmations down every day, just the act of writing daily unlocks something inside of you. I’m no expert on exactly what happens here but I know it works. Writing affirmations has jump-started more than one article or blog post for me when nothing else worked to break my lack of motivation.

3. Affirmations encourage you to keep going.

Since affirmations are, by their very nature, positive thoughts — after all, who would want to affirm something negative — they encourage you to keep going when the journey gets a little rough. And isn’t that what inspiration is all about … taking that extra step when you really didn’t think you could go any further?

4. Affirmations can change your life.

Some of the best affirmations I have ever used have ended up having life-changing results for me. In the last article I talked about living in the moment and you you get to choose how you live each moment. Affirmations are a great tool for helping you make that choice. Simple statements like:

I AM happy
I AM at peace
I AM full of energy
I AM healthy

repeated over and over again can change how you feel in the moment. String enough of those moments of being happy, healthy, energetic or peaceful together and you may find that there is no room for negativity at all because you are choosing only positive thoughts.

5. There’s an affirmation for every situation.

It doesn’t matter if you are feeling totally uninspired, unmotivated or just downright unhappy you can create an affirmation that helps you to move beyond those negative feelings.

How To Use Affirmations

Once you’ve decided that affirmations are a tool you can use, there are several ways you can use them.

1. You can write them out or say them out loud first thing in the morning to start your day. Some people (me included) do both.

2. You can make a screen-saver for your computer out of them.

3. You can write them on pieces of paper and tack them up in places where you’ll see them all day long.

4. You can write them on pieces of paper and carry them in your pockets or in your wallet, so if you need them during the day you can pull them out and read them quickly.

Affirmations are one of those tools that everyone can use, are completely personal and based only on your needs. They can be used in a moment and can change the energy of that moment and the ones that follow forever. You can write your own, or use ones that others have created if they resonate with you. Regardless of how you do it, using affirmations will help to re-ignite your inspiration and your creativity.

If you’d like to writing your own affirmations, here’s an article to get you started: How To Write Affirmations.

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Cultivating A Mindset For Success

July 19, 2011 By Lena 1 Comment

One of the most important assets you can have when it comes to being successful is your mindset. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a complete introvert, or the most extroverted person on the planet. If your mind is not geared toward success and prosperity, you will find the journey a difficult one. If, however, you can get yourself into a mindset of prosperity and success, not only will your path become easier, it will also be one of the most rewarding. In business and in life how you think plays an extremely large role in your success.

Defining a Successful Mindset

So what the heck is a successful mindset? That was the first question I asked when I started learning about the idea of mindset and how your thinking affects your life.

A successful mindset, in it’s simplest form, is one where your thoughts are centered on prosperity and abundance in your life. And I don’t mean just in terms of financial success, although that is certainly a big part of it. Being successful is a lifestyle — one that can give you prosperity and abundance in ALL areas of your life, if you play the game right.

It’s also a mindset that is geared to action. There is no magic pill that is going to make you successful overnight. That kind of thinking, while a nice fairy tale, will get you nothing but frustration and desperation. Developing a successful mindset means that you are focused on taking action every day — action that improves not only your health, wealth, and happiness, but also the health, wealth, and happiness of the people you come into contact with.

Developing Your Success Mindset

Developing a prosperity mindset is not something that comes easy to a lot of people. I know that it didn’t for me. Mindset is something that I have to consciously work at every single day. Fortunately there are a few things you can do to give yourself a helping hand, whether you’re just starting out or have been at it for awhile.

Here are a few things to pay attention to when cultivating a successful mindset:

  • Watching Others
  • Planning and Goal Setting
  • Positive Thinking
  • Persistence
  • Coaching and Mentoring

Each one plays a role in developing and maintaining the mindset you need to achieve success and abundance.

Watching Others

Learning by example is the easiest way for many people. And fortunately with social media playing such a large part in our lives now, it’s very easy to do.

The best way to go about this is to find someone that is already successful and watch what they do, then try and emulate them. Read their blogs, subscribe to their newsletters, buy their products, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. The worst they can do is say no, but nine times out of ten you’ll find that as long as you’re respectful most successful people are happy to help.

What you’ll often find through this is that most successful people started out just like you are, and had to go through this process too. They love to give back to the community and if you are sincere in your desire to learn and take things seriously they’re more than happy to answer your questions and help out.

Planning and Goal Setting

If you’ve read any personal development books at all, you know that the first step in any mindset is knowing what you want to achieve. If you don’t have a plan and a definite goal in mind when you start out, you could spend years (literally!) wandering aimlessly through the maze that is your life.

Do not get caught up in the “shiny new object” syndrome where you go off and check out every single new thing that comes your way. Not only is it not productive, it will drive you crazy in the long run because there is always something new to see, a new book to read, a new blog to check out… you get the idea. A major key to developing a successful mindset is to be able to put blinders on, and not let anything distract you from what you are trying to achieve.

Practice Positive Thinking

I could fill a whole section with positive thoughts and quotes like these:

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you are right.” ~ Henry Ford

“Whatever the mind can conceive, it can achieve” ~ Napoleon Hill

Positive thinking is an integral part of a successful mindset. You will only be as successful as you believe you can be. It’s very easy to let yourself be overcome with doubt about yourself and your abilities, especially when you’ve never done this before.

A few things you can do here are:

  • associate with positive people
  • read positive quotes and sayings
  • write out positive affirmations every day (I do this every morning to start my day)
  • create a vision board of your goals and dreams

Be Persistent

Persistence goes hand in hand with positive thinking when it comes to developing a successful mindset. Your success can be measured in direct proportion to the amount of motivation and dedication you have to see things through and achieve your goals. It’s easy to give up and let yourself get sidetracked.

Don’t do it!

This is where positive thinking comes into play again. Keep your goal in mind, stare at your vision board when you need inspiration, and keep going. Change course if you have to, but always keep taking action to move forward.

If you allow yourself to quit, you’ll never know how close to success you actually were.

Get a Coach or a Mentor

When you’re ready, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to get a coach or a mentor to help you get to the next level.

A coach or mentor can help you identify the issues that are blocking you from achieving success, and help you break through them. They can also help you create goals and plans that will work for you as an individual. When it comes to success, there is no one-size-fits-all. For every five people you talk to, you will hear five different stories of success (or failure).

For many people, the decision to work with a coach is the final piece in the puzzle. If you’re not ready for one-on-one coaching, you can always try being part of a community of like-minded people.

Developing the proper mindset is a huge asset when it comes to achieving success in life, however that looks for you. Sure, you’ll still have put what you learn into action, but when you take time to cultivate the mental aspects everything else flows so much more easily.

Filed Under: Ezine Issues, Mindset Tagged With: , , ,

Making Positive Thinking Work For You

June 24, 2011 By Lena 6 Comments

At it’s core, the whole essence of personal growth can be boiled down to one simple concept — positive thinking. We’ve all heard all the sayings, I’m sure. Things like:

summer shade

  • What you focus on is what you get;
  • Like attracts like;
  • Your thoughts create your reality

    • just to list a few.

    And it’s true. I have been using positive thinking techniques for years to get through some pretty tough times. The one place I don’t agree with many is that they make it sound so easy. And while in theory it is, in practice it can be a very hard thing for many people to do.

    Here’s the thing… While it’s really easy to think positive and good thoughts when everything is flowing your way, it’s not an easy thing to do when you’re feeling like the whole world has turned against you.

    So how can you make positive thinking work for you? Here are a few ways that I’ve used it, as recently as yesterday, to get through one of those rough days…

    1. Use positive affirmations

    I love affirmations. They have gotten me through many a stressful occasion, be it a job interview, an argument with my son, or as yesterday, a less than pleasing doctor’s appointment.

    It’s so easy to revert to the panic and anxiety-laden thought processes when you get bad news, but if you can change your thoughts to something positive you will be able to handle it more calmly.

    In the heat of the moment, my favorite affirmation is a simple “I am at peace in this moment.” I spend a lot of time telling myself that one when things aren’t going the way I want them to. And it works… it may take a few times (okay, maybe more than a few) to get myself calmed down but usually by the time I can get to y journal and really start to process things, I’m much more rational than I was in the beginning.

    2. Hang out with Positive People

    Positive people are truly a gift from whatever God you believe in. Having friends that can help you put a positive spin on a less-than-positive experience, and can see the good parts of you when you’re ranting and raving and cursing like only a Canadian can, helps you see that things probably aren’t as bad as you’re thinking they are.

    Yesterday was a prime example of that. I knew I needed to talk to someone, so when I got home I fired up Skype and looked for the one person I knew would help me see the humour in the situation. And sure enough, about halfway into my rant I mentioned the irony of being halfway through an article on positive thinking when I left for the appointment.

    “Lena,” she says, “maybe you better slow down a bit here. You’re not gonna sound very positive when every other word out of your mouth is a swear word. Now tell me the good stuff, because you said you had good stuff to tell me too.”

    And for the rest of the conversation we focused on the positive things I had to tell her (which had nothing to do with the bleeping doctor’s appointment).

    3. Practice Gratitude

    Gratitude is another one of those things, like affirmations and positive thoughts, that can turn your mindset around in a minute if you let it. When you can pick out at least one thing in a situation where you think there is nothing to be thankful for, and manage a moment of gratitude for the tiniest thing you will find yourself feeling more positive about the whole situation.

    My grateful moment yesterday came when the parking maching was broken. I was very grateful I didn’t have to shell out ten bucks to pay for parking just to get news I didn’t want to hear in the first place.

    4. Turn the negative into positive

    So how do you turn a negative into a positive? You find the lesson in the experience, accept responsibility for the circumstances that got you there, and move on.

    I know that sounds harsh, but it’s not really. It’s life, and to use a popular cliche, when you get lemons you can either cry about it or you can make lemonade.

    I got a lot of lessons out of my experience yesterday. I know that it’s my own fault I’m in the situation, and that I need to take better care of myself to get out of it. I know what I need to do, and am more determined to do it now. This was a really good wake up call for me… and that’s definitely positive.

    And, the biggest positive for me is that I got to turn everything around and share it with you. It’s a great lesson for me to always remember to practice what I preach.

    Positive thinking… what would we do without it?

    Filed Under: Ezine Issues Tagged With: , , ,

    Staying in the Present Moment

    June 9, 2011 By Lena 1 Comment

    So often we get caught up in thinking about the past, both good times and bad, and worrying about the future that we neglect the present moment. We, and I’m including myself in here because I do it too, tend to forget that the past can’t be changed and that the future we’re worrying about is nothing more than the result of our actions in this present moment.

    Developing the skill of being focused on the present is one that will serve to ensure that the future you get is the one you truly want, it also is a great way to relieve stress. Because when you’re only thinking of this moment, the worry about things you can’t change or control disappears. And that minute free from stress is such a gift to your mind and body.

    Learning to live in the moment is not always easy to accomplish. When you’re first starting out you will find that it is very easy to get distracted, and your thoughts will wander into the past or the future. You may also feel frustrated or impatient with yourself because of it. Getting caught up in these feelings won’t do you any good, but recognizing that they’re there is a good thing because it means that you are noticing when your mind strays from the present, and you can then take steps to bring it back to where you want to be.

    One of the best tools for learning this skill is meditation. Meditation is based on the idea of being present in the moment. Since it is, by its very nature, a solitary pursuit you will find it much easier to avoid distractions while practicing. This will make it much easier to notice when your mind is active, and when it is calmer.

    As you become more proficient at staying in the moment while you’re meditating, you should also notice that it becomes easier to stay in the moment at other points during the day too.

    Another way to make staying in the present easier is to make sure that you do take time for yourself. We all lead such busy lives that it’s easy to put off doing things for ourselves because we know there is always one more thing that we could be doing in that moment.

    Making time to meditate is the perfect example. You know you should be doing it, it’s something that will calm your mind and help you be more focused on the moment, and it’s something that you do just for you. How many times do you put it off in favor of doing one more chore?

    Make time for yourself, and make it a priority. Even if you only get ten or fifteen minutes a day you will notice a difference.

    Practice Makes Perfect

    As you practice meditating when you’re by yourself, you should also be practicing as you go about your everyday life. It’s so easy to let your mind wander when you’re brushing your teeth or standing in line at the grocery store.

    You can use affirmations to help keep you focused and bring your mind back to where you want it. Some examples are:

    I AM living fullest in the present moment.

    I choose to live in this moment.

    I AM focused on the now.

    The more you practice the more you will notice when you are fully engaged in the moment and when you’re not. You will also notice more and more opportunities for staying focused in the present. Seize those moments and embrace them for the gifts that they are!

    For more on this topic, you may enjoy Lessons on Living For the Moment

    Please share your comments on this article below. Your input is very much appreciated.

    Filed Under: Ezine Issues Tagged With: , , ,

    How To Write Affirmations

    October 29, 2009 By Lena 2 Comments

    countrypathWhen you start using affirmations it’s natural to use ones that other people have created. As you progress, however, you’ll find that you get more benefit from creating your own.

    When you write your own affirmations they take on more of your own energy and are more attuned to your individual goals.

    There is a definite process to writing affirmations. Follow these seven rules and you will find yourself writing affirmations that resonate with your energy in no time.

    1. Make it personal. Affirmations are all about you, so make sure you write them in the first person.

    eg. “I AM having an incredible day today!”

    2. Write in the present tense. It’s important to stay in the present moment when you write affirmations. Even if you’re working toward a goal for the future, the affirmation you write or say today is all about changing how you feel at this moment in time.

    eg. “I AM feeling relaxed.”

    3. Keep it simple. One line affirmations work best because they keep you focused on the target.

    eg. “I AM calm.”
    eg. “I feel great!”

    4. Keep it positive. Affirmations are meant to help you make positive changes in your life. Avoid using negative words in your statements.

    eg. “I AM beautiful!”
    (as opposed to “I AM not overweight.”)

    5. Be realistic. Make sure that the affirmations you write are something you can believe in. If you choose something unrealistic, you won’t believe in it, and your subconscious will ignore it.

    6. Write with emotion! Pour as much emotion into your affirmations as you possibly can. The more excited and happy you are to accomplish your goal, the more positive energy will flow through your words.

    7. Find your own style. Keeping all of the tips I’ve mentioned in mind, it’s important that you write your affirmations in a way that resonates with you.

    And now, a few more tips…

    Now that you’ve got the hang of writing affirmations, it’s time to put your new skill into practice.

    Write your affirmations out every day. You can put them into a journal, or write them on index cards, or even just on little scraps of paper that you keep in your pocket.

    My favorite method is a combination of a journal and sticky notes that I put up above my monitor so that they’re in my line of sight when I’m working.

    Say your affirmations out loud after you have written them down. This infuses them with even more of your energy and helps to make them more real.

    And finally, don’t be afraid to change your affirmations whenever you need to. You are always growing and changing, so it only makes sense that your affirmations should grow and change with you.

    Learning how to write affirmations is a skill everyone should develop. They help to keep you in a more positive frame of mind, and can be a big help in keeping you focused on achieving your goals.

    Have a great day!
    Thanks for being here!
    lena

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