Take your self esteem inventory

Self Confidence... that comfortable freedom to simply be yourself - absolutely certain that is more than good enough! A strong, healthy confidence is a warm reassuring feeling that in this life you can achieve pretty much all you want! The feeling that you can do whatever necessary to achieve your personal dreams!

Unfortunately most of us don't have this strong belief in ourselves and our abilities. We have been mystified, one time or another and some very often, with conflicting beliefs. Maybe, when you were a child, some 'authority' figure ridiculed, embarrassed or scolded you. And you took that criticism too much to heart, as children tend to do because of their admiration of the adults around them they love.

You might even have heard your parents, grandparents or teachers say things like:
"You're not good enough" or "You're not smart enough" - maybe even, "You'll never be able to..." or "You'll never amount to anything." These types of remarks coming from people we look up to can be very destructive for our self esteem.

It is not important how unreliable the source might have been or how misconceived the disparaging remarks were, they may still be making you feel a lack of confidence and low self-esteem today.

Furthermore, discouraging words spoken many years ago might lead you to find fault with many things you do and be overly critical with yourself.

Enough is enough!!!

Get yourself a journal and start each day by writing your strength, achievements and blessings down. You will be surprised how much you can come up with even though it might feel a little awkward at first. Concentrate purely on what works and leave the things that went wrong - now or in the past - behind.

The past is gone and cannot be changed. The future will come - whether we keep our disempowering beliefs or not. Today - NOW is the only time we can make a change and we can do that by starting to build our self esteem inventory!

Start NOW by writing at least 5 strength and achievements in your life down and then go out and get a journal so you can fill it in each day with a minimum of 3 of your personal blessings!

Give yourself the time. YOU ARE WORTH IT!

Barbara Hofmeister

www.trainingvisions.com

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Real change starts with the small stuff

When we are unhappy about our life or dissatisfied we tend to want radical changes and we tend to want them NOW. But that is not usually how changes happen. Let's say you want to tone your body. That will not happen overnight. You will start with some easy excercise and step up as your body gets used to the training.

All other changes can be made like this. Don't be too hard on yourself. Instead of trying to change your whole life, improve one thing at a time. Take a broad area of discontent, figure out the one facet that really bugs you, then take action towards changing that one thing.

Let's say there are issues in your relationship. Don't try to change the relationship; instead pledge to yourself to remain calm when your partner forgets to close the toothpaste. Is it really important enough to ge in a fight for it and ruin the whole day? Get your own toothpaste and put it in a different place so yours is always the way you want it and let him or her do whatever they do. The less pressure there is the more likely it becomes that they will eventually follow suit.

Change that is made slowly, step by step has the greatest chance of success.

Keep changing. That is what our life is all about
Barbara
www.trainingvisions.com

How is your self-esteem?

I read a forum post just now that talked about an online test someone had taken. It seems her expectations were higher than her results and she felt really down for only getting 50 %. In her post she said:

"I shall try to forget it, its hard to forget negative things for me, its like i want to put myself down. "

Do you know how often I hear that? And why do I hear that so much? Hard to forget negative things... Why would we want to put ourself down? Why do we seem to listen more to negative things than to positive? If someone makes one negative remark all the praise we got from that person or from others before seem cancelled out as if they never existed.

Does that make sense or is it just something we have been trained to do until it became a disempowering habit? I feel that is becoming more and more difficult to stay positive. The media is doing their best to make us think we are surrounded only by violence (which is not true!). Parents and teachers and in many cases Governments are telling us what is right and what is "wrong". Even though we seem to have more freedom today there are more and more No, No's we identify ourselves with. Fortunately there are plenty of people out there who see great opportunities and use them for the betterment of mankind.

It should be easier to laugh or at least shrug on a test like the one the lady above made because unless done by a real professional who knows the topic inside out, they have no meaning but hey, if I get all excited by the Matrix test (see my ecademy profile) than I suppose it is only normal that someone else gets upset about some other silly little test.

Here some advice: Hold your head high knowing that you are unique with all the ups and downs that make you the personality you are.

Let's focus on the good in our lives! Let's make it a daily habit to count all our blessings, all the good things we can be grateful for so our "so called weaknesses" don't graze us so much. We are all unique and we are all perfect if we only let the perfection out that is often locked so deep inside of us.

Dare to be different. You are worth it.
Barbara Hofmeister
www.trainingvisions.com

In case you want to read the Wikipedia definition of self-esteem:
In psychology, self-esteem or self-worth includes a person's subjective appraisal of himself or herself as intrinsically positive or negative to some degree.

Self-esteem involves both self-relevant beliefs (e.g., "I am competent/incompetent", "I am liked/disliked") and associated self-relevant emotions (e.g., triumph/despair, pride/shame). It also finds expression in behavior (e.g., assertiveness/timorousness, confidence/caution). In addition, self-esteem can be construed as an enduring personality characteristic (trait self-esteem) or as a temporary psychological condition (state self-esteem).

Controlling Anger

Anger is something that can control our lifes. If we tend to get upset easily we better learn how to control that anger instead of letting it control us.

Did you know that you use 8-10 times more energy when being angry?

I read this in a medical article but I also know it to be true from my own experiences. Each time I got really upset about something I was completely exhausted afterwards. My father was a very explosive man and I was pretty bad myself when I was young but because one can be very unjust and hurtful in anger I learned to control my outbursts.

I was just chatting in a the uncommon forum with a girl who got so angry that she beat up her boyfriend and as a consequence he left her. This is not the first time I hear stuff like that so I will share some of my advice with you.

"...Sounds like you really freaked out and lost the person you loved in consequence. The pain you feel can be very helpful for you to learn an important lesson because scientists have found out that we only change if the pain or the joy we feel is strong enough. In NLP they call it anchoring. Anchor the pain of this loss to something like the snap of your fingers or touching your heart or whatever gesture comes to your mind.

First put yourself into the situation again and add the actual punch, the hurt in your partners eyes etc. until you start feeling how you must have felt after punching him or after realising that he is leaving you because of your violence. Go as deep into the pain as you can and associate a gesture with it. Now each time you feel anger coming up repeat that gesture to feel the consequences. You might need to practise it a few times but this works 100 %.

If that is not enough try time line therapy. Imagine yourself in a moment of anger than leave your body and float above it and watch yourself. Float higher so you can see more of your life line (time line) and look into your future. How will it be if you continue like this?

Now go higher and go back in time to when you were small. When was the first time you felt anger, violence like that? Put yourself in that moment again and watch it from above. Now float back further until you are 15 Minutes before you felt that very first anger. In this moment you were still anger free and can make a decision to not want anger in your life. It's not worth it...

What you decide here depends very much on you but if done properly you will be anger and violence free. If you can't do this by yourself find a good hypno-therapist who works with this method. It is fast and very efficient.

I also suggest you stop drinking alcohol or at least drink less. After each drink have at least one glass of water and eat well if you want to have a drink.

When you feel your anger coming take some slow deep breath into your tummy and count until 10 before reacting. That helps immediately.

All of these methods work IF you use them! Just reading about them will do nothing.

It would be nice if yet could let know what helps you best.

To an anger free life with plenty of Love
Barbara
www.trainingvisions.com

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Why does Personal Life Coaching work?

Coaching is totally about YOU: your life, your dreams, your hopes, your aspirations, and also your personal challenges and obstacles. Your coach will be your personal mentor, collaborator, accountability partner, and friend. You will talk, plan, and create new results and a new future for YOU!

Your personal Life Coach will listen, challenge, evoke and keep you focused on your path. Coaching will help you reach your goals faster and much easier. Coaching is always forward oriented and action focused. By helping you take the right steps today your coach prods you to get the results you desire tomorrow. By working together with a personal life coach you will expand your awareness and create situations that support your profound success.

Coaching is not “therapy” and does not deal with emotional problems or healing. Your coach will listen, evoke, challenge and help you stay focused. When you get stuck s/he will show you how to get unstuck and continue on your journey.

Most people use personal Life Coaches when they are
Ø attempting to reach very large goals,
Ø when they are unsatisfied with their present circumstances,
Ø when they want more clarity and focus and,
Ø when they are ready to define their life’s purpose and mission.

A good coach will not teach you but support you in the powerful process of finding your own answers. We will define your ultimate goals and start a plan to achieve them. In the process you will learn how to overcome disempowering beliefs and you will see what it takes to live the life of your dreams.

Rather than explain, the best way to understand Coaching is to actually experience it.

Schedule a Free Intro Session to Discover What Coaching Can Do For You!

I am looking forward to talking with you in your free introductory session. Please let me know if you have any questions and when you are ready to commit to your success.

Love Life and Life will love you!
Barbara
www.trainingvisions.com

YOU are good enough!

Let me share a post I read in a forum. It was about self consciousness:

"I decided that I'd go to McDonald's to get some food. Now I'm not overweight, but I do like McDonald's and I work a lot so there are times when I end up there too often. On my way there I couldn't decide which one to go to.

The reason, you ask?

Well, I thought that maybe the lady from one of the drive thrus would remember me, and the fact that I'd been there three times this week. I therefore considered going to the other McDonald's in the area. I had to overcome my fear of encountering the McDonald's employee and I did it. The question is, why the hell do I have to overcome it? I didn't even know the lady at the window, and even if I did, so what? Nevertheless, things like this run through my mind and they bother me.

Moving on, I got my food at McDonald's and then I drove home. Before leaving the car I was paranoid about whether or not to put the bag in my briefcase so that people from my apartment wouldn't see that I was eating at McDonald's. Now that I'm writing about it it's kind of funny, but I'm dead serious about this. A thought such as, "They're gonna see that I've visited McDonald's three times this week and I'm not eating properly". Who the hell cares, right? "

Yes, that is right! Who cares?

Because we take ourselves serious doesn't mean other people do too. Because we feel so important, doesn't mean others feel we are important enough for them to spend their thoughts on us. Being self conscious is usually about feeling guilty or not good enough.

If we perform poorly (not up to our own expectation or what we know we "should" do) we look around us to see if anyone else has noticed. For instance you can't get into a parking space and have to go back and forth several times. If you feel bad about that you will look around to see who has been watching and should there be someone you will feel worse. But why should you care? Do you think the others never had this happen to them? And how do you know what they think or feel when they look your way? They might admire your car or admire you as you get out; or their thoughts could be on a completely different topic altogether while glazing your way accidentally.

I met a young woman at one of my seminars who told me about her life's purpose and her vision. She was very clear about it and well on her way to make them come true and just as I was going to tell her how much I admire the direct road she is traveling; she said she feels so small and insignificant next to me. I was completely shocked. Why couldn't she see how much good she was doing already?

It was because her expectations on herself were so extremely high that she could hardly fulfill them. So she became self conscious, criticized herself and felt she was not good enough. What a lot of nonsense!

If you have to beat yourself up do it about something that you really screwed up (like burning your house down because you left the iron on) but never because you don't fulfill your own XXL oversized expectations. If you feel you are not achieving enough or are not good enough talk to a true friend and ask them what they think about you. In most cases you will be really surprised how highly your friends value you. But in all cases it will give you a different perspective to look at!

We are all good enough!

Love life and life will love you
Barbara

www.trainingvisions.com

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