Showing posts with label smile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smile. Show all posts

Tuesday, 28 February 2017

How To Overcome Your Fears, Get Unstuck, And Fuel Your Success



What scares you? Learning how to overcome fears of failure can be challenging for everyone.

Fortunately, all fears are learned. No one is born with fears. Fears can therefore, be unlearned by practicing self-discipline repeatedly with regard to fear until it goes away.






The most common fears that we experience, which often sabotage all hope for success, are the fear of failure, poverty, and loss of money.

These fears cause people to avoid risk of any kind and to reject opportunity when it is presented to them. They are so afraid of failure that they are almost paralyzed when it comes to taking any chances at all.

There are many other fears that interfere with our happiness.
People fear the loss of love or
People fear the loss of their jobs and their financial security.
People fear embarrassment or ridicule.
People fear rejection and criticism of any kind.
People fear the loss of respect or esteem of others.

These and many other fears hold us back throughout life…

Here are a few techniques to help you overcome your fears and fuel your success:
Fear Paralyzes Action

The most common reaction in a fear situation is the attitude of, “I can’t!”

This is the fear of failure that stops us from taking action. It is experienced physically, starting in the pit of your stomach.

When people are really afraid, their mouth and throat go dry, their heart starts pounding. Sometimes they breathe shallowly and their stomach churns.

These are all physical manifestations of the inhibitive negative habit pattern, which we all experience from time to time.
Fear Shuts Our Brain Down

Whenever a person is in the grip of fear, he feels like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. This fear paralyzes action. It often shuts down the brain and causes the individual to revert to the “fight-or-flight” reaction.

Fear is a terrible emotion that undermines our happiness and can hold us back throughout our lives.
Visualize Yourself As Unafraid

By visualizing yourself performing with confidence and competence in an area where you are fearful, your visual image will eventually be accepted by your subconscious mind as instructions for your performance.

Your self-image, the way you see yourself and think about yourself, is eventually altered by feeding your mind these positive mental pictures of yourself performing at your best.
Practice Acting “As If”

By using the “act as if” method, you walk, talk, and carry yourself exactly as you would if you were completely unafraid in a particular situation.

You stand up straight, smile, move quickly and confidently, and in every respect act as if you already had the courage that you desire.
Use The Law Of Reversibility

The Law of Reversibility says that “If you feel a certain way, you will act in a manner consistent with that feeling.”

But if you act in a manner consistent with that feeling, even if you don’t feel it, the Law of Reversibility will create the feeling that is consistent with your actions.

This is one of the greatest breakthroughs in success psychology. You develop the courage you desire by disciplining yourself repeatedly to do the thing you fear until that fear eventually disappears—and it will.
Confront Your Fears Immediately

Your ability to confront, deal with, and act in spite of your fears is the key to happiness and success.

One of the best exercises you can practice is to identify a person or situation in your life of which you are afraid and resolve to deal with that fear situation immediately.

Do not allow it to make you unhappy for another minute. Resolve to confront the situation or person and put the fear behind you.
Move Toward The Fear

When you identify a fear and discipline yourself to move toward it, it grows smaller and more manageable.

What’s more, as your fears grow smaller, your confidence grows. Soon, your fears lose their control over you.

In contrast, when you back away from a fear-inducing situation or person, your fear grows larger and larger.

Soon it dominates your thinking and feeling, preoccupies you during the day, and often keeps you awake at night.
Deal With The Fear Directly

The only way to deal with a fear is to address it head-on.

Remind yourself that, “Denial” is not a river in Egypt.

The natural tendency of many people is to deny that they have a problem caused by fear of some kind. They’re afraid of confronting it. In turn, it becomes a major source of stress, unhappiness, and psychosomatic illness.

Be willing to deal with the situation or person directly.

As Shakespeare said, “Take arms against a sea of troubles, and in so doing, end them.”

When you force yourself to face any fear-inducing situation in your life, your self-esteem goes up, your self-respect increases, and your sense of personal pride grows.

You eventually reach the point in life where you are not afraid of anything.




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Wednesday, 4 January 2017

10 Tips to Overcome Negative Thoughts: Positive Thinking Made Easy

“See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.” ~Dalai Lama

Even though I’m a yoga teacher, I still find it’s easy to fall prey to negative thinking. Having negative thoughts play out like a movie can only bring you pain, something that I’ve experienced many times throughout my life.

Negative thoughts drain you of energy and keep you from being in the present moment. The more you give in to your negative thoughts, the stronger they become. I like the imagery of a small ball rolling along the ground, and as it rolls, it becomes bigger and faster.

That’s what one small negative thought can turn into: a huge, speeding ball of ugliness. On the contrary, a small positive thought can have the same effect blossoming into a beautiful outcome.

I’d like to share with you an example of how one small thought can turn into a very negative experience.

I have lived on my own for the last ten years. Obviously, during this time I’ve grown accustomed to living in a particular way; I have my routines with cooking, cleaning, and living happily in my place.

My boyfriend of two years, who I have had a long distance relationship with, will soon be moving here and we will be living together. Lately I’ve had negative thoughts of moving in with him knowing that my living routine will have to change and we will have to create a new routine together.

Unfortunately, I’ve already jumped into the future and have had thoughts that we will not be able to come up with a living arrangement that will make us both happy. In my mind I have seen myself already getting angry about our cooking and cleaning situation.

He came for a surprise visit this past weekend, and boy, was it a surprise for him. We had a miserable weekend together.

I did not enjoy his company because I was already angry with him, and he was confused and equally frustrated with me. What could have been a really fabulous weekend ended up being a painful and heavy weekend.

When we start to have negative thoughts, it’s hard to stop them. And it’s much easier said than done to shift your focus to positive thoughts. But it’s the only way, especially if you want to avoid going down a path that is painful and unnecessary.






Here are ten things I did to help overcome my negative thoughts that you can also try:

1. Meditate or do yoga.

One of the first things I did was head to a yoga class. It took my focus away from my thoughts and brought my attention to my breath. Yoga is also very relaxing, which helped ease my mind. Yoga helped me stay present to my experience so instead of jumping to what could happen, it brought me back to the now—the only moment, the most important moment.

2. Smile.

I didn’t do much of this during the weekend, so I literally had to bring myself in front of a mirror and force myself to smile. It really does help change your mood and relieve stress. I also felt lighter because it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown.

3. Surround yourself with positive people.


I called a friend who I knew could give me constructive yet loving feedback. When you’re stuck in a negative spiral, talk to people who can put things into perspective and won’t feed your negative thinking.

4. Change the tone of your thoughts from negative to positive.

For example, instead of thinking, “We are going to have a hard time adjusting to our living situation,” think, “We will face some challenges in our living situation, but we will come up with solutions that we will both be happy with.”

5. Don’t play the victim. You create your life—take responsibility.

The way I was thinking and acting, you would think I was stuck. Even if our living situation becomes unbearable, there is always a way out. I will always have the choice to make change happen, if need be.

6. Help someone.

Take the focus away from you and do something nice for another person. I decided to make a tray of food and donate it to the Salvation Army. It took my mind off of things and I felt better for helping someone else.

7. Remember that no one is perfect and let yourself move forward.


It’s easy to dwell on your mistakes. I felt terrible that I acted this way and that I wasted our weekend. The only thing I can do now is learn from my mistakes and move forward. I definitely don’t want to have a weekend like that again.

8. Sing.

I don’t remember lyrics very well and it’s probably the reason that I don’t enjoy singing, but every time I do sing I always feel better. When we sing, we show our feelings and this provides an amazing stress relief.

9. List five things that you are grateful for right now.


Being grateful helps appreciate what you already have. Here’s my list: my cats, health, a six-week trip to Asia, a new yoga class that I’ll be teaching, and for my mom’s biopsy coming out clean.

10. Read positive quotes.

I like to place Post-It notes with positive quotes on my computer, fridge door, and mirror as reminders to stay positive. Also, I’d like to share with you a quote by an unknown author that was shared in a meditation class that I attended:

Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

Happy positive thinking!

Monday, 2 January 2017

5 Great Steps To Building Self-Confidence & Becoming Popular

How would you like to become more popular and welcomed by people in your social or business circles?

Well, you can be, by learning how to be more charming in every interaction with others.

The deepest human need is the desire to feel important. When you go through life building self-confidence and making other people feel important and valuable, they will like you, welcome you, and open every door for you. This is how to become popular both professionally and personally.

If you are in business, becoming a charming person, making others feel important, will help you in every business situation, from negotiating terms to borrowing money to influencing key customers.

If you are in sales, the way customers feel about you, and feel when they are with you, will determine your level of sales and referrals more than any other factor.

In your personal, family and social life, learning to be more charming will make you more popular, desirable, influential and persuasive than any other quality.

How do you become a genuinely charming person? Here are five behaviors you can practice with every person to make him or her feel more important:






1. Smile In Every Interaction

Each person has a deep-down need to be accepted unconditionally by other people, without judgment or criticism.

And how to express this “unconditional positive regard?” Simple! Just smile. An open, honest, happy-to-see-you smile warms people’s hearts, makes them feel important, and causes them unconsciously to like you from the first moment.

2. Say “Thank You” Early And Often

Everyone loves to be appreciated for something, anything they have done for someone else.

When you say the magic words “Thank you” early and often, you make people feel important and happy, raise their self-esteem and increase their desire to help you and do things for you.

3. Give Genuine Compliments


Whenever you admire the possessions, traits or accomplishments of others, they automatically feel more important and valuable! As Abraham Lincoln said, “Everybody likes a compliment.”

Admire people’s choices in clothing, hairstyles, cars, briefcases, purses or office layout. Admire their homes or apartments. Admire their degrees or certificates. Whenever you compliment a person on something he or she has obviously invested time and emotion in achieving, you boost their self-image and build high self-esteem. As a result, they find you to be “charming.”

4. Give Praise And Approval Often

Give praise and approval generously, for both small and large accomplishments. Whenever anyone does anything worthwhile, tell them how good they are, and what a fine job they’ve done, building self-confidence and high self-esteem.

One definition of self-esteem is: How much a person feels praiseworthy.

When you praise your spouse and children, your staff and coworkers, your customers and suppliers, you make them feel more important, and cause them to see you as “charming.”

5. Give Them Your Full Attention

People feel valuable and important to the degree to which they are listened to and respected.

Whenever you listen closely to another person when he is talking, his self-esteem goes up. His brain releases endorphins, nature’s “happy drug,” and he feels good about being in your presence.

You always “pay value” to a person by listening attentively, by hanging on every word. When you do, he or she warms up to you and begins to find you “charming.”

Go through life looking for little opportunities to make people feel valuable and special. Smile at them as if you are glad to see them. Thank them regularly. Compliment them sincerely. Praise them lavishly. And listen to them when they speak building self-confidence and promoting high self-esteem.

Soon, almost without effort on your part, everyone will be talking about “what a charming person you are.”

Thank you for reading this article on how to become popular through unconditional positive regard, building self-confidence and promoting high self-esteem. Please share and comment below!

Friday, 2 December 2016

7 Tiny Things You Can Do To Feel Confident In Any Situation




Feeling a little jittery about an upcoming appointment or interview? Nerves can get the better of even the best among us, and therefore having a simple and effective strategy to find your way around them can be very helpful. Here are 7 simple and tiny things you can do to feel more confident in a situation.

Take a Moment before Stepping In

Before stepping into a meeting, interview or even a social gathering, right at the door take a brief pause to collect yourself and your thoughts, reaffirm your poise and gracefully move forth into the experience before you. Realigning yourself helps make sure you are more integrated and focused to meet whatever it is that lies ahead of you, no matter how expected or unexpected.

Establish Eye Contact

Body language doesn't just give hints to the confidence levels of a person, but can actually be used to reaffirm these as well. Establishing eye contact is a pivotal aspect of being self-assured and confident. Make sure to meet everyone with a bright, confident and composed look, and to maintain the eye contact through your engagement.

Smile with Your Heart

A wonderful and beaming smile can help you find your way into the heart and favors of practically anyone you meet- whether in a work situation or otherwise. But not any smile will do; only a genuine smile helps you appear calm, confident and appealing. So smile with your heart, and smile wide.

Breathe Deeply

Shallow breath usually accompanies the most panicky and challenging situations. Therefore if you are not breathing right- that is deep into your torso- then your body is bound to stay a little on edge, if not in panic. To appear more confident, relax your body and consequently your body by breathing properly.

Uncross Your Arms

Crossed arms are a clear defensive stance; but they don't just put off the other person, they also hold you back from the situation or challenge at hand. Uncross your arms and really open up to your experience and you will not only look more confident, but feel more confident as well.

Appreciate Your Self

A lot of our doubts anchor in our own self- criticism, slowly eroding away our self-esteem, confidence and belief. To perk your confidence levels up, take some time to appreciate your self- not just for the successes and results you may have enjoyed, but also for the efforts and passion you pour into your every day.

Don't Lose Perspective

It is easy to get carried away by the momentum of a moment, and to forget the bigger picture. Just how much someone else's opinion matters in the long run, or just how crucial a meeting is to the bigger picture can go a long way to making you feel more relaxed and therefore focused. Remember no matter how big it might seem today, there is always greater to accomplish and more to enjoy.







Tuesday, 29 November 2016

7 Ways to Start Spreading the Optimism Today



“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
Winston Churchill

Optimism.

It can turn a situation that looks negative or bleak into an opportunity or something to learn from.

It can replace the draining thoughts of pessimism with something that will give you more energy and enthusiasm again.

And it can help you to jump over obstacles, to keep moving when you fall or stumble and to not give up just because you have had a couple of temporary setbacks.

So not just adding more of it to your own life but to the lives of the people in your world too is a good idea.


Because you tend to get back what you give in the long run.

And in the short run, well, you get to enjoy the smiles when you spread the optimism. Plus, you’ll boost your own self-esteem when you feel you are doing the right thing.

Here are 7 simple tips that can help you to get started with that.

1. Just be there for someone.

Listen and lend the optimistic and grounded perspective to someone in your life in need of it.

At first I find it best to just the let other person vent, to let him or her get issue at hand out into the light. So I am just there fully and listening.

Oftentimes this might be enough. Because just being there will help him or her to let the emotional tension out and to analyze the issue and to find a solution or to let it go.

If she or he gets stuck in negative thinking or in making a mountain out of a molehill then it can be helpful to add your own perspective to ground him or her and to help shift perspective on the situation.

To make him or her see that if you zoom out then things aren’t that bad really. And together the two of you might be able to find a solution or a first step that he or she can put into action.

2. Play positive music.

Uplifting music is of course a great way to boost your own mood and open up new perspectives again.

You can do the same for people around you. Put on a really positive song when you are hanging out. Or send them an uplifting playlist for Spotify or a similar program.

3. Take 30-60 seconds to give a genuine compliment.


Think about one thing that makes the other person tick. A small or bigger passion. Or something good that people too often take for granted about him or her.

And then give a compliment about that. It often means more than you might guess.

4. Smile.

A smile puts you and the people around you into a better and more relaxed headspace.

It works even when you don’t feel that much like smiling. If you like, do a brief experiment. Force a smile for 30 seconds or a minute if you are feeling a bit negative and see what happens to your mood.

5. Help someone to wind down.

Being busy with work or school can over time add a lot of tension and stress. And that can certainly get in the way of optimistic and constructive thinking.

So help someone in your life to wind down. Suggest going for a picnic. Just laugh and perhaps go for swim in the nearby lake or ocean. Then lie together in silence on the blanket and watch the clouds go by for a while.

A break like this can do wonders for the mood and perspective for the both of you.

6. Hug.

A hug is, perhaps often even more than a smile, something that can make someone feel a little better and a bit safer again. Use it when appropriate of course.

But don’t underestimate the effect of it and how that little nudge can turn someone’s thoughts around towards something brighter and more positive again.

7. Pay it forward.

If someone in your life adds a bit of optimism to your life then don’t just return it somewhere down the line. Pay it forward to someone else too.

And together build a growing upward spiral of optimism, encouragement and kindness.