|
Things you cannot afford to loose
Confidence Part 2
How to keep you’re Confidence (6 suggestions)
1. Build the knowledge you need to succeed: You must study God’s word and have the knowledge you need (concerning you and the promises of God) to stand your ground in the face of relentless opposition. Thereafter, you must closely examine your goals, and identify the skills you’ll need to achieve them. Look at how you can acquire these skills confidently and well. Don’t just accept a sketchy, just-good-enough solution – look for a solution, a program or a course that fully equips you to achieve what you want to achieve. Ideally, something that will give you the right experience and/or a qualification you can be proud of. Investing in knowledge and skills is a sound investment in your future.
2. Focus on the basics: When you’re starting to build self-confidence, don’t try to do anything clever, too ambitious or elaborate. And don’t reach for perfection – just enjoy doing simple, straightforward things successfully and well. Getting used to being an achiever means getting used to finishing everything you’ve started.
3. Set small goals, and accomplish them: Start with the small goals that you’ve identified, and then get into the habit of achieving them and celebrating that achievement. Don’t make goals particularly challenging at the beginning, just get into the habit of accomplishing them and celebrating them. And little by little, start piling up the successes!
4. Keep managing your mind: Remember, the devil is trying to steal, kill or destroy your confidence – which has great rewards. So resist him and stay on top of that positive thinking, keep celebrating and enjoying success, and keep those mental success images strong. After all, God desires to do up-and-above everything you may ask, think or imagine! And on the other side, learn to handle failure. Accept that mistakes happen when you’re trying something new. In fact, if you get into the habit of treating mistakes as learning experiences, you can start to see them in a positive light. After all, there’s a lot to be said for the saying “if it doesn’t kill me, it’ll make me stronger!” And remember to keep yourself grounded in reality – this is where people tend to get overconfident and over-stretch themselves. So make sure you don’t start enjoying cleverness for its own sake! Faith is firstly “spiritual” and then it is clearly visible – practical!
5. Avoid getting involved with things you’ve never done before. Doing things you know you’ve succeeded at before will always build and sustain your confidence. On the other hand, venturing into never explored territory can be dangerous and discouraging. No need to keep paying school fees!
6. Avoid self-defeating thought patterns: Subscribing to negative assumptions leaves you vulnerable to the following self-defeating thought patterns:
• All or Nothing Thinking. Thinking that you’re a failure because your performance was not perfect.
• Seeing Only Dark Clouds. Thinking that disaster lurks around every corner and when it comes it’s to be expected. For example, a single negative detail, piece of criticism, or passing comment darkens all your reality.
• Magnification of the Negative and Minimisation of the Positive. In your life, good things don’t count nearly as much as the bad ones. Your glass is always half empty.
• Uncritical Acceptance of Emotions as Truth. Whenever you feel inadequate, you think it must be true. But feelings are not the truth!
• Labelling. Labelling is a simplistic process and often conveys a sense of blame. Confessing things like, “I am a loser, but it’s not my fault,” or, “Things never go right for me anyway - I attract disaster.”
• Difficulty Accepting Compliments. When you are given a compliment, you are quick to nullify it. For example, “So you like this outfit? I think it makes me look fat,” or, “I’m glad you like my proposal, however, I’m never good at expressing myself.”
Remember, no-one can take your confidence away from you! Only you (yourself) can throw it away! |
Chris Demetriou, 13/04/2008 |
|
| |
