1. Fortune: Money can buy a degree of happiness, social status can also be bought. Once the problems of food, the clothing, housing can be resolved, the sense of every dollar you earn will be less and less.
2. Desire: Desire is the enemy of happiness, so enough is as good as a feast. Survey shows that the happiness of the one who not to compare income with someone else is 5 times than the happiness brought by high-income.
3. Intelligence: the support of happiness from intelligent is very limited. Study confirmed that the people with more intelligent tend to have higher desire, if they can not get higher achievement, then they can not meet the desire. In addition, the high-IQ-person does not mean he/her have ability to handle interpersonal relationships.
4. Inheritance: Happiness is some extent to inherent. the sensitivity of Human “happiness perceiving point” is 90% determined of genetically, but also on the right experience, common sense and good training and education of parents,.
5. Beauty: beautiful people is happier, which may be a bad news for many people. However, it will not be a problem if you believe that you are beautiful. Women do not always feel too fat; men do not feel that they are not handsome and not strong.
6. Friendship: Friendship is the source of happiness. Sociologists point out that the different people with income and social status has been able to have the same sense of happiness, in large part because of the existence of friendship factor.
7. Marriage: married people are happier than unmarried people, which is agree by the world’s scientists, the super sense of happiness is at least last for whole the first year of the marriage.
8. Faith: This is a positive factor in form of happiness. The common belief can drives people to cope with misfortune and disaster, bring the community interaction and support.
9. Love: Although it is still unclear, it is the happy people love to do good, or the good deeds make more happy, happiness and altruistic behavior is clearly closely linked.
10. Age: the elderly tend to be more happy. As the years went by, the elderly gradually learned to grasp happiness so well, and prone to give up trouble and misfortune things.
We were not born with confidence, but this trait can be taught, nurtured and built over the years. With self confidence comes better self esteem. At any stage in life, confidence is something that can be learned. Dr. Karl Menninger once wrote, “Fears are educated into us, and they can, be educated out.” Confidence can be educated into us too.
Consider using these steps as the building blocks for greater confidence and self esteem.
1. Start writing a journal.
One way to do an effective self-analysis is to start with a personal journal or diary. Write down your perceptions about self-confidence. Write any thoughts that come to mind. Also, try to ask yourself what stops you from getting to a point in your life that you want to achieve. This practice does not work for everyone, so if, after experimenting with a journal, it does not increase your self-confidence, try another technique.
2. Do a self-evaluation.
Learn to assess yourself objectively. Doing so allows you to prevent the constant state of confusion that comes from dependence on other people’s views. Concentrating internally on how you think and feel about your own behavior, lifestyle, work, etc. will provide you a stronger sense of self awareness.
3. Accept and love yourself.
With a self-assessment comes the realization of your weak points. Do not be dissuaded by this discovery. Learn to embrace and accept yourself for who you are as a person. Everyone has his own distinctive abilities, qualities, and characteristics. We are all unique. Never compare yourself to others.
In your journal, make an inventory of things that make you unique. For example, you can make a list under the title, “What Makes Me Unique.” Write down interests and preferences that make you distinct.
Be proud of your achievements and revel in your uniqueness. You must learn to accept and be proud of who you are. Only then will you feel your self-confidence shoot up to the skies!
4. Concentrate on your strengths rather than on your weaknesses.
Confidence comes from within. Concentrate on positive things about yourself.Remember the past is over; you can only change the future. Write down ten positive things about yourself. Go through your journal and look at all the positive things about yourself.
Concentrate on your potentials. These are the reasons why you love and believe in yourself. Give yourself credit for every positive thing you have written about yourself. Remember, you are somebody special.
5. Overcome fears and doubts.
Some people feel insecure, thinking they can never be successful in anything they do. Such insecurity will only lead to lack of confidence in yourself and in everything you do in your life.
Keep in mind: If you haven’t tried something, you can never say that you will fail in it. For instance, your boss is asking you to supervise a group but you fear that you will make a mess out of it. Such fear will stop you from taking on that job. However, if you’re a confident person, you would not think twice about failing and willingly take on that job. Lack of confidence can affect your career growth.
6. Motivate yourself.
Whether it is for a presentation, an interview, or anything at all, remind yourself that you can do it. Motivate yourself every day; and soon, you will find your confidence level increasing.
A helpful way to motivate yourself is by keeping a list of at least five things that you did well for that day. This activity reaffirms your strong belief that you can achieve what you set your mind to accomplish.
7. Engage in positive self-talk.
Use positive self-talk as a chance to displace destructive thoughts crowding your mind. When you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, remind yourself to “stop” and replace them with positive thoughts.
One good way to crowd out negative thoughts is by reading and listening to positive things. Reading and listening to positive and affirming materials will enrich your abilities and talents to develop your self-confidence.
Read and listen to inspiring stories of successful individuals. You will discover that a lot of them underwent tough circumstances, had many difficulties and challenges in life, yet they overcame these difficulties and became successful in their endeavors.
8. Visualize your future success.
Regularly imagine yourself enjoying success! Feel the excitement, anticipation, exhilaration, and thrill of victory. In order to become more confident, you must picture yourself as a person with high self-esteem. Picture your self tackling a tough challenge and overcoming it with poise and confidence.
Use your five senses to make the picture in your mind vivid and seem real. Let us say that as part of the application process to teach at a music school, you will have to give a piano recital to the school’s faculty. You are having trouble relaxing. Imagine your self entering the room and confidently striding towards the piano. Visualize yourself performing with confidence and joy. Imagine your audience clapping their hands and shouting, “Excellent!” Take in the sight, smell and taste of success. Isn’t it exhilarating?
9. Acknowledge your success.
Give yourself credit for everything you try. Emphasize the process of achieving, those brave and simple efforts exerted, instead of focusing on success itself as the end product.
Congratulate and reward yourself each time you do something that makes you feel satisfied. Treat yourself, you deserve it.
Nurture this feeling by reminding yourself of past successes. In your journal, write the instances where you feel the happiest. It may be an incident or performance where you felt appreciation and a deep sense of accomplishment.
Bask on these memories and draw strength from these. Say this aloud, “If I was able to achieve these in the past, I can achieve more today and in the future.”
10. Accept and reframe failures.
It is an indication of a healthy mind if you are able to accept negative aspects of yourself. If you are always crying over the errors that you made in the past, you will never get anywhere.
Always remember that past mistakes and failures cannot be reversed; what is done is done. Accept that mistakes do happen. Understand that every mistake or failure you make is a step towards success. When you recognize mistakes as an opportunity to learn, you minimize fear of failure and boost your confidence.
11. Take risks.
Try doing things that you have never tried before. It is always a challenge to do new things. The mere act of accepting these challenges, whether you become successful or not, adds a tremendous boost in your self-confidence.
Shrinking from challenges prevents us from learning new skills, discourages us from testing our limits, and forces us to live unexciting lives within our comfort zones.
People with high level of self-confidence are not afraid of going out and doing things. They may have limited talent or capability; but going out and doing “it” is no problem for them because they feel confident that they will succeed. They are less afraid of committing mistakes and they utilize more opportunities to succeed.
Self-confident people probably commit more mistakes than those who are not self-confident, but they are most likely to have far more enriching successes because of their confidence in themselves.
12. Act confidently.
Your success at nearly every endeavor you undertake is largely affected by your self-image. People who have confidence in their self-worth seem to be magnets for success and happiness. Think confident and act confident.
13. Attend seminars.
It is good to attend seminars with professional and motivational speakers offering suggestions and guidance on building confidence. During the lecture, you can pick up tips on public speaking by observing the speaker’s body language and the manner he projects himself.
14. Recharge regularly.
Arrange to spend time alone to recharge yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually. Take some time off to relax by yourself in a quiet place
15.Build a network of supportive relationships.
One of the most certain ways to increase confidence is to ensure you have love in your life. Love and self-confidence increase when you serve other people and when you nurture your relationships with those who help you grow. A person gets a boost of self-confidence from knowing that the Universe/Source/God supports him/her as he/she pursues his/her purpose in life.
These strategies can help you strengthen and build your self-confidence and self esteem in every stage of your life. Self-confidence can help you in all aspects of your work life: job search, interviewing, getting promotions, handling unemployment, starting a home-based business and in developing positive relationships. Make use of these strategies and see positive changes in yourself.
Mary Ann is a college psychology instructor and entrepreneur. She provides career coaching and resume preparation through her two websites www.coachingcareertransitions.com and www.career-development-services.com. With her family she markets www.improveandprosper.com.
sharonmelnick.com In her video “The Fastest Way to Build Self-Confidence”, Dr.Sharon Melnick shares the secrets of her research at Harvard Medical School as to why people get in their own way. Send an email – ask questions and tell me your suggestions for other topics that you would like to be covered in new upcoming videos if you’re on Twitter – Follow me twitter.com Discover more about how you too can build Self-Confidence… Sign up for one of her coaching sessions live this week in NYC at www.sharonmelnick.com Video Rating: 4 / 5
Free Report: Master Your Mind! Here! Pain may sometimes be the reason why people change. Getting flunked grades make us realize that we need to study. Debts remind us of our inability to look for a source of income. Being humiliated gives us the ‘push’ to speak up and fight for ourselves to save our face from the next embarrassments. It may be a bitter experience, a friend’s tragic story, a great movie, or an inspiring book that will help us get up and get just the right amount of motivation we need in order to improve ourselves.
With the countless negativities the world brings about, how do we keep motivated? Try the Alphabet of Self Improvement: A – Achieve your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
B – Believe in your self, and in what you can do.
C – Consider things on every angle and aspect. Motivation comes from determination. To be able to understand life, you should feel the sun from both sides.
D – Don’t give up and don’t give in. Thomas Edison failed once, twice, more than thrice before he came up with his invention and perfected the incandescent light bulb. Make motivation as your steering wheel.
E – Enjoy. Work as if you don’t need money. Dance as if nobody’s watching. Love as if you never cried. Learn as if you’ll live forever. Motivation takes place when people are happy.
F – Family and Friends – are life’s greatest ‘F’ treasures. Don’t loose sight of them.
G – Give more than what is enough. Where does motivation and self improvement take place at work? At home? At school? When you exert extra effort in doing things.
H – Hang on to your dreams. They may dangle in there for a moment, but these little stars will be your driving force.
I – Ignore those who try to destroy you. Don’t let other people to get the best of you. Stay out of toxic people – the kind of friends who hates to hear about your success.
J – Just be yourself. The key to success is to be yourself. And the key to failure is to try to please everyone.
K – keep trying no matter how hard life may seem. When a person is motivated, eventually he sees a harsh life finally clearing out, paving the way to self improvement.
L – Learn to love your self. Now isn’t that easy?
M – Make things happen. Motivation is when your dreams are put into work clothes.
N – Never lie, cheat or steal. Always play a fair game.
O – Open your eyes. People should learn the horse attitude and horse sense. They see things in 2 ways – how they want things to be, and how they should be.
P – Practice makes perfect. Practice is about motivation. It lets us learn repertoire and ways on how can we recover from our mistakes.
Q – Quitters never win. And winners never quit. So, choose your fate – are you going to be a quitter? Or a winner?
R – Ready yourself. Motivation is also about preparation. We must hear the little voice within us telling us to get started before others will get on their feet and try to push us around. Remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah build the ark.
S – Stop procrastinating.
T – Take control of your life. Discipline or self control jives synonymously with motivation. Both are key factors in self improvement.
U – Understand others. If you know very well how to talk, you should also learn how to listen. Yearn to understand first, and to be understood the second. V – Visualize it. Motivation without vision is like a boat on a dry land.
W – Want it more than anything. Dreaming means believing. And to believe is something that is rooted out from the roots of motivation and self improvement.
X – X Factor is what will make you different from the others. When you are motivated, you tend to put on “extras” on your life like extra time for family, extra help at work, extra care for friends, and so on.
Y – You are unique. No one in this world looks, acts, or talks like you. Value your life and existence, because you’re just going to spend it once.
Z – Zero in on your dreams and go for it!
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Rates of depression and pessimism have never been higher. Here is how to be an optimist and win! If you’ve placed second in a writing contest, did you jump for joy and push for better results the next time or did you get discouraged and accept second place as an excuse not to try again?
The joy of life is this: Life is always filled with exciting choices!
You may opt to have a pessimist’s view and live a self-defeated life or you may decide to take the optimist’s route and take on a challenging and fulfilling life.
So, why nurture an optimist’s point of view? What is in it for you?
Well, optimism has been linked to positive mood and good morale; to academic, athletic, military, occupational and political success; to popularity; to good health and even to long life and freedom from stress.
On the other hand, the rates of depression and pessimism have never been higher. Depression and pessimism affect middle-aged adults the same way they hit younger people. The mean age of onset of depression and pessimism has gone from 30 years of age down to 15 years of age! Depression is no longer a middle-aged housewife’s disorder but also a teen-ager’s disorder as well which leads to overall pessimism about life.
Here is how optimists beat the odds:
1. Optimists expect the best
The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to expect bad events which will last a long time and undermine everything they do. They believe that bad events are their own fault.
Optimists are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world. What differs is the way they explain their misfortune? It’s the opposite way. They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback, that its causes are confined to this one case.
2. Optimists tend to focus on and plan for the ‘problem’ at hand
They use ‘positive reinterpretation.’ In other words, they most likely reinterpret a negative experience in a way that helps them learn and grow. Such people are unfazed by bad situation. They perceive it is a challenge and try harder.
They do not believe that “things will never get better,” “If I failed once, it will happen again” and “If I experience misfortune in one part of my life, then it will happen in my whole life.”
Positive expectancies of optimists also predict better reactions during transitions to new environments, sudden tragedies and unlikely turn of events. If they fall, they will get up. They see opportunities instead of obstacles.
3. People respond positively to optimists because optimists seem to have more enjoyment in life.
4. Optimists are proactive and less dependent on others for their happiness.
5. Optimists find no need to control or manipulate people. They usually draw people towards them. Their optimistic view of the world can be contagious and influence those they are with.
6. Optimism is a socially desirable trait in all communities. Those who share optimism are generally accepted while those who spread gloom, panic and hysteria are generally avoided except by other pessimists.
7. In life, optimists often win elections; get voted most congenial and are sought for advice.
8. When the going gets tough, optimists get tougher.
Optimists typically maintain higher levels of subjective well-being during times of stress than do people who are less optimistic. In contrast, pessimists are likely to react to stressful events by denying that they exist or by avoiding dealing with problems. Pessimists are more likely to quit trying when difficulties arise.
9. Optimists persevere. They just don’t give up easily, they are also known for their patience. Inching their way a step closer to that goal or elusive dream.
10. Optimists are healthier and live longer
Medical research has verified that simple pleasures and a positive outlook can cause a measurable increase in the body’s ability to fight disease.
Optimists’ health is unusually good. They age well and are much freer than most people from the usual physical ills of middle age. They tend to outlive those prone to negative thoughts.
Frederick Langbridge in “A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts” said: “Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud, and one sees the stars.” Which one of these are you going to be from now on?
Why not look forward to success in all your endeavors? Why not be resilient? Sure, you will continue to hit lows sometimes but why just stay there and wallow in them? Why not be an example to inspire others to remove their dark-colored glasses and see the stars and not the mud?
Jim DeSantis is a retired TV News Anchor and News Director who created “Self Esteem Magic”, a guaranteed step-by-step approach to start raising your Self Esteem in one weekend. Change your life starting this weekend at “Self Esteem Magic”.
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