Challenge: Reflect on How Far You’ve Come

Posted on June 30, 2017 · Leave a Comment

I hope you’ve enjoyed this 30 part series of building courage and increasing self-confidence as much as I have. More importantly I hope you’ve learned a thing or two and started to put this knowledge into action. The confidence hacks are always a great place to start, but all the knowledge I shared over the past month will serve you well over time.

Let’s take a quick walk down memory lane and browse through all the different topics we covered over the past 29 days. Here’s a quick rundown:

  1. Welcome to the Reward Your Success Confidence and Courage Challenge
  2. The Connection Between Self Confidence And Courage
  3. Courage Is A Habit
  4. Start By Looking Back And Seeing How Far You’ve Come
  5. Pick Something You’re Scared Of And Do It Anyway
  6. Focus On What’s Important To You
  7. Confidence Hack – Strike A Power Pose
  8. How Goals Can Help You Boost Your Confidence
  9. Confidence Hack – Write Those Goals Down And Check Them Off
  10. Do What You’re Good At And What Makes You Happy On A Regular Basis
  11. Confidence Hack – Keep a Journal
  12. Bad Days And Setbacks Are Part Of Life
  13. Confidence Hack – Do It Anyway
  14. Time To Talk About Negative Thinking And Negative Self-Talk
  15. Confidence Hack – Stop Negative Self Talk In Its Tracks
  16. Confidence And Courage Are A Balancing Act
  17. Confidence Hack – “What’s The Worst That Could Happen?”
  18. Put Your Shoes On In The Morning And Other Good Advice On Self Confidence
  19. Confidence Hack – Sometimes You’ve Got To Fake It
  20. Let’s Talk About Random Acts Of Kindness
  21. Confidence Hack – Start Volunteering
  22. Stop Complaining And To Focus On Solutions
  23. Confidence Hack – Eat That Frog
  24. The Power Of Being Prepared
  25. Confidence Hack – Make Yourself A Promise And Keep It
  26. Let’s Talk Diet, Exercise, and Sleep
  27. Confidence Hack – Cultivate A New Habit
  28. Avoiding People, Places, And Situations That Will Bring You Down
  29. Confidence Hack – Make A List Of Your Strengths, Skills, And Achievements

What has had the biggest impact on you? What tips and ideas have you found the most helpful? Those are the posts that you want to come back to again and again.

Take a few minutes today to reflect on not only how far you’ve come, but more importantly how this simple 30 day challenge has influenced you and changed you for the better. What positive experiences have you had as a result of working on your confidence and courage throughout this month?

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Challenge: Confidence Hack: Make a List of Your Strengths, Skills, and Achievements

Posted on June 29, 2017 · Leave a Comment

No matter how confident and courageous we become, we all have days when we feel less than our best. It’s normal to go through times when you struggle with self-esteem and confidence. Today’s confidence hack is all about creating a little tool that will help you get through those days and find your self-confidence again. The idea is simple. Make a list of your strengths, skills, and achievements that you can look back on whenever you need little confidence boost.

Pick A Pretty Notebook

While you could jot your list down on a scrap piece of paper or make it a digital note, it will work much better if you start with something that’s visually appealing. It’s even more important to have this list in a format that you can hold and feel. The tactile sensation of writing your list down in the notebook, adding to it over time, and most importantly, having the book to hold whenever you refer back to it makes it seem a lot more real, memorable, and believable. Trust me on this. Go find a pretty little notebook and use it as your very own confidence journal.

Make A List and Add To It

Start by writing down anything and everything you can think of that you’re proud of or that you’ve accomplished. Make a list of your strengths and any skills you’ve acquired over time. Don’t forget to write down your various achievements as well.

This may seem a little strange at first, but stick with it and you’ll get more comfortable with the process. Remember that you don’t need to show anyone your confidence journal. Brag away so you are able to remind yourself of everything you’ve accomplished when you’re having a bad day.

Include Pictures, Sketches, And Mementos

Visual aids can be very helpful in your journal. Feel free to turn it into a bit of a scrapbook. If you have pictures of big things you’ve accomplished (think graduation or that time you hiked up a mountain for example), paste them in there, or at the very least tuck them into the appropriate pages. Add other mementos like ticket stubs, postcards, and anything else you have laying around that reminds you of your accomplishments. Make it personal and make it real.

Add some color, some doodles, or some sketches. Make the journal your own and something you’ll look forward to browsing through going forward. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. The only rule is to create the book and it’s something that can and should evolve over time.

Keep Adding To The List And Use It Often

Last but not least, make sure you use the confidence journal. Keep adding to it as you accomplish new things and are proud of yourself. During times when you’re lacking confidence, sit down and read through the journal. Once you see how far you’ve come and how much you’ve accomplished already, you won’t help but start to feel more confident.

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Challenge: Avoiding People, Places and Situations That Will Bring You Down

Posted on June 28, 2017 · Leave a Comment

We all have people in our lives that act as cheerleaders and who are great for our self-esteem. We also often have people around us who bring us down. Or maybe it’s a particular place or situation that makes you feel inadequate or self-conscious. It’s important to be aware of these people, places, and situations that will bring you down. When you know who and what they are, you can guard against them and if possible avoid them.

Become Aware of the Negative Energy

Your self-confidence takes the biggest hit when you are unaware of the person or situation you’re walking into. When you feel blind-sided, it hurts, it and it’s hard to recover and rebuild your self-esteem and courage. I like to think of how these people, places, and situations affect us as negative energy. Your first task is to become aware of this negative energy and realize where it’s coming from before it hits you. By simply being aware you avoid being surprised. Try it.

Guard Against It and Neutralize It Going In

Once you are aware of what or who is bringing you down, you can start to guard against it. The basic idea is to neutralize the negative energy that’s being send your way. One of my favorite ways of doing this is to expect it going in and realizing what’s causing it. For example, if your cousin always gives you a hard time about your weight, it may help to realize that she’s putting you down because she’s not happy with her own life. If you feel judged at a local club by a group of people, it helps to know that they may be doing it to make themselves feel better. Realizing this going in will go a long way towards neutralizing things. Of course, another way to guard yourself is to do what you can avoid interacting with the people that bring you down and of course avoiding the places and situations that make you feel bad.

Adjust Your Life as Needed Until You Feel More Confident and Courageous

Last but not least, avoiding people, places, and situations that will bring you down is always an option. If you know a conversation with your sister will make you feel less confident, or you feel judged when going to a certain bar or club, avoid those people and places for now. I’m not saying you have to cut them out indefinitely. Instead, take a break and focus on building up your confidence and your self-esteem. When you’re ready, you can go back to spending time with those people or hanging out at those places and see how it goes. Often the experience is completely different for you when you approach it in a confident manner.

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Challenge: Confidence Hack: Cultivate a New Habit

Posted on June 27, 2017 · Leave a Comment

It’s time for another confidence hack. Today is all about cultivating new habits. There’s nothing to boost your confidence like getting into the habit of doing something positive. I don’t care if it’s giving up coffee or smoking, hitting the gym each morning, or getting your most dreaded task out of the way by 10 am. We all have habits we would like to create that will improve our lives, our jobs, or at the very least make things easier for us. But establishing new habits isn’t always easy. In fact, it can be hard to get going. Which is where today’s confidence hack comes into play. I have a simple little strategy that you can deploy anytime you want to cultivate a new good habit.

Use The KISS Principle

Creating new habits isn’t easy. That’s why it’s important to keep it simple (Keep It Simple Silly). Don’t overcomplicate things and don’t try to change too much at once. Instead of completely making over your morning for example, tackle it one habit at a time. Start by getting up at a certain time of the day and doing one simple task like writing in your journal. Once that habit is established, start making a new one. Rinse and repeat until you’ve completely made over your morning routine, one positive habit at a time.

Commit For 30 Days

There’s a very good reason I made this confidence building series 30 days long. It takes about that long to start establishing a new habit. Use the same concept and commit to your new habit for 30 days. At the end of that time you should see some serious results and chances are you’ve formed the new habit so you no longer have to put a lot of energy and effort into making it happen on a daily basis.

There you have it. Keep it simple and define one new habit you want to establish. Then stick to it for 30 days. It can be helpful to have a calendar or checklist where you can check it off every day. Your biggest challenges will be to remember to do the new task each day, and to keep from talking yourself into slacking off towards the middle of that month long commitment. By the end the new habit should become a true habit and something you will do without having to think about at least spending a lot of energy talking yourself into getting it done.

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Challenge: Let’s Talk Diet, Exercise, and Sleep

Posted on June 26, 2017 · Leave a Comment

As we near the end of this 30-day blog series to build our courage and increase self-confidence, I think it’s important that we discuss diet, exercise, and sleep. They may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we’re talking about self-confidence, but they can have a profound effect. I’m sure you’ve noticed that you feel like crap and are less confident in yourself and your abilities after not getting much sleep. The same holds true when we eat a bad diet and don’t get out there and move.

Don’t panic. I’m not saying that you have to start eating super clean, train like a pro athlete, and always get nine hours of sleep. Instead, I want you to simply become more aware of how these things affect you. My hope is that you’ll make small changes in your life to improve each area. Create new, healthier habits that will improve not only your self-confidence but how you feel in general.

Eating Foods That Nourish Body and Mind

Food affects our mood. Turkey and an assortment of rich foods eaten on Thanksgiving makes us sluggish and tired. Coffee perks us up in the morning and chocolate puts us into a better mood. There are so many examples of how our diet affects, body, mind, and how we feel about ourselves. The better diet you eat, the better you’ll feel. Pay attention to how food affects you and make changes accordingly. If that plate of spaghetti for lunch makes you useless in the afternoon, stick with a healthy salad on days when you have an important meeting in the afternoon.

Go Out There and Move Your Body

Exercise is another part of the equation. Not only is it important to go out there and move for your overall health and well-being, exercise also releases endorphins, the feel-good hormones. Going for a quick walk in the fresh air does wonders to clear your head and help with focus and concentration. And there’s nothing like a little physical activity to boost your confidence and courage. Go out there and move more often and more regularly. Your body and mind will thank you for it.

Do What You Can To Get Enough Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important things for overall wellbeing. We can get away with eating junk for a while and do nothing but sit on the couch and still feel physically and mentally ok. But just a few sleepless nights turn us into useless zombies. Heck, one night of not sleeping well can put a serious damper on our productivity and how we perceive ourselves. It’s no wonder that creating good sleep habits is one of the best things you can do for your self-confidence.

We all go through seasons in life where sleep isn’t a priority. If you have a newborn in the house, there’s simply no way to get a solid eight hours per night. Do what you can and realize that this is temporary. Give yourself some grace and realize that it can mess with your self-confidence.

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Catch up on any posts you miss during the challenge. Here's the link: confidence and courage challenge posts.

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