Know your Strengths and Be Confident

Self-love - acquiring and applying it 

A very effective way to generate a healthy self-love is to build yourself up in a constructive way each day. This is an ‘active’ type of exercise and one that usually gets results if consistently practised. The principle involved is simple. Once more you are feeding positive messages into the subconscious mind, and the daily reinforcement of them (through this and the other things you are doing) will get results. They will in time become impressed on your mind, and begin to work for you. At this stage you will begin to love and value yourself more. As I have said before, we are what we think, and we cannot be thinking in a particular way for any length of time without feeling and reacting in a certain way as a result of that thinking. 

If we are continually feeding ourselves self-knocking and negative messages we are chipping away at our confidence and self-image just as though we were physically chopping away at a tree with the intention of felling it. Unfortunately most of us do this until we are made aware of the effect it has on us. However, if we can break this bad habit and establish new and healthier habit patterns we will find that it can become just as easy to build ourselves up as put ourselves down. It is a matter of valuing ourselves enough to do this. 

We are usually more aware that we are doing damage when we `knock' ourselves regarding big issues. What we fail to realise is that in the subtle little ways just as much damage is done. The daily dose of self-put-down can have a devastating effect over a period of time. We may be unaware of what we are about because what we are doing seems so small and unimportant. 

This is a danger, because the cumulative effect of self-put-downs plays havoc with our self-concept. So we have to watch for the seemingly ‘innocent’ little ways of doing this as well as the more obvious and recognisable ones. 

Perhaps some commonplace examples would clarify things. Incidentally, these have the same negative effect whether said to oneself or others: ‘me again... trust me... I would, wouldn't I? ... I might have known I'd blow it... I never do anything right... I always look a mess... I'm not a very interesting person... there's nothing special about me... (and the classic) I'm only a housewife, sales assistant, truck driver, whatever... I couldn't do that... I'd never manage... it would be too much for me... you do it, you're better at it... I don't think I'd enjoy myself... nobody would want me to come... no use me applying for that, I'd never get it... nobody would ever want to take me out... I never seem to achieve anything... oh, I couldn't... I haven't got much going for me... it's too late... I'm past it... what's the use... nothing's ever going to change.' 

If this is the kind of message you've been feeding yourself for years how about doing yourself a favour and stopping it right now? To put yourself down in your own and other people's eyes is to actively work against yourself. You may not have realised what you were doing to yourself, but you do now. Each of us is capable of motivating ourselves to work in our own interests if we choose to, but it is our decision and nobody else can make the choice for us. Others can help motivate us to want to work for ourselves but only we can do so. 

In order to help counteract negative attitudes and behaviours we may have been indulging in for years, it is necessary to begin establishing new behaviour patterns. This involves consistently building ourselves up on a daily basis - and never putting ourselves down. This isn't as difficult as it may sound; it demands some rethinking, and consistency in behaviour. It is the daily building up in little ways that is eventually going to change our attitude to ourselves. Don't think of this as one big project that's going to demand a lot of you. See it as something to be accomplished little by little. You will be working on one small issue at a time, tackling issues one after the other. From little beginnings you can achieve big results. 




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