Issues w/ life confidence

[drama07]

Hey, just like to compliment on another excellent website referred to me by someone. Having some serious confidence issue and would be grateful for some help. The first full article I read here was the first recommended one which was to live couragely conciously. What I learnt from that is if I keep avoiding fearful situation, the avoidance feeling will only get stronger. Also that the only way to live is to live a daring life.

So let me get to the main issue. I'm unhappy, depressed or whatever you may call it. It ain't severe depression but just those everyday unhappiness many have with their lives. I'm certain I have low self-esteem, no confidence & no love for myself. I'm sure they all mean the same. I have read many sites and tried implementing the techniques but it's just so damn difficult . I tried hypnosis, I tried CBT, whatever... just hopeless.

Now let me tell you about my life and the real life problems I have. I'm twenty years old. Well my birthday is in a week or so at which I'll turn twenty then. I kind of wish my birthday didn't come up because I hate getting older and I get anxious thinking about how there will be nobody other than my parents to wish me. Anyways I wasted my high school life. Got bad grades and worst of all hid in the washroom every lunch break to avoid people I know seeing me alone and then thinking I was a loner. I was alone because I felt scared to approach people even if I knew them. I also felt like not talking to them. I guess this is due to my low interaction with people throughout my childhood.

Right now I attend second year in college. Still the same ol' since high school. I avoid people even though when I'm in private I'd tell myself that tommorow will be the day I hang with people. My typical day in college would be go to classes I need to go and then head to the library and do homework alone. Even if I wanted to work with others I just don't have the feeling or confidence to approach them. I get nervous when I do and mumble my words. Maybe one reason why I don't try talking is becuase I think the way I talk sounds stupid. I mispronounce words and mumble a lot and that is a fact according to some people. I even recorded my voice to prove it true. I try to read articles out loud to improve my voice but I think that real solution to this is to accept myself for the speech I have. Yet it's impossible for me to feel confident.

I feel time is running out. I'm twenty and haven't had a good social life for the past years. And soon the adulthood will appear where having time for social fun will become limited. I want to experience the fun of my young years. I cry every morning(yes for a man) thinking about how crappy my life is. When I'm not in college, I always mope around at home wasting my time. I always think about doing stuff I don't, but it's either I procastinate or feel anxious to do it like calling up the manager to see whether I can still get that job I want. It's tough when you're not confidence and it practically ruins your life to the fullest.

And yes confidence does have effect on things other than my social life. It effect my studies and being in a tough second year, I'm becoming worried my marks will be very bad, much worse than first year. I procastinate a lot and leave my work to the last minute. Root cause I guess is again, self confidence. *sigh*

All the advice I can get will be truly grateful. If I can solve my confidence issue I'm have great hope that my life is be much better.

Thank you and some of you might have read this exact post on another website. Bear with me, I'm the same person

[TonyToneTone]

drama07!!!

It is time to turn your life around!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to explain a few simple things to you and then give you some exercises to do to get yourself into mental shape. Just as if you were to do physical exercises, your body would become strong, doing these mental exercises will do the same for your mind and confidence.

First thing I would like to start with. Remember this formula, it's by self-help author, T. Harv Ecker. Your thoughts lead to your feelings, and your feelings lead to your actions which lead to your RESULTS.

Right now you have a negative self-image of yourself and this leads to negative self-talk which leads to negative actions (procrastinating on jobs, not talking to people, not expressing yourself clearly) which leads to negative results. We need to turn that around and the first thing we need to do is create a new IMAGE of you.

First EXERCISE:

I want you to RIGHT NOW, get out a piece of paper and write out your ideal you. List all of the qualities and attributes you would like yourself to have, REALLY BE SPECIFIC.

For example, write out:
"My Perfect Me"
Strong
Confident
Express myself clearly and confidently
Punctual
Friendly
Courageous
Strong
Dressed well
Happy
Joyful
In-shape
Excellent student


and list as MANY qualities as you would like. Then write out another image for your ideal life:
"My Perfect Life":
Great friends
Amazing relationships
Happy Family Life
Good grades (3.8 GPA)
In-great shape
Going to fun parties

and so on. Really BE SPECIFIC.

For the next thirty days, you are to spend a few minutes every morning visualizing your ideal you, and your ideal life. Really FEEL the feelings as if it were happening right now.

There are a couple reasons why I am having you do this. 1) Over 90% of what you do is subconscious. You drive to school the same way every day, brush your teeth the same way every day, do the same routine every day and so on. Right now your subconscious has a negative image of you so it needs to be retrained with one that is more positive. To retrain your subconscious you have to feed it images and thoughts of what you would like to happen. Your subconscious doesn't know what's real or false so if you feed it images of you being successful, it will go to work creating those.

2) I say FEEL the feelings of it happening right now for a couple reasons. One, the more emotion an image has, the faster it will become engrained in your subconscious and the faster your subconscious will go to work making it happen. Two, if you're into the Law of Attraction at all, by putting out that good feeling, you will attract more of that good into your life.

3) I say thirty days as you need this new image to become a part of you. You need to retrain yourself for success and as it usually takes about 30 days for a new habit to form, I want to give you ample time.

Now onto your self-talk.

[TonyToneTone]

Think of your new images as seed you just planted in the ground. The self-talk you provide yourself with would be the sunlight and water necessary for your seed to grow.

Right now you've developed a habitual way of negatively talking to yourself. We need to change that to one that is more positive. Remember, your thoughts lead to your feelings which lead to your actions which lead to your RESULTS. So by talking more positively to yourself, you will feel better, take better actions, and have better results.

One of the easiest ways to change your self-talk is through AFFIRMATIONS!!!!

This is a post I actually did yesterday on my blog that fits perfectly for you:

I LOVE affirmations. Aside from imaging, affirmations are one of the cheapest, fastest and easiest ways to improve yourself. An affirmation is simply a “declaration that something is true”. For instance if I say, “the sky is blue”, I am affirming that the sky is blue.

So what does this have to do with you creating your awesome fantastic perfect life? When you constantly say positive affirmations to yourself it changes your internal self-talk to one that is more positive. Remember, your thoughts lead to your feelings, which lead to your ACTIONS so by talking more positively to yourself, you are going to take better actions. Also on a vibration level, positive affirmations put you into a positive state to attract positive experiences into your life.

Let’s try an example of this. Let’s say I have a friend named Monica who is overweight. Every day Monica says to herself such things as “I hate my body”, “Why am I so overweight?” “Is there anything I can do to lose this weight?” and so on. By constantly reaffirming this negative image of herself she is doing a few things 1) On a vibrational level, she is through the Law of Attraction, putting out a negative vibration to attract to her more of what she doesn’t like about herself. 2) She is reinforcing her negative self-talk about herself which is going to lead to more negative self-talk and more negative actions. 3) On a physical level she is strengthening the neural pathways of her brain associated with this negative image of herself which will make it harder for her to change this aspect of her life.

So what should Monica do?

First! She should have the image of herself as being healthy and in shape. As I’ve said in all of my previous talks, over 90% of what you do is subconscious so in this case Monica would need to retrain her subconscious to see herself as being healthy and in shape. Monica would need to spend a minute or so every day holding her new healthy image in her mind and really feeling the feelings as if it were real. As she’s feeling the feelings of this new image being real, two things are happening. 1) Monica is going to be attracting new positive experiences into her life associated with this new image and 2) She’s going to be strengthening the new neural pathways in her brain that are associated with this image. This will allow the image to manifest faster as the more emotion and feelings that images have, the more ingrained they become in your mind. Here is an example that self-help author Jack Canfield often uses in his talks to illustrate this point. He will ask his audience, “How many of you remember where you were when you heard about the September 11th attacks?” Almost everyone raises their hand. The event was so emotionally powerful that it became ingrained in everyone’s mind.

Now as Monica goes throughout the day she can use affirmations to nourish her new image. Whereas before she might have said something like “I hate my body” she can now say “I love my healthy new body”. If you were to say those affirmations to yourself right now, first the “I hate my body” and the second “I love my healthy new body”, you could immediately feel a difference in the vibration and feeling of the statements.

As Monica is going throughout her day saying these new affirmations about this new image, this new idea of a better body is going to form a concept in her subconscious. As your subconscious will go to work on whatever images you feed it, Monica’s subconscious will now go to work on creating this new image of her.

Now back to YOU! the reader. Here are some things to consider when making affirmations.

1. Make sure that any affirmations you say are positive. For instance:
I feel loved.
I feel good.
I am happy.
I am healthy.
I am wealthy.

These would all be possible affirmations you could use to keep your self-talk positive.

2. To really give your mind a positive jolt, make your affirmations descriptive. You can add in an adjective and a verb describing what is happening. For example you can say; “I am happily (adjective) cashing (verb) my $5,000 check”. What does this image put in your head? An image of you happily cashing a $5,000 check. So really make your images descriptive and as your saying your affirmation, visualize in your mind it taking place. By the way you can even take it farther then that: “I am happily driving in my white Mercedes CLK 350 with beige interior”.

Here is an example I used to use: “I am excitingly holding hands with my beautiful curly black haired girlfriend as we walk down the street.” Less then a week later I was walking down the street with my beautiful black haired (soon to be) girlfriend who I had just met some time before that.

Have fun with these! Create affirmations for whatever it is you would like to see in your life.

I am happily kissing my gorgeous girlfriend
I am lovingly hugging my daughter
I am joyfully cashing my $10000 commission check
I am happily dancing with my boyfriend.
I am playfully squeezing my girlfriend from behind
I am lovingly wrapping my arms around my wife
I am gratefully driving my brand new Mercedes.

You guys get the point. By the way, for any of you that are reading this and suffer from depression, one of the easiest ways to cure yourself is to start bombarding your mind with positive images and constant daily repetitions of affirmations. It will strengthen those neural pathways and brain cells in your mind that are of a positive type and have you focusing on the good in your life.

EXERCISE:

Write out ten affirmations (or more, write as many as you like) that you would like to see manifested in your life.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

For the next 30 days I want you to read these affirmations to yourself twice a day and visualize in your mind the affirmations as taking place right now.

[TonyToneTone]

Now that we have the inner aspects of your life covered. Let's focus on the outer. Do you exercise at all? If not, I would recommend getting on some type of exercise program to get you into shape. You'll look better, feel better, be stronger, and all of these things will add to more confidence for you. Let me know what part of the world you are in as maybe I can recommend something.

Also, when you exercise your body starts to pump endorphins into your brain which gives you that "high" or good feeling experienced while exercising or having sex. You'll literally start to feel better through exercise.

Are you involved with any clubs at all? I have regular groups I am a part of that meet weekly and for me I've formed great friendships through that. I would recommend getting involved with some groups that you like. Aside from learning new stuff, you'll make great friends and it will also have your energy going outward into something constructive.

As for your speaking skills, I would seriously recommend that you sign up with Toastmasters Toastmasters International - Home I think what they do fits right in line with what you would like to become.

As for going out and having fun, I would recommend you read "The Game" by Neil Strauss. It is a story of Neil, a guy who was a nerd, who became one of the top pick-up artists in the US. You might find it inspirational.