Tag: self esteem

Unconscious Untruths

Just as we can unconsciously emotionally react to events around us, we can also be unconscious victims of thoughts that are not true.

Our actions and reactions are based on what we believe to be true, and this happens on an unconscious level without us questioning whether or not those beliefs are true.

That is not to say that what we believe is lies but rather there are various versions of the truth which may hinder us in our lives.

Outdated Truths – Take a moment to think about things in your life that may have once been true but no longer are true. Perhaps it was once true to say you lived in a certain town but have since moved so it is no longer true. Or a time when you were single but now are in a relationship, maybe you were once in a relationship but now are single. Truth can change. Think of others examples in your life where this is the case.

The examples above are fairly obvious ones, as always things are not so obvious. As children we have truths instilled in us by parents, teachers and other influential people which may very well have been true at the time but life and society move on and those truths may no longer be relevant yet they still live in our unconscious impacting on our actions and reactions.

For example your school years may have shown you the ‘truth’ of how children should learn things and you may hold on to that truth despite the fact that the world has moved on and different learning strategies have been shown to be more successful.

Opinionated Truths – We are inundated constantly by opinionated truths, facts which are not actually facts but rather interpretations or opinions of facts. Politicians provide the best example of this, just look how different political parties present the same information in different ways but usually prefixed with expressions such as “the truth is” or “the fact of the matter is”. If you are predisposed to favour one political party over the other then you are more likely to accept their truth while dismissing the other as the other as ‘spin’ or outright lies.

Other sources of ‘fact’ also have a degree of opinion. The news, for example, is opinionated. If you get the chance watch the news on different TV channels, look at how different channels emphasise different stories, one may lead with a story (giving it an air of greater importance) yet another may give the same story a lot less emphasis giving the lead to a completely different piece of news.

person reading the daily fake news newspaper sitting on gray couch
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

(For the record this blog is opinion of fact rather than the ultimate truth!)

On a much more personal level we can be influenced by friends, family, employers etc. who give us ‘facts’ which we accept as truth but which, in reality, are opinions of facts. Is there a time when you have been carried away by things a friend has told you only to discover later they hadn’t given you the full information? A friend could tell us a ‘truth’ about another person which unconsciously influences our behaviour toward that person yet later on we find out that there is a different version of that truth which, in turn, changes our actions again.

Personalised Truth – These are the truths we tell ourselves about ourselves. That internal dialogue, most often negative that affects how we behave and see ourselves. Those things like “I’m ugly” “I’m stupid” “I’m a failure” etc. Personalised truths are also those things we tell ourselves to justify or make sense of the world around us.

Personalised truth is a post all on its own so more on that next time.

For now the important thing to remember is that truth is a flexible thing. If you remember back to my last post “Lightening Reactions” I encouraged you too take time to think what causes those reactions, often it is a belief or ‘truth’ that we hold, it is then up to us to work out if that truth still holds or if it is an unconscious untruth that we need to eliminate from our minds.

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Be A Hero

Be a Hero.
I don’t mean go out and perform dangerous and daring deeds, rather become a hero in the true sense of the word:
“A person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities” (Oxford Dictionaries)
Become someone who others look up to, admire, and want to emulate.
If you think back to the post “The Footsteps of Giants” I encouraged you to go out and seek inspiration from those you most admired because when we find someone who inspires us it helps to motivate us, helps us to overcome obstacles in our lives and gives us someone to relate to when we hit times of struggle.

When you develop a goal in your own life and work on pursuing it think about how you can, in your own way become a hero to others. You could be a hero to your children or grandchildren, a hero to your work colleagues or a hero to your friends.
There are endless debates about how we as humans learn best yet the one aspect often overlooked is the fact that we learn most from the behaviours of others. If you watch a toddler nowadays you will often see them putting their hand to their ear pretending to be on a phone, nobody actually teaches them to do that, they copy behaviour.
Think back to how you learned to do many things, did someone teach you to turn a door handle or was it something you just picked up? Or are there times now when you suddenly find yourself doing something a parent did, again this was something you picked up rather than being taught.
On a grown up level you will often find bosses at work who tell you to act in a certain way but act themselves in a different way, if you look closely you find that their team will actually copy the boss’s behaviour rather that act as they are told to.
If, as you follow your dream, also think about how that path can influence and inspire others you add an extra level of motivation to yourself.
There will always be difficulties and challenges in life and following our goals will, at times, be hard as life and others things intervene, slowing us down or temporarily diverting us. Yet if we can meet and overcome these challenges with determination and success we can also inspire those around us to meet their challenges in the same way.
Think about your heroes and what it is about them and their life that has inspired you. What particular qualities do they have that really resonate with you, it may be their dogged determination, or their calmness in the face of adversity or perhaps their enduring pursuit of wisdom. Whatever it is once you have isolated it apply that to your own life and use what inspired you to underpin your behaviour so, in turn, you can pass inspiration on to those around you.
By thinking about how what we do influences those around us helps us think about how we behave and how we follow our dreams. It helps us focus on that path rather than simply giving up because we can’t be bothered, after all, is that the message we want to send to those around us? We motivate ourselves when we think about how we motivate others, we are more able to stick to our path when we know that others will be influenced more by our behaviour and actions than by meaningless advice. Because advice and words are only meaningful if backed up by experience.

The other advantage of knowing how our behaviour can positively influence others is that it helps build our own self-confidence and self-esteem. Imagine how good it will feel seeing others you care about following in your footsteps as you inspire them in achieving their goals.
Be a Hero today. Move on through your life knowing that what you do is seen by those around you and by bettering your own life you know your behaviour and determination with inspire others to better their own.

Beware The Secret Psychic

The Secret Psychic lives in your head!
You hear the Secret Psychic all the time, although most of the time you don’t realise that the voice is there, misguiding you through life.
The Secret Psychic whispers into your inner ear, it reads the minds of other people and predicts your future.
The problem is that much of what the Secret Psychic tells you is wrong. Its information is based on out-dated information, assumptions and your insecurities. It channels those negative voices from the past that have held you back over the years. It echoes the preconceptions of society around you.
Think about the times when you knew someone didn’t like you, or the times you may have avoided someone because of the way they looked, and the times you didn’t bother doing something because you just knew you wouldn’t be able to do it.
That was the Secret Psychic whispering.

Telling you that person doesn’t like because they are avoiding eye contact and talking to you with short sharp words, when it is much more likely that person has other things on their mind.
That person you avoid because of their looks? That is the Secret Psychic echoing societies stereotypes, the negative stories you see in the media and, perhaps, the prejudices of relatives in your childhood. It could also be based on your past experiences with people who may have looked the same. The reality though is that everybody is different and unless we get to know the person we cannot make any assumption about them based solely on their looks.
Those times when you knew you would fail, so you didn’t even bother to do it in the first place. That is the Secret Psychic feeding your insecurities, reminding you of past failures, echoing those negatives words that were said to you when you were younger, undermining your confidence.
However, just because you failed at something in the past does not mean you will fail at something in the future. In that time you’ve grown, learnt more and are better equipped to try again. Those people who told you that you weren’t good enough, that you weren’t clever enough or your looks were somehow not right, were victims of their own Secret Psychic feeding them dodgy information.
One of the issues with the Secret psychic is that its words can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. You think someone doesn’t like you so, in turn, you act offish towards them, which then makes them not like you! You think you are going to fail so you either don’t do it or you become too nervous to complete the task successfully in other words, you fail. You become trapped in the Secret Psychic’s endless cycle.
The thing, then, is to learn to quieten the Secret Psychic and stop it from holding you back.
How? Start to question the truth of those negative things that it whispers into your mind because there are times the Secret Psychic could actually be right. We need to be able to distinguish between past fears or experiences and natural instinct.
When you have those negatives thoughts inserted into you mind ask yourself, what is the reality of this? How do I know it is true? What are the alternative possibilities?
When the Secret Psychic tells you that someone doesn’t like you ask if that is likely to be true. After all it could be they do not know you well enough to make any sort of judgement about you. Ask what the alternatives could be, the other person may have things on their mind distracting them and far from making judgements about you they could be so wrapped up in their own issues that they are barely even noticing you.
When thoughts of failure surface in your mind, challenge them. Are they based on past experiences? If so, question how relevant that past experience is to you right now, how have you or the world around you changed which renders that past experience void now. Do your thoughts come from hurtful words said to you in the past? Ask yourself why the words spoken by someone else’s Secret Psychic should have such an impact on you right now.
The Secret Psychic that lives in your psyche needs to be tamed. We need to take control rather than live under its influence. We sometimes need to Secret Psychic to hold us back a little but we need to use it to pause and question, just don’t let it rule your life.

You Gotta Have Faith

One of the problems that most of us have is that our self-doubt is more prevalent than our self-belief.
It is easy to see why.
One reason is that if we have self-belief in what we are doing we get on and do it but if self-doubt is there it nags at us, worries and stresses us, makes us nervous when we are doing things.
Another reason is that we often find it hard to see what we are good at, particularly if it means transferring that skill or ability to a different setting. Perhaps you know somebody who is super-efficient at work but seems to have a totally disorganised personal life, or maybe someone who seems cool and calm when doing certain tasks yet seem to fall apart with nerves doing other things?
Self-belief is, perhaps, less mentioned than self-confidence or self-esteem yet it the thing that underpins both. If we want to improve our lives in any way we need be in a place where our self-belief outweighs our self-doubt before we can succeed.

To start the ball rolling, write out a list of things you know you are good at. This helps you strengthen your strengths in your mind. It brings self-belief to the front of your thoughts where self-doubt usually sits. Once you have written out your list, do it again as the more you focus on that list the fixed it becomes in your memory. It is important to do that as will be revealed a little further down!
Once you are sure your strengths are firmly fixed in your mind, write a list of things that you know you are okay at but could be better. Once you have done this work, systematically, through the list to work out what you need to do to move that skill or attribute over to your strengths list.
Do you need a little extra knowledge? Perhaps a bit more practice? Maybe you need to be a bit fitter?
Whatever it is write it down next to that attribute. Now rewrite the list, this time in the order you want to achieve those things. Which thing are you okay at would you most like to add to your strengths list first? As you work through this list the greater the number of strengths you gain and as you succeed in moving things to your strengths list the greater your self-belief becomes.
The reason for writing these lists and committing your strengths to memory?
The next time you find yourself in a situations where self-doubt creeps in, or if you are unsure of yourself or nerves are getting the better of you, think back to your lists. Which of your strengths would be most appropriate to the situation right now? It does not matter if they may not seem directly transferable as they can still help you get through the situation.
For example, say you are a person who gets nervous at speaking in public yet one of your strengths is attention to detail. Use your strength, focus more on the detail of what you are presenting rather than the fact you are doing it in front of a group of people. Then, the more you do this, speaking in public becomes less daunting and eventually a new strength.
Self-doubt plagues us but we can overcome this by strengthening our self-belief. The better our self-belief the better we can face the obstacles of everyday life and improve our lives in the way we want.
That does not mean ignoring the fact that we all have weaknesses as well as strengths rather that we have faith in our strengths to support us and neutralise those weaknesses. It means we have the belief in ourselves to meet the challenges we face.
You got to have faith in yourself and the belief that you have the strengths to see you through life.

Building Your Positive Mindset

If you are in a mid-life rut getting out of it and making changes to improve how you feel about your life seem difficult this is usually because at mid-life we have so many ingrained habits and set ways of thinking that change is harder than it was in our youth.
To successfully begin the process of change for the better we need to start building new habits and ways of thinking and that all starts with developing the positive mindset.
Positive Thinking plus Positive Action
Start by fixing in your mind what successful positive thinking is and is not.
It is not about looking at life through rose-tinted glasses, wandering through life believing that everything is okay with the world and you need to nothing is ultimately unrealistic. Similarly Positive Thinking is not simply trying to will good things into existence that, on its own, is just daydreaming.
Positive thinking is about focusing on ways to move your life forward. It is about having belief in yourself and your abilities to overcome those obstacles in everyday life that get in your way. Positive thinking is about having goals you want to achieve and faith in yourself to be able to actually achieve them.
Effective positive thinking needs to be grounded with realism, accepting that life will throw up challenges and problems. Yet rather than focus on those problems, as most people tend to do, we must focus on solutions and finding ways to move beyond those stumbling blocks. We all have it in us to either overcome the things life throws at us or seek out those who can help us do it.
Effective positive thinking also needs to be a little bit self-centred. We need to be focused on those things only we can have an effect on and not on the actions and deeds of others or events that are beyond our control. Obviously being self-centred doesn’t mean thinking about doing anything that would be detrimental to others but if we can be the best we can be then those closest to us will also benefit.
However no amount of positive thinking will come to anything unless we put those thoughts into action.

That, of course, is not always as easy as it sounds. Stepping outside of our comfort zone is often difficult for a number of reasons, not least because, as the name suggests, in our comfort zone we are comfortable therefore outside that zone is uncomfortable!
We come up with all sorts of excuses to avoid taking that step outside, we don’t have the time, we so many other things to do, we will get around to it but no just yet etc. Our habits and routines, our worries and fears and our beliefs about our abilities all trap us inside the comfort zone.
To build and develop our positive mindset we need to break down those barriers of the comfort zone in order to move forward in the direction we want to take in life. Obviously, as with all things in life, sometimes are easier than others to do this yet waiting until the time is right can just reinforce the comfort zone barrier as it is often to convenient to tell ourselves that we will wait just a little longer until circumstances are even better and that time never comes.
To develop a positive mindset we should start to break down the restrictions of the comfort zone and an effective way of starting that process in getting into the habit of breaking habits!
We all have our daily routines, so we can start by changing one thing every day. Maybe you could change the order of the way you do things when you first get up in the morning, maybe you could change the things you do on the way to work every morning or maybe in the evening you could turn the television off for half an hour an practice you positive thinking.
If we want to become good at anything it takes constant practice, building your positive mindset is no different. Training our minds to think differently, positively will help us break away from the comfort zone which so often holds us back from achieving success and fulfilling our lives.
Building your positive mindset will also build your self-confidence and self-esteem and create a positive cycle of thought, the more we build the stronger the positive mindset becomes.