Feelings of insecurity are incredibly hard to overcome, as they require an shift in thinking about yourself and how you are perceived. Before discussing how to go about overcoming insecurity, it's best to begin with just what insecurity is. Insecurity can be defined as not feeling good enough to meet challenges in life or feelings of helplessness in conflict. It can also mean a feeling of being discovered to be inadequate or unsuited to meet responsibilities at home, school, or on the job.
Most people that have feelings of insecurity and want to do something about it will turn to self-help advice. While self-help can work if the desire to change is strong enough to overcome the inherent obstacles, in general most self-help techniques are not effective enough to create a lasting change. When overcoming insecurity, the advice "Start to think positively" or "Shift your attitude" may be great advice and adhering to it will certainly solve the problem, but it requires a change in core beliefs. Without knowing how to affect those core beliefs, simply saying "I will change how I think" won't do much.
Feelings of insecurity stem from negative experience and feelings of confidence stem from positive experience. So one technique that can be easily employed with a greater chance of success is to figure out all of the things that you do very well, things that people compliment you on, and focus on doing those things in a public setting (if appropriate). Repeated praise does wonders for self confidence. In that context, it becomes much easier to "shift your attitude". Overcoming insecurity may be a difficult task, but it's far from impossible, given the right tools.
Doing the things that you do well is the easy part. Once you have been praised and your confidence is a little higher, then you can turn to the hard part of overcoming insecurity. Pick out things that make you insecure and then do them. The trick here is to start small. Make a list of things that you feel insecure about and perhaps rank them from most to least insecure. Then begin slowly with the things that make you feel the least insecure and you will probably find out in no time that there was nothing to feel insecure about at all. Even better, if you receive positive feedback, that should give you the confidence to move forward and try the things on your list that make you feel the most insecure.
Showing posts with label Far from fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Far from fear. Show all posts
Friday, June 4, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Overcome the Fear of Self Improvement
People are usually afraid of things they do not understand. When you hear the term "self improvement" people get all jumpy and defensive. Why? They are afraid of self-improvement because of this fear of the unknown. To proceed with anything in life is self-improvement, to learn more about a subject is self improvement, to exercise, eat right, drive safely, and just about anything else in your life you desire to change is self improvement. may help you in this situation.
In self-improvement you are simply changing yourself for the better. So, to understand is to remove fear. Said another way; the best way to remove fear is to understand. You may already know that life is always in a continual cycle, of ups and downs, good times and bad times, and so forth. Just keep in mind that normally no one is permanently up or permanently down. Those who get stuck in a "down" often are thought of needing self improvement, but you need constant self improvement to just live life, regardless of you situation. In life no one can avoid these ups and downs it is the way life is. However by constant self improvement your life will have shorter downs and longer ups.
What people should do about these downs is to learn from them, the lesson is to understand that without constant growth you are no longer alive. Think about this: Life is growth. If a tree stops producing new leaves it is considered dead, if a rose no longer produces buds and is just a bunch of grey thorny sticks, it is considered dead. To prove that it is alive the tree and the rose must always continue to produce, or grow, new leaves, branches, and so it is growing. When the growing stops it is a sure sign that life has ended. We humans are the same, no we don't grow leaves or buds, and we produce results. Such as we produce cooked meals for our family, or produce products for our employer, or produce love and comfort for our significant other. We are always producing something and in this measure we are alive.
When we stop being useful and helpful we are no longer living like we should. So we need to use a little self improvement to change what we are doing so that we again produce. An example is in order here. Let us say that your hobby is knitting, and during the winter you knitted every body you know a pair or mitten, because you are good at it and like to do it. Then comes spring, not a whole lot of need for mittens, so you begin to feel useless, and experience a down moment in your life. What to do now? You ask. Well, you learn something new, put it into practice and produce something else. Continuing with the example you learn a new stitch and start making grill pads for everyone so they have a place to set those hot pans without melting the table underneath. You just committed self improvement! Does this mean you should start to learn knitting? No, if knitting is your thing then carry on, but you may have other things you do, such as auto detailing, carpentry, bicycle repair, and so on. Some people even find a way to make a living with their hobby.
So do not fear self improvement, the term means only what it says. Improving yourself. Maybe this year you'll run a marathon, grow a black rose, solve the world peace problem, grow the perfect tomato, or get the promotion at work. All you need is a little self improvement, and that usually starts with reading something that leads to learning something that leads to doing something.
We all have problems that affect us every day. These problems bring us misery due to the fact that we just don't know what to do. We should never loose hope, where there is life there is hope, all we need is a little self help in figuring out solutions to these problems. "All we need is to learn how to overcome it and not to be overcome."
Self improvement should not wait for the last moment; you should always be looking for skills to learn and things to do. To stop learning is always for the worse and consequently, you will let go of a chance, an opportunity, because you are afraid to take a risk.
Keep in mind that, from time to time, something has to happen in order to free you from monotony, so don't be surprised if, at a certain moment in time, instead of being afraid of change, you desire it with all your heart.
Self improvement is not a bad thing; it is not to be feared. You will understand that you are alive and to prove it to the world you will keep growing, and producing. Then when you see your self slowing down or stopping you simply apply a bit of that self improvement stuff again and you are back in the game again.
In self-improvement you are simply changing yourself for the better. So, to understand is to remove fear. Said another way; the best way to remove fear is to understand. You may already know that life is always in a continual cycle, of ups and downs, good times and bad times, and so forth. Just keep in mind that normally no one is permanently up or permanently down. Those who get stuck in a "down" often are thought of needing self improvement, but you need constant self improvement to just live life, regardless of you situation. In life no one can avoid these ups and downs it is the way life is. However by constant self improvement your life will have shorter downs and longer ups.
What people should do about these downs is to learn from them, the lesson is to understand that without constant growth you are no longer alive. Think about this: Life is growth. If a tree stops producing new leaves it is considered dead, if a rose no longer produces buds and is just a bunch of grey thorny sticks, it is considered dead. To prove that it is alive the tree and the rose must always continue to produce, or grow, new leaves, branches, and so it is growing. When the growing stops it is a sure sign that life has ended. We humans are the same, no we don't grow leaves or buds, and we produce results. Such as we produce cooked meals for our family, or produce products for our employer, or produce love and comfort for our significant other. We are always producing something and in this measure we are alive.
When we stop being useful and helpful we are no longer living like we should. So we need to use a little self improvement to change what we are doing so that we again produce. An example is in order here. Let us say that your hobby is knitting, and during the winter you knitted every body you know a pair or mitten, because you are good at it and like to do it. Then comes spring, not a whole lot of need for mittens, so you begin to feel useless, and experience a down moment in your life. What to do now? You ask. Well, you learn something new, put it into practice and produce something else. Continuing with the example you learn a new stitch and start making grill pads for everyone so they have a place to set those hot pans without melting the table underneath. You just committed self improvement! Does this mean you should start to learn knitting? No, if knitting is your thing then carry on, but you may have other things you do, such as auto detailing, carpentry, bicycle repair, and so on. Some people even find a way to make a living with their hobby.
So do not fear self improvement, the term means only what it says. Improving yourself. Maybe this year you'll run a marathon, grow a black rose, solve the world peace problem, grow the perfect tomato, or get the promotion at work. All you need is a little self improvement, and that usually starts with reading something that leads to learning something that leads to doing something.
We all have problems that affect us every day. These problems bring us misery due to the fact that we just don't know what to do. We should never loose hope, where there is life there is hope, all we need is a little self help in figuring out solutions to these problems. "All we need is to learn how to overcome it and not to be overcome."
Self improvement should not wait for the last moment; you should always be looking for skills to learn and things to do. To stop learning is always for the worse and consequently, you will let go of a chance, an opportunity, because you are afraid to take a risk.
Keep in mind that, from time to time, something has to happen in order to free you from monotony, so don't be surprised if, at a certain moment in time, instead of being afraid of change, you desire it with all your heart.
Self improvement is not a bad thing; it is not to be feared. You will understand that you are alive and to prove it to the world you will keep growing, and producing. Then when you see your self slowing down or stopping you simply apply a bit of that self improvement stuff again and you are back in the game again.
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