One of the ways that you can tell if someone does not have that much confidence within them is by the way they speak, the words that they use, the tone and the overall volume. You would classify these people as decidedly soft spoken and sometimes even shy, when looking at the relationship of their body language to the way that they speak as well. There is a way to speak with confidence and this article will detail some of the steps that you need to know about to speak with the sort of conviction necessary to project yourself as someone who is commanding and confident.

The first thing you should not is the volume of your voice, and if you are naturally soft spoken, you may want to do something about that. But the funny thing is, some people who are soft spoken can appear massively confident; so that is not the only thing you need to take note of when trying to improve your speech impediments in relation to confident speaking. The thing you need to understand is that there must be enough volume for people to take notice, and not too much when they will just look at you as a raving lunatic with a hearing problem.

Do not shout. It is all about control. You can have a loud person but with a controlled volume in a sense that your voice never gets away with you. In the same light, you also need to contain your emotions, as some people have the problem where their emotions get the better of them and it seems like they are speaking while being poked by a cattle prod. Being confident means that you have control of the situation, and in speech, the situation is you. You need to calm yourself down and remember, speed is not a good thing here. Nor is speaking like a 500-year-old Sensei master.

You need to have a measure of pace where it is exciting to listen to but you can draw your listeners to what you are talking about. Body language is really important here and you cannot be distracting and you cannot be shy. Never put your head down and do not just try to get eye contact, but grab their pupils from them and exert as much force as you can to pierce through their heads to the other side of the wall.

Use your hands but be subtle and never flail yourself around, the whole lunatic vibe will come back and haunt you. In retrospect, it may not be that volume is everything. It is how you speak, the intonations that you use, the stresses to the important words and how you can just fluidly enter a conversation at the exact time where you should have. It is about timing as well and about the type of body language that you will be using. When you can master all this, then you can take the world by storm with some confident syntax. ]]> http://www.more-confident.com/how-to-speak-with-confidence/feed/ 0 http://www.more-confident.com/self-esteem-affirmations/ http://www.more-confident.com/self-esteem-affirmations/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:46:11 +0000 Admin http://www.more-confident.com/?p=123

There is a lot of relationship and synergy going around when talking about affirmation and self esteem and this is why. The problem with low confidence is belief and the existence of a paramount amount of negative energy. This energy can come in the form of insults, failures, stress and other negative factors that have the effect of lowering your self confidence on a daily basis.

Affirmation is actually a method coming from the New Age section of modern society, and it basically believes that a person can actually change themselves to a much more positive person with the use and bombardment of carefully sculpted messages. Now these two things are related in the sense that one represents a solution to another. Self esteem issues always centre around the lack of belief in a person’s self worth and this is mainly because of many experiential factors around them. In the halls of psychology, low self esteem is called a behavioural disorder which affects plenty of people all over the world.

This is when they have lost the value of their own self worth, they have no longer the conviction to perform their duties because they simply do not believe in their own abilities anymore. Why this comes about is a question that can be answered in so many ways, from a social, historical and psychological perspective and in this article, we will not be concentrating so much on the why but on the how to solve this problem. You just cannot gain back belief as you would try to retrieve something you misplaced. Belief is like the human liver, and negative energy is like alcohol. Sooner or later, this negative energy will simply suck the liver to a small size, and soon all you will be left is something that is merely a percentage of its former self.

When looking at this, you need to get yourself away from all the negative aspects of your life, and how you need to do this is to make a list of the things you are involved in and how they play a part in your life. You need to take stock of the situation and know your enemy and see how negative energy actually manifests in them. When you can do this, then and only then can you employ the use of positive affirmation. Positive affirmation is carefully sculpted personal words addressing yourself and telling yourself that you CAN do the things you want to do.

Affirmation is a feel good drug that most people use to bombard themselves with positive energy and it is particularly useful when used regularly. Messages like these can then embed themselves in the sub conscious mind and then give you a natural inclination to be positive in the long run. These are the words you can use to empower you and raise your self esteem to levels that would help you to regain your confidence and get back that life you always wanted. ]]> http://www.more-confident.com/self-esteem-affirmations/feed/ 0 http://www.more-confident.com/inject-some-confidence/ http://www.more-confident.com/inject-some-confidence/#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:50:15 +0000 Admin http://www.more-confident.com/?p=108 You need to start focusing on the things that make you a great person and this can be anything from how well your hair sits on your head to how well you can drink a beer in under 5 seconds. It can be anything and everything and what you need to do is to focus on these things and get that natural confident glow back. If need be, it is time to write down all the things that make you great and even convert the things that you thought were quite bad about you into good things. Are you lanky? Then you are 1/3 of tall, dark and handsome.

Think that you are horizontally challenged? Then you are more huggable than any guy out there. Too short? Then you have a unique perspective on the world. Have two left feet? You just invented a new dance style. It can be anything, just as long as you think it is great. When you start to think that you are great again, then this will show. Confidence is part of natural charm and people will be attracted to the confidence factor.

Have you seen guys which are not the best lookers in the room start to talk to girls and actually get some numbers? Well this is because they are confident and if there is one thing a woman likes is a confident man. Another thing to do is focus on the failures of others and make yourself feel and look good. It sort of follows the same mentality of imagining that everyone is naked when you go up to make a speech. No one is perfect and if you really concentrate, you can spot the things that make them this imperfect being. When you can do this, you will realise that everyone is like you and that there is someone else worse off and this will raise your confidence levels like nothing else in the world.

One thing that you need to do is to also focus on having as much fun as you can and not caring what people think about you. Once you care too much and want to be popular, then you are just setting yourself up for some low self esteem issues. If you do not expect anything from anyone, then you will not come face to face with failure, and with this you can slowly inject some confidence back into you. Stick with what works.

Experience can be encouraging and can boost up your self-assurance. If you know you look grand in that shirt, wear it. If you have a tete-a-tete opener that always works, use it. There is no rationale to rupture away from what works. You can forever try innovative things when you feel more convinced, but when you’re in a sentiment that is less than secure, use your tried and accurate systems. These are some of the confidence boosters that you can inject into your daily life and slowly build yourself up to the person that you want to be.

Those that have been playing at the investment game has seen their stocks and shares flush down the toilet faster than they can say ‘Wall Street’, and it doesn’t seem to look good in the next few months either. What you need to understand is that the problems within the economy run quite deep and what you need to do is to prepare yourself for the fact that things might get even worse in the next few months.

Bottoming out is a reality we all have to be prepared for. So, now, as you look around your office and see the solid foundations of your career slowly become jittery and the cracks finally starting to show, you might lose a little confidence. Then there is this whole scare about the swine flu going about, with more than 80 people already dead in Mexico, the country in which this germ has seen its genesis. With our well connected world, and globalised village that we call earth, the spread of the virus has gone through other countries including the Middle East, Asia, US and parts of Europe. Hopefully with better healthcare and medical facilities, things can get done better and a vaccine can get out but who knows really.

The H5N1 virus was a virulent workhorse of a virus which killed of plenty of people even in developed countries. So now what seems like a harmless cold or flu could be the beginning of the end for many of us. Now the gloom does not stop there, what about the whole poverty situation, natural disasters, piracy, kidnapping, rising rates of crime and the potential for more crisis coming along. Things do not look good and bad news seems to overcome the news networks all over the world. Good news is few and far between.

So, it would not be surprising to note that many people all over the world are experiencing a global meltdown of confidence and self esteem and things need to change. What we need to do is to look at the good things in life. We need to take stock of our lives and maybe thank the fates that we are alive and healthy. That we have the necessities. Take enjoyment in the simple things in life and they could be just lying under a starry night and ogling at the wonder of space and time. It is time to change the focus. From the bad to the good, from the negative to the positive; change yourself from the inside today to beat the gloom and doom.

Confidence is one of the most important ingredients in success, because it allows you to dare to dream, dare to approach a situation and dare to do the things that would make a lesser person turn around in fear of failure or rejection. Of course, there are different levels of confidence amongst the billions of people in this world and there are a whole load of factors that contribute to this. The genetic make up of the human being for one, is one of the factors that leads to the development of confidence within us all.

Another factor is the type of household and the conditions that we may have been exposed to during our developmental years as a young child. During that time, the subconscious mind plays a much larger role because our logic processes and critical thought processes have not been fully formed yet, and association and stimulation play a large part in how our IQ and EQ get developed. Looking at things in this way, just simple suggestions or constant exposure to certain things and elements can have either positive or negative effects on how we perceive the world and how we relate to the different elements within them.

Confidence is build or destroyed during these crucial years. Another thing could be trauma, or a phobia that has debilitated to the point where it is beyond the control of the person. So, this is why confidence building courses are needed in this day and age to solve this problem of people having really low self esteem and what you need to do first and foremost is to get yourself properly assessed by a psychologist on your self esteem issues. There are designed tests and assessment programmes designed to see how much of your self confidence and esteem is still there and correctly identify the areas that need improvement.

The result of this test will then be passed on to the relevant courses and you will be placed in a specific course made for your problems. Self esteem is not a singular problem with an all cure; there are many areas that can affect your self esteem, and some of us might have a large problem and some of us might have a small one. It is really important to get assessment done to ensure that you are not signing up for the wrong course, and what you need is the basic fundamentals of self esteem and confidence building.

When you need a bigger and better you, then these courses will help you get the boost in life that you need. Transform yourself from that field mouse to the tiger you always wanted to be. It is pretty easy to find a course that suits you and all you need to do is to either hop on online or look to your local community centres for some of these courses. In no time at all, you will be a very different person than what you started out initially.

When guardians or parents keep saying that things cannot be done, there is an adverse effect on their self esteem and this can be carried within the person all the way until they are young adults and even beyond. The good news is that this is not permanent, there is no such thing as a permanent problem with low self esteem, and there is always a way to turn things around. The good news about this is that there is no complicated method that you need to employ when thinking about the kind of methods you need to rebuild yourself, and in fact, the tools are within you as a person.

One of the things you need to understand that it is all about mindset and how you perceive yourself as a person. We all have our individual gifts and abilities, and we need to understand that there are fundamental problems with how we use these gifts and sometimes, it is the misuse that brings us down. For example, when someone continues to hit the wall to try to become a singer, they have to understand that maybe they were not born to be a singer. When we try to do something that is not within our internal skill set, then you will come across failure and with failure; it is the all important ingredient that brings people down. So what you need to do is to avoid failure and this is not talking about avoiding competition or environments where you will be tested, but make sure you are well equipped to either combat and perform, or well equipped to learn as well.

This is the most important thing you need to know about and this is the most important mistake that most people make and this is how they develop low self esteem. You also need to create a list of strengths that you have as well as the successes that you have achieved over the past few years. This is a feel good list that all people need to have, whether or not they have self esteem issues or not. Everyone needs a boost once in a while, and it this boost that stops them from sinking further and further down into a rut. This is what this article means when you have self esteem help right at your doorstep. You are the biggest difference to yourself.

They will often be seen as shy and avoid any sort of eye contact. In the context of self esteem, it sometimes can be said that they will be normal in most social situations. But when these situations escalate, you may notice that their usual shyness will be more attributed and sometimes, they may even decide to exclude themselves from most social situations. These are the people that will tend to leave early at a party, they will tend to avoid making new friends and will stick with the people that they know. This is something that is quite common with people that have low self esteem, and they will often have a comfort zone that they will try to stick with and not go out of. This is not to say that they will lock themselves up in a cupboard or not go out at all, but they will be relatively timid in most situations and will keep to the people that they know.

This is of course much more common in places and events like parties, and they will not be much of a social butterfly. They will of course try to go up to other people, but they will always avoid situations where there is the possibility of rejection, and this means that they know that rejection will bring them down further. People with low self esteem are not active in their social life and they will often employ methods that are electrical in nature for them to meet other people.

This can be anything from online chats to social networking tools online, and they would prefer this to going out for a party. They also will avoid situations where they will have to go up against somebody as they have almost no confidence in their own ability. As you can see, these are the symptoms of low self esteem that you might want to know about, and this can help you to either identify them in yourself or the people around you.

Getting to know about this early on will help them to turn back the personality clock in their body and rebuild their self esteem. There are steps that can be taken to assess and improve the self esteem in someone, and they are freely available online or at a psychologist office near you. With this, you can make someone, or perhaps yourself, more confident than ever before.

Jennifer woke up in a sweat, with the memories of last night’s dream still fresh and surreal.  She was having those darned nightmares again.  But those nightmares could not have been mere nightmares because they were haunting her even during her waking hours.

This one was like all the other dreams where she was running after a familiar person who would later on fall from a deep ravine.  And in all dreams, she was the one hero who was doing everything to save the same person from falling.  The funny thing is, she could not see his face.

Psychologists would interpret Jennifer’s dream as something which speaks of her inner fears in life.  One such fear which came out in the open was her fear of losing people near to her, people whom she loves dearly.

The fear of losing someone you love is normal for most people.  This stems from your fear of being alone in this world and your fear of not being able to bear the thought of being the one who was left behind.

Thinking about the possibility of losing someone you love is devastating, not to mention hurtful.  You may have invested too much of your time and feelings for that person and so just the thought of losing that person would leave you in a state of panic.

There are different categories of people with whom a person can have deep affections.  The fear of losing any one of these people can be traumatic for a person, especially if he or she has just experienced a heavy loss, like divorce or death of a loved one.

A person can fear losing his spouse, his parents, his children, his relatives, his friends, or any person who is close to his heart.  This fear can be caused or influenced by several factors such as:

1. Divorce or separation – A person who recently went through divorce or separation proceedings can easily be haunted by separation anxiety due to the stress accompanied by the divorce process.  It is not easy for a person to live with a spouse for a period of time and to separate with that person.  Divorce proceedings are usually hostile and confrontational so such proceedings will always leave a bad taste in the mouth. In the same manner, a person who is about to undergo a divorce or separation will also be subjected to stress.

2. Empty nest – A fulltime mother can easily feel depressed when she realizes her children are growing up and are slowly becoming independent.  This anxiety stems from the thought that for several years, she was needed by her children and now that they can manage on their own, then she will no longer be needed and useful.  A mother who experienced this fear of losing her children should try to immerse herself back into society by finding a business or a useful hobby that will keep her occupied.  The feeling of uselessness is natural but you have to find a way to combat this fear by making yourself useful in some other ways.  Also, why not look at the situation in another way?  Why not accept the fact that you have reared your children so well and that you have prepared them to live their own lives?   And now, it is time for them to try to walk alone without mommy’s help.

3. Death in the family – A death in the family or in your circle of friends will always make a person realize how fleeting life can be.  This realization will manifest itself into the fear of losing someone you love due to illness or sudden death.  Death is inevitable and it would do you good to make time for people you love.  If you are already spending enough time with them, then you can always improve the quality of time you spend with your loved ones.

The fear of losing a loved one is always in existence.  One can never get away from this fear because there are situations that will make a person think of the possibility of being separated from the people they love.  But the possibility of losing someone is one of life’s facts and no one can prevent his from happening.

However, one can always soften the blow of being left behind by preparing for such an eventuality.

Ever noticed we are never really quiet inside our own minds? Try it out. When we sit in a corner, away from others for a break, we keep on thinking. We can’t stop ourselves from thinking. As long as the body feeds us sensory data from the environment, we respond to the environment.

In prehistoric times, man relied on his instincts to survive. Scientists have called this the fight-flight response in which a person instantly chooses to fight and overcome his adversary or run away to survive.

The body, perceiving a threat, increases and opens up its stores and energizes the necessary cells to prepare for a fight or a run. The body becomes more alert, the muscles get all the blood they need, sugar and fat are burned quickly.

In modern times, the fight-flight response is still useful in a minimal capacity for situations against robbers, muggers, or prize fighting. Soldiers and people on the violent path still need this even more.

For the average civilian, the only violence encountered is usually verbal or on television. However, what most people don’t realize is the violence and pain they inflict upon themselves inside their own heads.

As social animals, human beings are expected to interact with others of their species to have a good life. In cities and town constructed by humans, this is unavoidable and people cope in different ways to eke a living out of these artificial jungles.

However, sometimes fight-flight responses take over and spill over into areas of interaction that do not require an extreme response. This may be due to undisciplined use of negative reinforcement techniques in childhood, a traumatic experience, genetics, the environment, etc.

In the average American, this spills over into everyday life. For example, being the butt of jokes by peers, trying to ask a girl out for a date, or getting chewed out by the boss. These are situations that, to most people, are times of extreme stress.

The only way to overcome these extremely stressful situation is to train yourself to see it another way. A “Can Do” attitude reflects this outlook.

To make the most of life, people have to accept living to the fullest. Having a “can do” attitude shows that life to you is:

-A journey. Don’t worry about the destination, enjoy the process. People are expected to make mistakes. If it does happen, why make a big deal? Accept the mistake, learn the lesson and move on. Be thankful that you had the opportunity to learn something new. If the lesson is not learned, life comes back to teach it again and again until you get it.

-Not to be taken too seriously. Life taken too seriously only makes the uptight person more stressed. Laugh, have fun. Accept that nothing is perfect. It is perfectly normal to see that you can eat ice cream with French fries. That white people can fall in love with blacks. Life comes in all shapes and sizes.

-Not about survival, but about living well. Life is hard enough without letting art and beauty into the individual life. The “can do” person knows why he is here because he had taken the time to know his purpose.

Whether that purpose is to teach college football, or to be president of a Third World nation, the “can do” person does it with two feet on the ground and his eyes fixed on the future.

-Half full, not half empty. People have learned from society a kind of sickness. That for people to survive, it is better to see things in a pessimistic way. The point is entirely missed. Life depends on how you see it. A “can do” attitude is quite the optimistic realist.

An optimistic realist knows that a lot of things can go wrong because the world is like that, but that does not stop the person from trying out opportunities to take him to better places and better opportunities. Fear is not allowed to dictate action, only warn. Logic is not used to find reason not to do it, but is used to achieve the optimist’s objectives.

-Is not alone. “Can do” people know that people are more than willing to help them. This is because the world reacts to sincerity in a way that a person reacts to a child. There is no trickery involved. A “can do” person is an agent of change, not hesitating in helping others along the way. Others are also on their way to become better.

Help yourself by helping others. Develop trust and friendship, but never be surprised at the ambiguity when you encounter it. Accept it as part of the process.

A “Can do” attitude can definitely take you places you never dreamed of.

Body language portrays a person’s self-confidence. Shaking hands is a big part of a person’s body language. First impressions are based partly on how a person does his handshakes.

Handshakes are traced back into Ancient Egypt, around 2,800 B.C. During those times, the right hand is the hand which carries weapons. When a person offers a clean, unarmed right hand to another person, it is a sign of peace and goodwill. Handshakes have endured the test of time and it is still widely accepted as a form of social greeting in our modern times.

If someone thinks of it, the gestures of a proper handshake are not difficult to do. They are fairly simple and can be considered as no-brainers. However, as stated above, handshakes are more than simple gestures since they embody the portrait of a person’s self-confidence. Handshakes can go extremely wrong because of nervousness or excitement which can then lead into missed opportunities or moments of awkwardness, to say the least.

There are several well-known forms of handshakes which people should avoid doing. Here are some of the most popular ones:

1) Palm Crusher

The palm crusher is a kind of handshake which tends to give pain to the other person’s hand. Of course, this is not usually the intention of the initiator of the handshake but is a consequence of over-excitement or anxiousness to make an introduction.

2) Sloppy Joe

This kind of hand shake can be described as lifeless. It depicts lack of interest and sincerity in doing the gesture. It instantly kills the intention and the general purpose of a handshake.

3) Hand Sanitizer

A handshake is a “hand sanitizer” handshake if someone: makes minimal contact with the other person’s hand; or if he overtly wipes his hand after the handshake. This kind of handshake is a dreadful one and instead of building connections and acquaintances, it reverses the purpose of handshaking and instills feelings of anger and hatred.

So how is a proper handshake done? Listed below are the simple steps in making a handshake:

-Approach the person whom you want to shake hands with

-Make eye contact with him/her

-Give him/her a warm smile

-Extend your right hand towards him/her at a comfortable angle

-When he/she extend his/her hand, grasp it until the webs of the palms meet

-Shake a few times

-Make an introduction or a greeting

-End the handshake after 3 to 4 seconds

When someone approaches you and offers a handshake, it is a courteous thing to stand up before shaking his hand. If the right hand is disabled or is carrying something which cannot be put down, shake his hand using the left hand. If both hands are occupied, a simple nod and apology can be done.

In a cocktail party, one must hold his drinks with the left hand, making the right hand fairly available throughout the event for introductions. The right hands should always be clean and dry when making handshakes. If a person has sweaty hands, he may opt to put some antiperspirant (no scent, please!) before going to an event. He may also keep a handkerchief in his right pocket so that he may quietly slip his hand in the pocket to wipe it off before engaging in the gesture. Of course, someone can also wipe his hand at the sides of his pants but this should be done in a discreet manner.

Handshakes can be employed in almost all kinds of social gatherings. Come to think of it, there is no social event that is exempted from the handshake. Handshakes are exchanged in business deals, dates, renewing old acquaintances, job interviews, social engagements and even in Church.

There are few instances when initiating a handshake is not the preferred option. In the business world, when someone faces a person of much higher ranking, it is better not to offer a handshake, especially if the person has nothing important to say to the higher ranking official. The other instance is when both of your hands are carrying stuff which you cannot put down at that moment.

A handshake is more than a simple gesture. It is a simple gesture which builds connections and can leave an impression of a person. Practicing good handshaking can take a person to higher levels, in his career and in building relationships.