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You’re Beautiful – Danielle Aument

May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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I was recently contacted by somebody who wanted to introduce me to a teen pop singer-songwriter Danielle Aument and after listening to her song and watching her video I just had to share.

Danielle has just released her new song “You’re Beautiful” with a video showing friends, fans, and family, including some friends who have lost their battles with cystic fibrosis.

Listen very closely to the words of this beautiful song – you are all beautiful and perfect just the way you are, no matter what you’re going through right now.

Sigh… this really did bring a tear to my eye and I hope you love this song as much as I did!

Filed Under: Self Confidence, Self Esteem

Self confidence is about feeling good about yourself

April 23, 2012 By 2 Comments
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Although I’m a strong believer in appreciating what’s on the inside and that how you feel on the inside is what really matters, I also believe that if you know you look good, you will feel good.

Let’s look at two scenarios here.

In the first scenario you get out of bed and get ready for your day. You don’t bother with makeup or looking after your skin because you’re happy to just “grow old gracefully”.

You don’t exercise regularly and you try to eat healthy sometimes, but excercise and healthy eating is not important to you.

You feel sluggish most of the time, and you really don’t like that ever-growing muffin top. But at the same time, you’re not prepared to do what it takes to change.

You look in the mirror.

What you see is somebody who is slightly overweight, lacking in energy, and who doesn’t take much pride in her appearance.

Now let’s look at the next scenario…

You get out of bed and you follow your daily beauty routine of cleansing your face, toning and moisturising. You apply a little makeup and you dress in clothes that flatter your figure.

You go about your day and fit in a one hour workout which makes you feel great!

You eat healthy foods all day and you drink plenty of water.

You feel good AND you know you look good! Everybody around you notices too and many of your friends and colleagues comment on how lucky you are to have such a great figure.

Ok, so we can see that we have two very different people here.

Which one are you?

Do you take care of yourself, both inside and out? Do you take pride in your appearance?

Or do you not care? What price are you paying for not caring?

I know from my own experience that when I’m working out regularly, eating well and making an effort in my physical appearance, I feel GREAT! My self confidence rises and I feel as though I can take on the world!

On the other hand, like you probably do, I have “icky” days sometimes. On those days I get lazy, I eat bad food and I make ZERO effort to look good. And you know what? I feel yuk as a result!

I’m happy to say that this rarely happens to me these days, because I’ve learned that being in the habit of looking after myself brings much better results than the alternative.

So what are you doing to look after yourself each day?

Do you have a weekly exercise routine? What types of food are you feeding your body? How much care are you taking of your appearance?

I’ll be talking more about these things in coming weeks because they’re very important to anybody wanting to boost their confidence and self esteem, and it really doesn’t take that much effort as you will see!

Filed Under: Beauty, Self Confidence, Self Esteem

If I want plastic surgery does it mean I lack self esteem?

April 16, 2012 By 3 Comments
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Today’s post kind of continues on from yesterday’s post where I talk about making choices based on whether or not you have control over a situation.

It’s also sparked from a conversation I was involved in on Facebook yesterday where a young woman posted a picture of herself, asking something like “What do you think?” on her fan page.

This particular girl has the flattest abs I have EVER seen! She is unbelievably fit and her lovely personality shines through in the videos she and her business partners post on YouTube. They offer a free workout program which they advertise via a website, YouTube and Facebook. She has thousands of Facebook “fans”, many of which are seeing great results from following the workouts which are posted most days. See http://bodyrock.tv for more info – it’s definitely worth a look.

Anyway, this picture has so far received 2014 “Likes” and 770 comments (at the time of writing), so it’s sparked a lot of interest.

And the reason for this is because this girl recently had breast implants – and hair extentions!

Thankfully most of the comments are positive, some even saying that they hope she’s made these changes for her and not somebody else. This is a fair enough comment. If we’re going to make changes to our bodies or our looks, it should be for ourselves, and definitely not for somebody else. But mostly they’re saying she was beautiful before and is still beautiful now, and offering their support. It feels nice to read these comments. icon smile If I want plastic surgery does it mean I lack self esteem?

Sadly though, this girl has received a LOT of negative comments about the changes, accusing her of being superficial and not about the workouts, how she now looks “fake”, and basically putting her down and judging her for making the changes she made.

Some are even “threatening” to stop following her facebook updates. She’s offering a FREE service remember!? So no great loss!

I just could not believe that people’s judgements were so publically put out there and it acurately reflects how badly some people feel about themselves (when you judge others, it’s time to take a look in the mirror because there’s something inside you that you’re judging).

My belief is that if you don’t have something nice to say, or you can’t be contstructive, then please don’t say it. You might be feeling down, but that’s no reason to bring down those around you.

Ok, so does the fact that she had plastic surgery mean that she has low self esteem?

My answer to that is “No”. If you lack self esteem, whether or not you have plastic surgery has absolutely nothing to do with it, although I do agree that some poeple with low self esteem may get surgery to help them feel better (although this doesn’t work).

Remember yesterday when I talked about being in a situation you have control over? If you hate your hair, you go get a hair cut. If you don’t like how you look first thing, you put on makeup. So why is having your breasts enlarged any different? Ok, it’s a lot more extreme, but some people clearly have some aspects of themselves that they don’t like, so they make the choice to change it – and sometimes the only way to make that change is via surgery (trust me, there is only so much a push up bra can do!). icon wink If I want plastic surgery does it mean I lack self esteem?

If you’re overweight, you can choose to exercise – or go and get gastric band surgery! And if you exercise regularly to stay in shape, does that mean you have low self esteem because you’re trying to change how you look? No I don’t think so – it means you care about your health and when you look good, you feel good (who doesn’t?!).

Here’s what I think: I have the flattest chest in Australia (ok, slight exaggeration!), and I often feel frustrated when trying on clothing that just doesn’t fit or sit right, because I just don’t “fill” the clothes. I have a great figure apart from that (I was blessed at birth, although I do exercise regularly), but this aspect really frustrates me sometimes.

It doesn’t mean I have low self esteem, but it does mean I have something in my life that I’m not 100% happy about. If I see a dress I absolutely love, then I want to be able to try it on and it fits. But more often than not, I walk away from the store feeling disappointed.

So if I had a spare $10,000 I’d probably do the same thing this girl did. And I’d be just as happy with me as before – except that my wardrobe would look a LOT better!

But if I never got it done I’d be fine (although not as well dressed), but my life wouldn’t be awful if I didn’t.

And that’s what it comes down to.

If you feel good about yourself despite your flaws, then making changes to those flaws won’t change who you are on the inside, but you’ll feel even better than you did before!

On the other hand, if you really are letting your flaws rule your life and you feel down about yourself because of them, then surgery is NOT going to fix anything and I wouldn’t recommend you go and have a procedure done.

And finally, to those who judge… Please take a long hard look at yourself before you pass judgement on somebody who is obviously a very good person who is offering something to thousands of people to benefit them – without even charging for it.

Gratitude goes such a long way – let’s focus on that!

Filed Under: Self Esteem

How to stop feeling so down on myself

December 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Let’s face it. There will be days when you’re feeling bad, you’re mentally beating yourself up and you feel like you’re worthless, useless, not worth anybody’s time…

But on some conscious level you KNOW you’re better than this. You know you deserve a happier and better life. But you just can’t dig yourself out of this pit of despair.

So today’s post is about helping you to feel just a little bit better about yourself.

I’m not sure if I’ve said it here on the blog before, but if you’re told a lie often enough, soon you’ll start to believe it. So let’s start off today by telling yourself some nice “lies”!

So here’s something you can try:

  • Write down at least five things you like about yourself. They could be personality traits (you’re a good person, you’re kind to others, you have a great sense of humour, you’re smart, etc) which are preferred, or they could be physical attributes, such as you have nice hair, nice eyes, you’re pretty, you have a nice figure, etc.
  • Review this list EVERY day. Stick it by your bed or on your bathroom mirror. Put it somewhere so you see it first thing every day.
  • As you read this list every day, even if you don’t believe it right now, pretend that everything on that list is 100% true.
  • Add things to your list as you think of them.

This little task will go a long way towards helping to lift your spirits and allowing you to like yourself just a little bit more! xx

Filed Under: Personal Development, Self Confidence, Self Esteem

Do you feel like you’re not good enough?

October 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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I recently worked with a woman called Gina who felt that she was not good enough. She felt incapable of being satisfied, she hated her appearance and constantly felt regret over the things she said and did each day.

So Gina hides herself away from the world as much as possible, hoping this will help. It doesn’t.

Gina has a boyfriend and she knows that he can see the self hatred she pours over herself, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. He wants to help her but doesn’t know where to start. Gina also wonders why he has “settled” for her, because she believes he can do so much better.

She has no direction in her life, she has no interests and she hates to do anything alone. It’s like she can’t stand her own company.

The good news for Gina is that she is aware of what she is feeling and she knows it’s not how she wants to feel and she wants to make changes.

Gina had never asked for help before, so doing so was a huge step for her – this is a turning point in her life for sure!

Now, the first thing I realised for Gina was that she had lost sight of all of her positive points.

Her boyfriend was with her because he WANTED to be! If he didn’t want to be with her, he’d certainly go and find someone else! So I pointed out to Gina that he obviuosly saw something in her that she was failing to see, and he was sticking around because of that.

I did point out to her that the more hatred she poured on herself though, the more chance she had of pushing this wonderful man of hers away.

Now Gina was asking for help in finding new interests in her life, but I felt that before she started looking for new interests, she needed to do some work on herself first!

So here’s what I asked her to try for me:

  • Grab a notebook and a pen
  • Write down each and every little thing that you like about yourself, and everything that is good about you. I don’t care how small that thing is – just write it down!
  • Keep writing until you can’t think of any more.
  • Every day, spend five minutes thinking about all of the things you like about yourself, and write them down. Did you do something good today? Were you particularly kind to somebody today? Did you show some affection for a loved one or did you give your pet extra scratches, just because you love them, and you know they appreciated it? Every little thing counts!

This exercise is wonderful, because its aim is to take your focus off your negative thoughts about yourself, while putting your focus on the good things about yourself.

After only two days of following this exercise, Gina was already starting to feel more positive about her life too. She felt less bored with her life and and is learning to like her own company. She also said that she felt my advice was going to go a long way with her.

Over time, Gina’s perception of herself and her life will improve, and that’s when she’ll be more open to finding new interests, which may seem to “magically” fall into her lap and will be perfect for her! This often happens when you’re in a positive mindset.

Ok, so if you’re feeling down on yourself like Gina was, try this exercise for at least a week (longer is better) and take notice of the difference it makes to your outlook in life. I’m thinking you will feel AMAZED! icon smile Do you feel like youre not good enough?

Filed Under: Self Esteem Tagged With: , ,

Dealing with abuse

December 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment
crystalflower
crystalflower 150x150 Dealing with abuseI know I’ve been kind of slack lately and I’ve not posted much, but after what I saw today, I knew I had to do something that would possibly help just one more person in this world…
I’ve just returned from an amazing trip to Los Angeles (more on that in a later post), and decided to take a day off to recoup and finish some Christmas shopping.
As I walked through the shopping centre, I overheard a man yelling at his wife.  I couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying, although the regular “F” words were strong and clear.
His poor wife looked miserable and like she wanted to sink into the floor.  My heart went out to her.
This was an older couple and I guessed that they had been together for many years.  So this poor woman had probably put up with her husband’s verbal abuse all of this time.
I received an email from a woman in a similar situation last week and I told her this:
You have three choices about what to do here:
1.  If you want to stay with your husband, then get help.  Go to marriage counseling (you can go alone if he won’t go with you) to help you to cope with and deal with the way in which he treats you.
You’ve probably done nothing about it for years, so have actually given him the message that his treatment of you is ok.
A counselor will hopefully help you to realise that you do NOT deserve to be treated like this, and what you should do if he does it again.  You will also be given tools to help you to help your partner to treat you better.
2.  Another option is to leave him.  If you’re thinking of doing this, you must make sure it is safe to do so.  If he has the tendency to become violent then you need to be extra careful and may need to get the police involved.
If violence isn’t an issue, start preparations beforehand.  Where will you stay?  What will you do for money?  Call on friends and family to support you – chances are, many of them don’t have a clue about the living hell you’re in right now and they’ll be more than willing to lend a hand.
3.  Finally, you have the option to do nothing.
I want you to imagine yourself 20 years from now, and living in exactly the same situation you’re in now.
How does that feel?
If you do nothing, then nothing will change.  He will continue to treat you badly, and by doing nothing, you are telling him it’s ok to keep doing what he’s doing.
Do you really want that for yourself??  Do you really want to spend the next 20, 30 or even 40 years like this??
I know I’d rather be dead than have to live like that…
The first thing you need to do right now is learn to love yourself.  You are a beautiful, desirable person, regardless of what anybody says.  You do not deserve to be yelled and screamed at, you don’t deserve to have somebody swear at you and in fact, nobody deserves that.   Especially not you.
Once you learn to love yourself, you will fully understand the value in doing so.  A person with high self esteem will not allow somebody to treat them badly and get away with it.  They will stand up for themselves, they will get themselves out of a situation where they feel they’re not being treated right, and they will do what’s best for them.
The first step towards loving yourself is seeing all of the good qualities you have and appreciating them.  Write them down so you have a written reminder about how wonderful you really are….
Filed Under: Domestic Violence, Relationships, Self Esteem

Domestic violence – What should you NOT do?

September 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Domestic Violence

I’ve been in a relationship where emotional and verbal abuse was on the menu, and for a long time there was something I was doing that was not helping anybody.

I was doing NOTHING.

I have had both a friend and family member confide in me about similar situations they are in, and as a coach I will not tell them to leave their husbands, nor will I tell them to stay.

But I what I did do was point out their two choices:

1.  To stay

2.  To leave

I also suggested to both of them that if they choose to stay, they must not assume that things will get better if they continue to do nothing!

What I mean by this, is that if they do nothing, then nothing will change.  They will remain in the same situation for as long as they allow it to continue.

Counseling might be what’s needed (even if she goes on her own!), or it might be that he needs to be given an ultimatum (that she is prepared to follow through with) to make him realise just how miserable he is making her by treating her that way.

Only she can decide what is the best action to take, assuming her safety is first and foremost in her mind too – verbally abusive men have been known to move onto physical abuse, so it’s important that safety is a main factor here.

Doing nothing means she will look back in 5 or 10 years time (or even longer!), will have no feelings at all left for the man who has emotionally beaten her down over all those years, and regret that she wasted so much of her life on somebody who wasn’t treating her right.

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life feeling miserable?  Do you really want to give up your best years for somebody who doesn’t want you to be the happiest you can be?

Could it be that your husband/boyfriend/partner is feeling so bad about himself right now that he is clueless about how to treat you and make you happy?  Many of these men do want you to be happy.  They do want to be happy themselves, but they just don’t know how.

By taking some action, you’re giving him the chance to become a better person, you’re giving him a chance to have you around for life.  If you do nothing, you are not giving him any chance, because one day you’re going to wake up and realise that you can do better and that you deserve so much better than you’re getting…

By putting up with my ex husband’s treatment over all of those years, I was giving him “permission” to keep treating me that way.  I know he loved me and I loved him.  But because I did nothing about his treatment, I lost my love for him and he lost me.

You deserve to be treated well and you deserve to be happy. But if you’re in a similar situation, then you’ve got to change it first if you want things to be this way.

Filed Under: Domestic Violence, Relationships, Self Confidence, Self Esteem

Feel the fear and do it anyway

September 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

One of the better books I’ve read over the years, and one that provides you with tools and ideas on how to get out there and try something new in your life, is Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, by Susan Jeffers.

If you’ve not read this book, then I strongly suggest you get a copy.

Amazon have copies for sale too….

Filed Under: Personal Development, Self Confidence, Self Esteem

This is Who I Am – Vanessa Amorosi

September 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment
This is who I am

This song says it all and I really relate to it – listen to the words!

It’s been around for a while this song, but I never really took notice of the lyrics, until after I’d attended a public speaking meetup where we had to talk for two minutes about what we were passionate about.

Of course I talked about my passion to help people talk about their self confidence and self esteem, and while I was on my way home that night, this song started playing on the radio.  I rarely listen to the radio as I have my car stereo hooked up to my iPod.  So on this night this song came on and for some reason I decided to really listen to what she was saying in this song.

Wow!

Filed Under: Personal Development, Self Confidence, Self Esteem

Small changes in mindset can create huge changes to your life…

September 19, 2010 By 5 Comments
Change your Mindset
How small changes in mindset can create huge changes to your life…
Anybody who knows me also knows that I’ve been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride for some time now since I made the decision to end my second marriage.
While I know I have made the right decision, I’ve struggled to maintain my positive attitude at times, and I’ve not been happy about that!
I have been conscious of the fact that I’m not in a positive mindset, and I’ve “tried” to change it, but with only limited success.
But several weeks ago I finally discovered the answer – I now know how to keep my energy positive, which is how I want it to be!
As I mentioned above, I’ve been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride.  I’ll be happy and positive about my future sometimes, and at other times I am wondering how on earth I found myself in this situation – again!!  I suppose I’ve mentally beaten myself up a bit too, which is not good.
My focus on my lifelong goals has wavered and I’ve just been living from day to day, with no real direction or idea of where I’m now headed.
Then one day I realised that sitting around waiting for life to happen to me was not going to get me anywhere!  I had to refocus on my goals and do something about them!  I had to get out of my “limbo land” mindset (while waiting for our house to sell so I can move out on my own, I’ve been living here with my ex husband, so I felt “stuck”) and start working towards achieving my goals – I stopped letting my current living situation dictate my level of focus.
So I began thinking about what I want in my life, started writing in my grattitude journal (I have this really cute iPhone application that allows me to write down what I’m grateful for, no matter where I am!), and then out of the blue I was invited to attend some training by a friend of a close friend.
This training was about crafting a presentation about your topic of interest.  It was much, much more than that though, and delved into discovering your passions and all sorts of wonderful things.  And finally I realised exactly what I wanted to be doing!
I walked away from that weekend feeling pumped and energised and finally I was EXCITED about my future again!
Since then I’ve attended Meetups focused on public speaking, I’ve been listening in on webinars, have picked up my studies and can now see myself moving closer to my goal, which is to help even more people (and women in particular) overcome low confidence and self esteem!
Not only that, but I have been offered an amazing opportunity to work with my newest mentor, which is just the most amazing thing ever!
So while there have not been so many “physical” changes to my life, I am feeling a thousand times more positive about life.  Opportunities have started coming my way, such as a woman I met recently who works closely with women from all over the world who said to me, “I can help you” when we taked about what I want to do.  Wow!
This is just the beginning! icon smile Small changes in mindset can create huge changes to your life...

Anybody who knows me also knows that I’ve been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride for some time now since I made the decision to end my second marriage.

While I know I have made the right decision, I’ve struggled to maintain my positive attitude at times, and I’ve not been happy about that!

I have been conscious of the fact that I’m not in a positive mindset, and I’ve “tried” to change it, but with only limited success.

But several weeks ago I finally discovered the answer – I now know how to keep my energy positive, which is how I want it to be!

As I mentioned above, I’ve been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride.  I’ll be happy and positive about my future sometimes, and at other times I am wondering how on earth I found myself in this situation – again!!  I suppose I’ve mentally beaten myself up a bit too, which is not good.

My focus on my lifelong goals has wavered and I’ve just been living from day to day, with no real direction or idea of where I’m now headed.

Then one day I realised that sitting around waiting for life to happen to me was not going to get me anywhere!  I had to refocus on my goals and do something about them!  I had to get out of my “limbo land” mindset (while waiting for our house to sell so I can move out on my own, I’ve been living here with my ex husband, so I felt “stuck”) and start working towards achieving my goals – I stopped letting my current living situation dictate my level of focus.

So I began thinking about what I want in my life, started writing in my grattitude journal (I have this really cute iPhone application that allows me to write down what I’m grateful for, no matter where I am!), and then out of the blue I was invited to attend some training by a friend of a close friend.

This training was about crafting a presentation about your topic of interest.  It was much, much more than that though, and delved into discovering your passions and all sorts of wonderful things.  And finally I realised exactly what I wanted to be doing!

I walked away from that weekend feeling pumped and energised and finally I was EXCITED about my future again!

Since then I’ve attended Meetups focused on public speaking, I’ve been listening in on webinars, have picked up my studies and can now see myself moving closer to my goal, which is to help even more people (and women in particular) overcome low confidence and self esteem!

Not only that, but I have been offered an amazing opportunity to work with my newest mentor, which is just the most amazing thing ever!

So while there have not been so many “physical” changes to my life, I am feeling a thousand times more positive about life.  Opportunities have started coming my way, such as a woman I met recently who works closely with women from all over the world who said to me, “I can help you” when we taked about what I want to do.  Wow!

So here’s what a small shift in mindset (choosing to focus on your goals and dreams) can do:

  • Opportunities seem to magically come your way
  • The “right” people cross your path at just the right time
  • You feel more positive about your life
  • You attract more positive people into your life
  • You feel a lot better about yourself – you’re finally working towards something worthwhile!
Filed Under: Personal Development, Self Confidence, Self Esteem, Setting Goals
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