Posts Tagged: confidence

Six Simple Ways to Improve Self-Confidence

Posted April 12th, 2018 | Michelle Hollomon

Insecurities and self esteem issues can cause a lot of problems in life. You may over extend yourself, say yes when you need to say no, or talk yourself out of goals and dreams. The good news is that Self Esteem is not fixed and inflexible- it can change and improve. With the right people, practice and positivity, you can change that pesky sense of self-doubt once and for all. Whether you’ve suffered with low self esteem you’re entire life, or you’ve recently gone through something hard and you’ve lost your confidence, you can make simple changes that will improve how you feel about yourself.

Why do I struggle with Self Esteem Issues More than Other People?

The development of self esteem over the course of a life time can be complex. A combination of personality type, nurturing experiences, peer influence and skills attainment affect a person’s self esteem. My blog post last week addressed this in detail and is worth the read if you want to understand the development of self esteem better. Once you discover where your Self Esteem may have gotten delayed or off course, you most likely be ready to start practicing ways to improve.

People who struggle with self esteem rarely count that at their only problem. They usually complain that their self esteem affects their performance at work, their  confidence as a parent, who they chose as a spouse, and how satisfying their friendship are. If you feel negatively about yourself, your relationships, career and meaning in life will also suffer. Improving your own sense of self worth is an essential task in life to experience significance and happiness. Here are Six Simple Steps to Improve your Self Esteem and start feeling better!

How to Improve Self Esteem

  1. Get free of toxic people: Toxic people are those who are so self-absorbed and/or empty that they use up your energy, your good-natured generosity, or your positivity in exchange for their negativity, criticism, gossip or control. Their dysfunctional behavior patterns do more to bring you down, than up. It is impossible to heal or improve your self-esteem when you’re too close to the poison of toxic, self-centered and vampiric people.
  2. Nurture Positive Relationships: It may be impossible to eradicate toxic people from your life entirely, but maintaining other uplifting relationships is an essential task to improving self-esteem. Once you untangle yourself from negative people, it’s time to find healthier people who will add to your sense of self instead of take away from it. You may find these people while you volunteer in non-profit organizations, or participate in book clubs, writing groups, neighborhood or exercise meet-ups. Many churches have recognized the need for community, and have structured means to connect to support that need.
  3. Self Esteem Exercises: Whether you’re good at bargain hunting, decorating, painting, programming, hosting, training dogs, or hiking, to improve your self-esteem, you’ll need to practice the things you’re good at, and start adopting a few things that you’re not. In the context of doing something you’re good at, add something that you’re not so good at, like surfing, cooking, or art, and start learning. Learning and perfecting a new skill is highly gratifying and confidence boosting. It may require taking a class, going to a workshop, and getting certified at something you’re interested in. Many people who are healing from a broken relationship, will “re-tool” for a fresh start. Maybe they acquire a Pilates certification, or go back to school to change careers, or join a writing critique group. Learning and becoming competent at a new skill energizes all the right areas of brain and soul, and will help boost positivity and hopefulness.
  4. Change the Brain: Negative and critical thinking plague the person with a struggling self-esteem. But the good news is that even an old brain can learn new tricks. The brain likes to streamline and go into auto pilot. It doesn’t like to work hard, so it tries to go the easy way. So if your brain has a habit of thinking overly critical thoughts about yourself or others, or if it jumps to negative conclusions, worst case scenarios, or self-ruin, it can change with the right intervention. If your brain is in auto-pilot-negativity mode, it’s time to take back the controls and train it to respond in a new and better way. Stopping old cognitive patterns and replacing them with more helpful and effective thoughts will re-train the brain to streamline in a more positive way. The more you exercise these new patterns, the more automatic they become.
  5. Trauma Work: Self esteem development can get arrested, detained and imprisoned by traumatic events. Trauma can not only stunt healthy growth, it can also make a person distrusting, hyper-vigilant, and over-reactive. Treating the effects of trauma with proven trauma therapy like EMDR, LifeSpan Integration or Bio Feedback can release the imprisoned energy from the trauma memories and reset it to neutral. Finding a counselor or psychologist who have experience and training treating trauma is a great first step.
  6. Embrace Spirituality: There are many faith persuasions, and each person must decide for themselves about their belief system. I have found a few things that are helpful here. Though some refer to God as a Higher Power or the Universe, I like to see God as not only my benevolent Higher Power, but also someone I can talk with when needing rescue. Sometimes we are unable to muster strength, confidence or faith enough to do the hard things required of us in life. It’s those times that faith in a personal God can add to our sense of connection to Someone and something far greater than ourselves. In that spiritual connection, our sense of feeling loved, seen and cared for rejuvenates our esteem and confidence.

Improving the way you think about yourself and the way you interact with the world around you is a key element in growth, healing and influence. As you feel better about yourself, you will attract healthy people and positive outcomes. Your perspective will change, as well as your self-respect. Next week, we will talk about how to build your self esteem after a toxic relationship. See you then!

Improve Your Self Confidence: Key Ingredients to Healthy Self Esteem

Posted April 5th, 2018 | Michelle Hollomon

Do you ever wish you could be more confident, more self assured? Do you with that you didn’t doubt yourself, your abilities, your value, or your place in the world? We all know that healthy self-esteem is important to healthy relationships and happiness, but if you struggle with self-confidence, you may not know how to improve it.

This, and the next two posts will address:

  1. How Healthy Self Esteem is encouraged in children, and the key ingredeints we all need for healthy psychological development.
  2. How to Improve an injuered sense of self through routine psychological exercises.
  3. How to Recover your self-confidence after a toxic relationship.

Let’s start by asking yourself these questions:

Do you…

  • Feel less talented, attractive, intelligent, successful than most people?
  • Compare yourself to others often, wondering how you rank?
  • Beat yourself up after simple mistakes, oversites, or embarrassing moments?
  • Talk to yourself like you’re the worst person on earth?
  • Struggle with toxic shame and guilt?
  • Feel responsible for other people’s happiness?
  • Rehearse to ad nauseam self-criticisms?

If you answered yes to these questions, you may have a wounded sense of self, or in other words, a poor self-esteem. 

Understanding Self Esteem

Self Esteem is developed in children over a period of time by way of three factors: 1) Positive regard and affirmation from family of origin, 2) Attainment of Skills and Competencies, and 3) Acceptance by Peers. That’s the short answer, but there is actually a lot that goes in to building one’s self-esteem. Here’s the deets.

1)     Positive Regard and Family Affirmation: Esteem deposits drop into a child’s core self through consistent affirmation, guidance, love and discipline from parents. Parents and care-givers don’t have to be perfect, they just need to be good enough- guiding, loving, listening, correcting and encouraging their children. However, if the environment is over bearing, coddling, overly critical, emotionally unsafe or unpredictable, the child could develop some serious ego wounds. If, for example, a mother rarely lets her son do hard things for himself, he will likely grow up believing he is incapable of overcoming challenges. On the other hand, if a father is overly critical of a child who works hard, the child will grow to feel like her best is never good enough. One caveat here: there are some adults who grew up in a loving and supportive home and who developed a positive self-esteem, however during adulthood, encountered something so negative, traumatic or abusive, that over time, their self esteem was injured. People in toxic work, marriage or cult environments who start out confident and self-assured, can be so afflicted by persistent, deliberate psychological abuse that the self-esteem injury can take years to heal. 

2)     Attainment of Skills and Competencies: Just as important to building self-esteem, is consistent mastery of developmental tasks. As the child grows in emotional self-regulation, physical maturation, and attainment of new skills, he/she will be confident to try new things. As the child experiments with music, sports, building things, drama, art, animals, etc, the child will discover natural talents and gain in proficiencies. When a child feels he is good at something, his self-esteem rises. If a child is not encouraged or allowed to become competent in his interests, or is steered toward something he is not good at or interested in, his self-esteem will struggle.

3)     Acceptance by Peers: By ages 10, 11, and 12 the voice of the peer group begins to speak louder than the parents. Children who are generally accepted by their peers will glean self-esteem through the adolescent years from the feedback they are getting from their peers. If they feel excluded, like they don’t fit in, or in the worst case, bullied, then their self esteem can take a big hit. Many teens who didn’t succeed socially, will do so in young adulthood, thereby repairing the damage to their self-esteem. If not, a child could grow up feeling socially inadequate, anxious in social situations, and generally undesirable.

If you are well past your 20s you may think the Self Esteem Ship has sailed, and that if you didn’t develop a healthy self-esteem when you were younger, it’s too late for you. The great news, is that it’s not too late. You can work on your self-esteem at any stage in life and achieve the confidence you need to set boundaries, to resolve conflict, to achieve deeper intimacy, and pursue big goals.

With the right people, practice and positivity, you can change that pesky sense of self-doubt once and for all. Now that we’ve talked about what goes into the development of healthy self- confidence, we are ready to learn the basics of IMPROVING self-confidence. Next week, I will be offering 6 Simple Ways to Improve Self Confidence. Talk to you next week!

 

 

 

How to Build Self Esteem Part II: Dream Big

Posted January 25th, 2015 | Michelle Hollomon

Have you ever had a dream or desire that you kept locked up in a little treasure chest somewhere inside your head? Like maybe you let yourself day dream a little once or twice about what it would feel like to be in that place, accomplishing that thing. Maybe it’s your wedding day, or maybe it’s holding a baby in your arms, or maybe it’s owning your own business, or making your own music CD. Sometimes reality exceeds the fantasy, and sometimes reality doesn’t live up to the fantasy. But we just wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have the dream. The way you see yourself affects everything in your life, including your relationships. I know that if I can help you improve your self esteem, your self respect and your self confidence, I am also helping you have the power to transform your relationships for the good. The stronger you are as a person, the stronger your relationships will be too. That’s just God’s honest truth. 

We are in part II of a three part series. These concepts have the power to transform your life and your relationships, bringing you into the fullness of God’s plan and purpose for your life, IF you let them. They will take time, energy, risk and investment. But gee whiz, you are worth every ounce of sweat equity you put out there.

The last post was on How to build your self esteem- by getting out of your own way. I covered the ways you sabotage your own success, thereby reinforcing your low sense of self-worth. That’s bad joo joo. But when you learn how you are getting in your own way, you have power to get out of your own way and to succeed. When you start collecting small successes, you grow in strength and competency, and your self esteem is improved. Sounds simple, right? It is. But it does take some time and effort. But you have what it takes, so keep going!

WORD TO THE WISE: When you start working on yourself esteem, goal setting and making changes, don’t expect the world to throw you a party. In fact, expect resistance. And guess where some of this resistance will come from. You got it, from the people you love the most!  They are used to you a certain way. When you upset the apple cart with your growth and changes, it forces them to change too. Some will welcome this change and adapt easily. But this is not the majority of people. Most people find change anxiety provoking and resist it. However, do not let your family’s resistance to the new and improved you get the better of you. The fact is, when you embrace God’s love for your life and you allow it to transform you, that same love desires to have its way with your entire family- starting with your spouse, your kids, and then your closest friends. If you know the change inside of you is God’s transformative power, then let it run its course in all your relationships! A change at any level of the system, changes the whole system. When you start acting like the person God has made you to be, confident in your loved and cherished position with God, it will change your entire family system. You have so much more power for good, than you are even aware.

This is what Peter says in the bible. Remember Peter? The guy who walked on water, and then fell in? the guy who cut the ear of a soldier who was arresting Jesus? The guy who denied Christ three times the eve of His crucifixion. Peter was in Jesus’ inner circle and knew Him well. This is what he says, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  1 Pe 5:8-11 Don’t quit just because it gets hard. Expect it to get harder before it gets easier.

Christians sometimes squelch their dreams because they worry about being too self centered or too prideful. If they see themselves in a powerful or admirable position, they wrongly consider this to be ungodly or carnal or too “of the flesh.” If you have been one of these Christians, let me put your mind at ease. Here is the secret to your success. Humble yourself and be completely dependent on God.

“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke 18:13-15

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:10

 1 Peter 5:6-7 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

You humble yourself by praying, “I don’t know if this dream or this desire is from you, but I lay it at your feet. I know that faith pleases you, so I am going to take a big risk and say that this dream is from you, that you put it in my heart, and because I love this dream, I am going to surrender it just like Abraham surrendered Isaac. I don’t have to make my dream happen, You do, and in due time as I humble myself before you, I know you will lift me up.”

Simple right? As you submit your dreams to God, watch how He provides exactly what you need when you need it. Like the ram in the bushes. God didn’t provide the ram in the bushes until Abraham surrendered Isaac- his dream child- his promised child. Once Abraham surrendered his ownership and responsibility for Isaac, God provided exactly what was needed.

Your dream may shift a little, depending on the circumstances of your life. What you thought you wanted, you may determine later that you want something different. The essence of what you want is probably the same- and I believe that the essence of your dream is God given- so dream it in the form that you have it now, and trust God to change it to His will as you go. God’s got it in His hands. He cares more about the dream He’s put in your heart than you do. He’ll be faithful to see it through.

What we know about self-esteem, is that it has a lot to do with who we are, what we think, and what decisions we make in life. Here are some examples:

A person with healthy Self Esteem:

  •    Take educated risks in professional and personal areas of life
  •    Have bounce-back-ability. They are resilient after set backs
  •    Seek understanding of other’s points of view because they are not threatened by diversity
  •    Are Not easily offended or take criticisms personally
  •    Are able to separate behavior from identity
  •    Are able to bless those who curse them- that take justice to the next level and instead of repaying evil with evil, they seek to give blessing.
  •    Are able to assert their needs, opinions and desires.
  •    Are able to verbalize their opinions with respect and love.
  •    Able to empathize and care for others in need

 

A person with low Self-Esteem:

  • Will be dependent on other’s approval before formulating thoughts and ideas
  •  Will be avoid making decisions independently
  • Have a pessimistic view of self and his influence in the world
  • Will feel powerless over his life and circumstances
  • May become overwhelmed with shame and guilt over mistakes or failures.
  • When they experience a failure, they internalize it to mean they are a failure.
  • Unable to verbalize or assert their needs, desires or limitations.
  • Will tend to be overly guarded and distrusting or overly trusting, needy and naive
  • Engages in negative self-talk and negative predictions

The reason why we want to talk about the behaviors and feelings of people who do and do not have healthy self esteem, is because we want to emulate those who got it. Those of you who say, “I need to improve my self esteem,” then I’m here to help you know what that looks like, so you can recognize what areas you want to work on.

                One significant difference between those who have healthy self esteem and those who do not, is their ability to DREAM BIG. For the person with a healthy self esteem, they really believe that anything is possible. Maybe because nothing in their family past has informed them otherwise. Or maybe because they have overcome so many obstacles in their life, they can’t help but believe miracles are possible. Whatever the reasons for healthy self esteem, an exercise to help you improve yours is to practice dreaming big, writing it down and saying it out loud. Now this next part, you are going to want to work through slowly. Don’t worry, to those of you who are listening to this live, I will have the podcast available to you on my web site. You can stop and pause until you are ready to move on. Take your time, write these things down.

A common problem to improving self esteem is that we don’t allow ourselves to imagine something different, something better. So let’s do a couple of exercises that jog that imagination.

1.  Now, thinking about your interests, what comes naturally to you that gives you an “unfair advantage”? 

2. When do you feel so immersed in something that you forget that the rest of the world exists? 

3. What do you do that brings you pleasure, piques your curiosity and gives you more energy than when you started?

4. If you could do anything without fear of failure, what would it be?

5. What was the happiest period of your life?

6. What was a turning point in your life?

7. Was there an event in which you demonstrated great courage and perseverance?

8. Are there any values that you would like to establish?

9. What are some weaknesses, things you do poorly that you will need help with?

10. Project yourself into the future. You pick the time frame, two years, five years or ten years. Don’t filter this exercise with shoulds and oughts. This exercise is meant to inform you. Just let it flow and see what comes. Now close your eyes and use your imagination to see what your ideal day would look like if you had your dream. Imagine that anything is possible, fantasize what you are wearing, what you are doing, where you are and who you are with. What kind of people are around you. Now, this is an important part. As you imagine yourself, now ascertain how you are feeling in that scene. How do you feel about what you are doing. What is the expression on your face? What is the impact you have? One more thing, now, imagine God in the dream. Where is He, how does he feel about this ideal day of yours? Where is He? Looking down from above, beside your working, in the crowd judging your performance or smiling with delight? Now imagine a conversation between the two of you. You talking to God and Him talking back. Don’t filter this conversation with shoulds and oughts. Just let it flow. When you’re done, write down what you saw and the conversation you had with God.

There are many good things in our lives.  However, “good” can be the enemy of “best”.  When thinking about your passions and your values, you may find that the many “good” things in your life may be crowding out the “best” things in your life.  For example, if one of your passion is “writing” but you never seem to have the time to do it because of your involvement in other “good” things, then it is time to discard the “good” for the “best”.  It is out of your passions that real potential flows.

1.            What is something that you would like to discard, so that you can allow more time, energy and investment for something better?

2. What will be difficult about discarding that thing?  What will you lose?  What will you potentially gain?

Progress requires sacrifice.  To win the race, we must lay aside everything that weighs us down.  To make it to the top, we must slough off the heavy weights that keep us from climbing.  These weights are mere distractions from the ultimate goal.  They are rabbit trails and red herrings.

How to Build Self Esteem Part I: Get Out of Your Own Way

Posted December 12th, 2014 | Michelle Hollomon

How to Build Self-Esteem Part I: Get Out of Your Own Way  

Face it, if you don’t have it, you can’t give it away. The way you feel and think about yourself, profoundly affects your relationships.  I talk to married men who are broken hearted because their wives lack self confidence. I talk to parents who are completely distressed because their daughter’s esteem is bordering on self-hatred. I talk to women who have been crushed by cruel words and actions from people they trusted.  Our self esteem determines how we relate to God, and how we relate to other people. How can we get over low self esteem and become happy, healthy, fulfilled people God has made us to be? 

            Psychologists know that children’s self esteem is not only built through parental praise and unconditional love, but it is primarily built through accomplishing developmental tasks through life. Each task that is accomplished from walking to potty training to learning to read, builds a child’s sense of self-control, competencies and confidence. The same is true for us adults.

If you missed some of those ingredients growing up and feel at a disadvantage when it comes to self-esteem and self-confidence, you are not alone. Many adults struggle with this- whether it is taking a new position at work, or putting yourself out there in the dating scene, or just trying Zumba for the first time. Low self-esteem affects our happiness, our relationships and our ability to accomplish great things.

I will show you in this three part series how to build your self esteem. I’m going to be talking about 1) how to get out of your own way, 2) How to dream big by identifying what you want and why you want it, and 3) How to make and accomplish SMART Goals. When you pair up love and discipline, anything is impossible. Love- means that when you love God, yourself and others enough to break through your fears and do all you were made to do. Discipline means doing the hard work of planning, investing, plodding, and enduring until the goal is finished. When you have the combination of these two things working in tandem together, you will become confident and competent. Your self esteem will blossom.

Goal accomplishment has a lot more to do with self-esteem than you may initially think. Setting a goal, making the sacrifices and investments that are required to meet that goal, and then accomplishing the thing we desired adds to my sense of ability, competency, ego strength and maturity. However, if we rarely set new goals, or give a half hearted effort in achieving those we set, our self esteem lacks proper exercise for increased strength. When we half heartedly set goals, we never see our goals realized and that lack of success reinforces our low self esteem.

What keeps us from making and keeping personal goals? Well, fear of course! Fear of accountability. Fear of failure. Fear of taking risks and being wrong. If I write it down and say it out loud, I am making myself vulnerable to failure. But if I don’t write it down and say it out loud, then I will never achieve it. I stand in the way of myself ever accomplishing my dream.

Wishful thinking is also something that keeps us from realizing our goals. Wishful thinking is believing that somehow my goal will happen to me- that I’ll get discovered, or someone will hear of me and my idea and they will want to be my angel investor- is a sign of immaturity. Proverbs says, “How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief.”

Common reasons why people lack the motivation to see a goal all the way through.

  • Black and White Thinking- also known as  Right/Wrong thinking. Too afraid to do something wrong because of all the bad consequences that can befall you. 

  • Perfectionism = Procrastination: Because you believe that your product must be perfect before launching, you become overwhelmed and procrastinate, thereby putting out a product doomed for failure.

  • Fear of Failure- this is rooted in our own shame. Shame is the feeling that something is innately wrong with you. It’s power is so great that when tapped into or triggered, we either implode or explode. If we experience something as a failure, or we look like a failure to others, then our shame is triggered and we internalize that failure as being a part of us- as actually having the power to define us.

  • Self Fulfilling Prophecy- or negative predictions. The thing that you are most afraid of happening actually happens. The fear you have actually produces the energy to make that thing come about. We can be so self protective, trying to prevent or avoid our greatest fear, that we actually create space for the thing to actually happen.

 

Fake It Fast: Secret to Success I learned from the Dukes of Hazzard

Posted April 3rd, 2014 | Michelle Hollomon

I was distinctly under the impression that neon laces, matching gloves, racing stripes and sleeve-over-the-thumb thingies would make you run faster. I guess all that running stuff in the magazines is false advertising or something because I still run as slow as I ever did, which is slower than most people walk btw, even after I bought all that stuff. Mr. Dashing says I started working out just so I could legitimately buy something from Lulu Lemon. He may be on to something, because I certainly like shopping more than running.
I went on a run this morning, but I use “run” loosely because it’s more like a “run until I think I’m going to die, and then walk, and then run till I think I’m going to die again” until the torture is over.

There is natural pond near the hood that we call Lama Lake. It’s more like a water shed, nature preserve type area with a walking path around it, and it’s pretty Zen. If I round the lake, snake through the neighborhood, and cut through the green belt, I can get in 3 miles of “running.” This is my regular loop (shh, don’t tell any stalkers.)

This morning, I got behind a walker. I was “running” and he was walking.  I was making my normal running sounds- the clomping, the heavy breathing, the snorting-back-snot type sounds, and I guess Mr. Walker Guy could hear me coming. The thing is, I couldn’t pass him. I was too slow.  He kept looking back expecting me to pass him with all my heavy breathing, but I couldn’t. I ran slower than he walked. It’s a pitiful confession, really. But there it is. My slow running must have thrown his walking Zen into a jugger not, because the third time he looked back, his face was scrunchy and perturbed. So I did what any experienced runner would do- I faked a pulled muscle and said in a too-loud voice, “Oh, darn looks like I’ll be walking the rest of way,” just to keep him from looking back at me again with his grumpy face.

Walk on walking guy, walk on! I won’t be harassing you with my heavy breathing anymore. I’ll just sit this one out! Me and my racing stripes!

Me looking, sounding, and dressing like a runner must have given him the impression I was fast. This got me to thinking…. what if success only requires you to LOOK like you know what you’re doing? Then I thought of one of my favorite stories.

Do you remember Bo Duke from the television series The Dukes of Hazzard? Of course you do! Who’m I talkin’ to?! You’re you! You watched it religiously, just like me. Bo  was the heart-throb blond in the Bo and Luke Duke cousin duo. The Duke boys were famous for getting into trouble, jumping the General Lee over broken bridges, and taunting Rosco P.Coltrain and Boss Hogg. Bo was played by John Schneider, and he was the younger, wild one of the two cousins. Luke was my personal favorite because he was smart and level headed. So when my childhood friend, Jenna wanted to play  Dukes of Hazzard on the play ground, she always got Bo, and I got Luke. Those of you who know Mr. Dashing, know I married a “Luke.”

Well, a few years back, I saw John Schneider interviewed on how he got the role as Bo. He was an unlikely choice, because he was born and raised in Mt. Kisco, NY and didn’t have any experience with southern talk, walk or mentality. So when the opportunity came to audition, he prepared. He borrowed his friend’s truck and went four-wheelin’ in the country, he got it stuck in the mud, and dug it out. He grew out his beard, and he practiced his southern drawl. He said he wanted the role so bad, he got completely in character and stayed in character for days until the auditions. He auditioned for the role dressed like a country boy, talking like a country boy, holding a beer can and claiming he was actually from Snellville, Georgia. He was so convincing, the casting director had to say yes. The rest is history.

I figure that John Schneider has the secret sauce. I figure we can apply his method to almost anything and be successful, if we have the confidence and tenacity to follow it through. Showing up for the first day on the job, having the difficult conversations with your kids, asking for that raise, volunteer coaching a sport you never played, teaching a class for the first time, or just trying something new. These activities take some fake-it-till-you-make-it type confidence. Imagine yourself successful at the thing you want. Get into character. Act as if it were already so, and stick with it until it’s reality.

That’s why I buy running gear. And damn, do I look fast. Watch out Mr. Walking Guy…. I’m right behind you.

My “Relationship Savvy” blog gives you tips, advice, and flippin’ fantastic feel-goods to help with your most difficult relationship challenges.

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