Five for Friday…boost your confidence

There are a lot of ways you can sabotage your confidence – like making unrealistic goals and thinking you’re a loser when you fail, or comparing yourself to other people all the time (especially airbrushed celebs or people who’ve made it – they have bad days too), or focusing on the things you’re not (instead of the great things you are).

We all have confidence dips occasionally – or sometimes a lot. So here a five ways to boost your confidence…just in time for the weekend.

1. Start sweating! Exercise gets those feel-good chemicals flooding through you, so get out and get active. Do a gym class, go for a walk, play tennis, go for a swim! Find some kind of exercise you really love, so you’ll want to keep doing it. For example, if you hate hate hate running there’s no point in making that your focus. Finding an activity you love, even gardening, means you’ll be exercising without even knowing it. What can be better than that?
2. Hang out with ‘up’ people. Some people just drag you down, drawing out every ounce of your good energy then bouncing or sloping off leaving you flat. Eliminate the toxic friends, minimise contact with downbeat family, and find the people who make you see possibilities, think more, laugh more, get into life more.
3. (a) What’s great about you? You probably don’t really think about that, because all you can see are the crappy bits. Think about all the things you’ve achieved in your life – even the small things, even the things no-one else notices or values. You might surprise yourself. And (b) love who you are, instead of thinking you’d be okay if you could just lose weight, get botoxed, fix yourself up somehow! Take a look at Lizzie Miller in September Glamour mag. Be comfortable with who you are. That’s confidence.
4. Treat yourself well… which is what the Art of Moi is all about! Value yourself enough to say ‘no’ when you’re being taken advantage of, and ‘yes’ to life. Do something nice for yourself every day – even if it’s just taking ten minutes for yourself. When you look after you, you have more to give others…
5. Dare to fail! It’s too easy to stay in your comfort zone, and not try anything new. It’s time to shed the fear – even if you have to take baby steps – and try those things you’ve always wanted to. And re-define your idea of success. You don’t have to be rich, famous, a superstar. You don’t even have to be particularly good at what you want to try. Remember that great saying: ‘Imagine what you would do if you knew you couldn’t fail’. Imagine…

Confident people aren’t all born that way. They’ve had to work on it, just like a body builder works on those pecs. You don’t get results from doing it once or twice. Make a commitment to yourself: Every day, you’re going to build those confidence muscles.

Go on. You know you can.

L & S

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Five for Friday – Overcoming obstacles

Obstacles come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them we deal with, some of them we don’t. Some of them might be with us for life – so you’d better have a way of dealing with them, getting over them, or just simply living with them. Here are our Five for Friday suggestions:

1. Step back. If you’ve got your face a few inches from the wall, it fills your vision and overwhelms you. You can’t see how high it is or how wide – and you sure can’t see any way over it. If you step back, you can put it in perspective. You might even find it’s not that wide and you can find a way around it!
2. Try a different approach. Einstein said the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Let’s admit it – we all do that (especially with computers!!). So try a different approach – something you’ve never tried before. If one way’s not working and driving you nuts, what have you got to lose?
3. Breathe. Come on, drop those shoulders and take a deep breath. Is this really as tough as you think? etc etc
4. Be brave and trust yourself. Most of the time, when we’re faced with apparently insurmountable obstacles, fear kicks in and we lose confidence in our ability to cope. But trust yourself and be brave. People face all kinds of challenges and get through it – not because they’re way different from you, but because they don’t give in or give up. Go on, trust yourself. You can do it!
5. Take a look around. It’s easy to become so obsessed with the obstacles in front of us that we fail to notice the life going on around us. Find something that gives you joy to give you a break from the obsessions. Is it your kids? your dog? your cat? your car? your garden? And if there is nothing that gives you joy, then you need to find something. Reconnect with family. Volunteer for something, even if you’re not that interested. Get out and connect with the world around you. When you have something or someone in your life to give you joy, the obstacles might still be there, but they won’t own you.

Is there a favourite way you ‘take back your life’ from the obstacles that try to own you? Let us know.

L & S.

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Five for Friday – on getting started

Hi there! Every Friday we’re going to post our five favourite ideas for doing stuff – like getting started, keeping going, creating ideas, loving yourself, and more.

You’re always welcome to add your own favourite tips, or give us ideas for other ‘five for friday’ posts.

This week, we’re into getting started. Because, let’s face it, that’s half the battle.

We’re both as bad as each other. We take forever to get started on anything, but when we get going, we’re hard to stop. Make that impossible. We’re (over)doers, but sloooow starters.

Here’s our tips for getting started. You know you can!

1. Fool the resistance. Tell yourself (or those voices in your head) that you’re only going to do one small thing, like write a sentence or two of your novel or sand one little bit of the wall you’re going to paint.
2. Start easy. What’s the one thing you can do right now to make progress? It might be 10 crunches or a walk around the block to kick off your fitness regime (which is always on the to-do list, isn’t it?), or you might do some web surfing to research something in your novel…
3. Give yourself permission to fail. Remember Roosevelt’s ‘Man in the Arena’ speech?  ‘…who at the worst, if [she] fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that [her] place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat’
4. Shut down the critic (or if you’re a writer, the editor!). You don’t need to get it right, or have everything perfect, you just need to do it
5. Think about how you’ll reward yourself… do you need to take ‘progress payments’? A reward for beginning. A reward for getting started. A reward for making it halfway. A celebration when you’ve finished!

Remember, the longest journey begins with the first step. So think about how great you’ll feel when you make it to your destination…  and get started.

Okay, we’re off to reward ourselves for finishing this blog!

Cheers.

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