Low self-esteem and lack of confidence can negatively impact every single area of your life.
If you lack confidence you’re unlikely to put yourself forward in your career and live up to your full potential.
If you lack confidence it’s much easier for you to make poor choices in relationships and stay in relationships where you’re being disrespected.
If you lack confidence, you are simply going to miss out on many opportunities because you really don’t believe that you have what it takes to make your dreams and goals a reality.
So basically, you’re selling yourself short in life.
This is why developing a confident mindset should be a number one priority in your life.
But now I’m about to make a shocking statement… You’re going to find this hard to believe it first but… Are you ready?
You already have self-confidence. Yes you heard me right.
The truth is that you already possess perfect, mental and emotional health. When you remove what is drawing your attention away from this truth and reality… You can experience the confidence that you innately possess.
What is preventing you from experiencing your innate wellness… is you’re thinking.
To illustrate this point I want you to think about watching an infant or toddler play. Babies just have a natural peace. They are completely engaged with the present moment. Looking around and just experiencing life.
A baby is not engaged in activities, like comparing himself to other babies to see if he is inferior.
A baby is not looking in the mirror, and criticizing herself for physical flaws.
Small children just have a natural resilience and an effortless ability to enjoy life without succumbing to endless negative, internal chatter.
Babies aren’t plugged by negative thinking, but they’re not really played by much thinking at all. Because you learned a thing as you get older. You are given this marvelous gift of thought.
Learning to think and reason and come to conclusions is a wonderful blessing.
So it’s not thought that is the problem… It’s the misuse of thought that creates anxiety.
Let me say that one more time because it’s important that you get this…
It is the misuse of the gift of thought that creates anxiety
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not blaming you for your anxiety. And if you have of guilt and shame, because of your struggle with anxiety, I highly recommend my video… Anxiety is not your fault.
As our brains develop, we adapt our thinking patterns based on our environments. If you had an environment where you were affirmed, and encouraged, most of your thoughts about yourself are going to be positive.
If you had an environment where you were criticized, ridiculed, or bullied, most of your thoughts about yourself we’re going to be negative.
So your current thinking patterns have everything to do with how your brain was programmed by Life. And let’s face it… We’re always exposed to around thinking so it’s natural for us not to realize that that is where the problem lies.
We can only feel as good as the quality of our thoughts allow.
You can’t do anything about something if you don’t realize it’s even a problem. And once you realize it’s a problem, you need a solution that works.
And you were taught to misuse the gift of thought.
How you feel about yourself on a given day, will directly correlate with the quality of thinking you’re having about yourself on that day.
Your thinking is not a representation of reality. But your thinking becomes your reality. When you shift your thinking your reality changes.
But you really can change your thinking! I know that because I probably was one of the most self critical person on the Earth. As a matter of fact, as an adult, I found a box in the attic that contain the diary that I had written when I was in about fifth grade. It was so sad.
Day, after day, I filled up page after page with all sorts of statements about how inadequate, ugly, and inferior I was. And I continue to think that way well into adulthood until I learn to change the way I was thinking.
Because none of it was true! But the unfortunate thing is… When you believe something about yourself it really does become a reality.
So if I believe I’m ugly… I’m gonna live my life that way.
If I believe I’m stupid, I’m probably not gonna perform well.
If I believe I’m unlovable. I’m probably not gonna choose healthy partners and have a good relationship.
When I was young, there was a show on television called threes company. Yes I’m dating myself.
On that show, there was a blonde character named chrissy and she was always doing stupid things. For some reason as a teenager, I could be a little bit dizzy and I ended up with the name Chrissy as my school nickname. I knew the kids at school thought I was dumb and airheaded. Because I was so young I just didn’t realize that other people’s opinions of me didn’t need to become my reality.
I really started to believe I was stupid. So what kind of grades do you think I got? When I thought about future careers, do you think I thought I could become a doctor, or a lawyer?
Well… I got crappy grades, because I believed I was stupid and couldn’t perform well. I didn’t think I was smart enough to do a lot of the jobs out there that required an advanced education. Even the teachers thought I would never make anything of myself.
But here’s the shocking thing…
There was one school psychologist who saw my potential. He told my dad that he should consider giving me an IQ test. Well, it turned out I actually had a very high IQ so here I was… Being made fun of on a regular basis at school for being stupid and I was actually smarter than a majority of the kids in the school.
Then, what do you think happened when I realized how smart I was.
You probably guessed right I started to do better in school. I did end up going to college and I graduated from my physical therapy program with a 4.0.
But I’m absolutely positive that if I had continued with the false belief that I was stupid that I would’ve never achieved all that. I wouldn’t even have dared to try.
I don’t believe in stupid people. I don’t believe in ugly people. I don’t believe in inferior people.
Different does not mean inferior.
It’s time for you to stop letting those negative voices from the past determine your self-worth.
Those people that criticized you had minds that were filled with negative self talk as well. They made themselves feel better bye tearing you down.
You don’t actually need the approval of other people to feel good about yourself.
When you change the beliefs you have about yourself, your feelings will change, your actions will change, and your experience will change.
So I’m sure you understand that. The reason you’re struggling with lack of confidence has nothing to do with your actual worth and value, and everything to do with those things that happened to you in the past that made you think that you were inferior.
It’s time to change that. Maybe you were a victim of bullying or child abuse or poverty, but you don’t have to be a victim the rest of your life. It’s time to take responsibility for your thinking and build confidence.
You can’t change the past, but you can take responsibility for yourself now, and change your future.
Don’t let the trauma that ruined your past, continue to ruin your future.
So today I want to give you a challenge… an exercise that will help you break the habit of low self-esteem.
Did you notice that I called it a habit?
That’s right you have low self-esteem because you have innocently develop a habit of thinking poorly about yourself.
So let’s try something new…
Every time you catch yourself thinking something negatively about yourself…. I want you to immediately STOP and redirect your mind immediately by participating in the following exercise. You might need to write this down at first- but after a while you get pretty good at it.
The minute you catch yourself thinking something negative about yourself. I want you to come up with 10 things that are good about you. 10 things you actually like about yourself.
And I know some of you are immediately thinking… Tiffani, there really aren’t 10 things I like about myself. If that’s the case, you know that you have been so caught up in your own negative thinking that you’re really failing to see the reality of who you are.
So here’s a simple exercise that will help you with that… Just close your eyes for a minute and imagine yourself anywhere between the ages of four and six.
Now… would you ever say to that little girl the things you’ve been saying to yourself? Do you look at that child and think that you can’t find anything good about it? Would you let anyone talk to that little child the way you talk to yourself? What good things can you say about this child?
You might even want to hang a picture of yourself as a small child in a place where you will frequently see it. And every day when you see that picture I want you to speak to that child that developed low self-esteem, because of what happened in the past. Speak to that child the words of a praise and encouragement that it needs to hear to feel good about itself. And very soon you will find you can speak these words to yourself easily, and effortlessly.
And if you need help increasing your confidence, please visit my page at tiffanicappello.com where you can learn more about resources to help you on your journey.
