How to Build Self Confidence

By Kay Joyce

Self confidence is a muscle.

Think of self-confidence as a muscle you can build and strengthen so you can do more than ever before. If you went out today and tried to run a marathon, you would struggle to achieve your goal, but if you exercised and built up your muscles, you could grow stronger and run further each day.

Just like your muscles, self-confidence is best built through a range of exercises and strategies. This book guides you through different aspects of self-confidence so you can develop your own confidence on a strong foundation. We give you tips to boost your self-confidence and ideas to figure out what elements of your life might be undermining your natural confidence.

At the end of each chapter, we have included workbook exercises so you can brainstorm the ideas we have presented in order to create your own individual strategies for building and maintaining self-confidence.

Readers are invited to work through these exercises for a more confident life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499027198

Kay Joyce

K J Eller is the author of How to Build Self-Confidence. She is a lady that has a great passion for trying to inspire people as she has struggled for many years with lack of self-confidence as a youth. She and her brother were placed into a children’s home as their mother did not have the support from her family during the 1950s until she was able to get them both back during their teens. Now that she has reached her sixtieth decade and retired, she has taken the opportunity to put all her thoughts and favourite inspiring quotes that have inspired her so that other young and older people can be encouraged that it is OK to doubt yourself, but have some valuable strategies to move forward with their lives and achieve a great and fabulous life. Her philosophy for her next decades are what can she achieve for the next thirty years as her family live long lives and have more in her “in” basket when it is her time to leave this life. To that end, she is an artist and loves to sketch portraits; digitises images for embroidery machines, this includes some of her own sketches; learning on-line marketing for many projects; and working on some other books. She currently lives near the Port Stephens area in Australia.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Kay Joyce.

ISBN:      eBook         978-1-4990-2719-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/21/2014

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

670069

CONTENTS

Introduction

Self confidence is a muscle

Exercise 1. Establishing your sense of self

Who are you?

Shaping an identity from childhood

Developing an independent identity

Making peace with the past

The value of time alone

Three magic words: I don’t agree

Workbook exercise: Who am I?

Exercise 2. Keep your inner voice positive and practical

Listen to the underlying message

The five inner voices

Achieving Self-Reliance

Tools to keep your inner voice positive

A personal mantra

Maintain your health

Workbook Exercise: Monitoring your inner voice

Exercise 3. De-clutter your life

Declutter your belongings

Beautiful, useful and gone

Be generous

Everything in its place

Simplify your life

Declutter your mind

Three meals a day

Use your wall calendar

Learn to say no and please

Be responsive

Workbook Exercise

Exercise 4. Reach your goals and achieve your dreams

Set realistic goals

Publicize your goal

Set a time limit

Learn from your experience

Targets and goals

Defining a target

Keep goals manageable

Workbook Exercise

Exercise 5. Choose your friends wisely

The elements of a true friendship

You are relaxed together

You are both free to be honest

You have time for each other

Making new friends

Pursue your interests

Accept invitations

Respect different views

Demonstrate a genuine interest in others

Maintain your friendships

Diversify your friendships

Initiate get-togethers

Embrace Social Media

Am I interested in their holidays?

Do I want to see photos of their children?

Do they make me feel left out?

Breaking with bad friends

Repairing a bad friendship

Be polite and to the point

Listen to criticism

Walk away and breathe

Learn to love alone time

Ending a friendship

Workshop Exercise

Exercise 6. Nurture your sense of pride

Take pride in your character

Reputation vs Character

How will this affect others?

Master your skills

Work to improve

Finish what you start

Present yourself proudly

Develop your individual clothes sense

Hair, teeth and nails

Keep some trophies

Work portfolio

Photo album

Promote yourself without boasting

Check your timing

Keep me out of it

Don’t make empty claims

Show respect and expect respect

Listen more than you speak

Remember simple courtesies

Workbook exercise

Exercise 7. Be at peace

See peacefulness as a positive force

Avoid unnecessary arguments

Cherish quiet times

Take pleasure in nature

Read poetry

Consciously relax

Hot water

Meditate

Laugh

Workbook Exercise

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Self confidence is a muscle

Think of self confidence as a muscle you can build and strengthen, so you can do more than ever before. If you went out today and tried to run a marathon you would struggle to achieve your goal, but if you exercised and built up your muscles, you could grow stronger and run further each day.

Just like your muscles, self confidence is best built through a range of exercises and strategies. This book guides you through different aspects of self-confidence so you can develop your own confidence on a strong foundation. We give you tips to boost your self confidence, and ideas to figure out what elements of your life might be undermining your natural confidence.

At the end of each chapter, we have included workbook exercises so you can brainstorm the ideas we have presented, in order to create your own individual strategies for building and maintaining self-confidence.

You will need a notebook to use as a journal so you can brainstorm your ideas as well as plan your strategies over the long term.

Good luck!

EXERCISE 1

Establishing your sense of self

Self confidence is your confidence in yourself, so first of all you need a strong image of yourself to focus on.

When you aim to meet a goal you need a clear focus to understand what you are working on. Your goal here is to have confidence in yourself. So who are you? What are you capable of? What makes you happy? What are your personal beliefs?

Who are you?

Before you start building your self confidence, let’s take a closer look at who you are, so you have a context for your confidence.

Complete the workbook exercise, Who am I? Remember nobody else is going to read your answers, so you are free to be completely honest, without any concern for someone else’s opinion. This exercise is designed to give