Written by: Andrée Funnell, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Everything that happens to us happens on purpose. And sometimes, one thing leads to another. Instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over past heartaches, embarrassment and failures, treat them as your lessons in life. These lessons become your tools in both self-improvement and success.
An example of this would be Walt Disney,
Walt Disney was an extraordinarily successful creative whose visions as an animator, filmmaker, and theme park developer changed entertainment in the 20th century and beyond.
However, it was not always that way. His road to success was paved by an unhappy childhood along with countless business failures and setbacks.
The creation of Mickey Mouse was to be the road to his eventual success but not before some further knockbacks. During the setback years, he lived on beans, and his debts were soaring. Disney finally brought Mickey Mouse to life on film starting in the late 1920s and earned his way back to the top of his industry. But it wasn't easy. Bankers rejected the concept of his famous mouse over 300 times before one said yes.
Self-Improvement
So, when does self-improvement become synonymous with success? Where do we start?
Here are some tips to help you:
Stop thinking and feeling as if you’re a failure because you’re not. How can others accept you if you can’t accept yourself?
The world is a large room for lessons, not mistakes. Don’t feel stupid and doomed forever just because you failed the first time around. There’s always a next time. Make room for self-improvement.
Take one step at a time – baby steps to reach your goal(s).
Set meaningful and achievable goals. Self-improvement doesn’t turn you to be the exact replica of someone you admire. It hopes and aims to result in an improvement and better you.
Things that are small and meaningless to you may present themselves as big to other people. Sometimes, we don’t realize that the little things that we do like a pat on the back, acknowledgment of something well done, saying “hi” or “hello,” others greeting someone “good day” are simple things that mean so much to other people. When we’re appreciative of beautiful things around us and other people, we also become beautiful to them.
When you’re at a point in your life where you are happy to accept change and go through the process of self-improvement, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. The world is a place where people have different cultures, experiences, values, and attitudes, and different motivations and needs.
Just because you may be ready to do some self-development for change in your life doesn’t mean that your friends, colleagues, and family are ready to do the same. We are all wired differently. This means that what is important and fundamental to you will not be the same for others. We all develop and grow at different rates depending on what we want, seek and desire in our lives. If we all wanted the same things, wouldn’t life be boring?
Self-improvement results in inner stability, personality development, and success. It comes from self-confidence, self-appreciation, and self-esteem or vice versa.
Remember that there’s no such thing as ‘overnight success. It’s always a wonderful feeling to hold on to the things that you have already achieved and possess now, realizing that those are just one of the things you once wished for.
A great quote is…….
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
We are all here to learn our lessons. Our parents, school teachers, friends, colleagues, family, neighbors — they are our teachers. When we open our doors for self-improvement, we increase our chances of success.
Self-Esteem
Low self-esteem is usually the result of negative messages being absorbed by the subconscious mind. These are your Gremlins (inner critics) and form our Limiting Beliefs. These are statements that we tell ourselves over and over again.
If we choose to listen to the Inner Critic, we will never attempt new and amazing experiences and never know what success feels like. Therefore you need to feed your mind with positive messages resulting in a powerful difference in your behavior, attitude, and outcomes.
Positive Affirmations
What stops most people is the uncertainty of what to say and how to word affirmations for optimal effectiveness.
Below you’ll find some simple tips to help you write effective affirmations for improving your self-esteem.
1. Use the Positive Tense
Firstly, it’s helpful to word affirmations in the present tense, not the future. Example: “I choose to love myself” as opposed to “I will learn to love myself”. This is a positive and empowering statement and not a wish list, and it puts the timeframe in the present moment.
2. Beliefs
It has to be believable. Otherwise, you won’t achieve it. Example: “I am learning to embrace my uniqueness and share it confidently with others.” If you tried to say, “I am a wonderful person with a lot to offer the world,” you may not really believe that, so your subconscious mind might reject it. Instead, try to focus on a process rather than an end result in your affirmations.
Beliefs are a powerful driver of behavior. Whatever you believe you can or cannot do will flourish. Negative beliefs suppress capabilities and have an adverse effect on our work and personal lives, often affecting our relationships and stop us from achieving remarkable things. Habitually they are not based on any reality or past experience, just self-doubt.
By identifying, exploring, and changing negative beliefs, self-doubt is replaced by self-belief. This, in turn, has a positive effect on behavior, attitude, outcomes, and facilitating improvements in personal performance.
You can achieve almost anything if you truly want it. Firstly, understanding what your limiting beliefs are and what impact they have had on your life in terms of achievements, outcomes, and desires is a good starting point. Secondly, identifying how these barriers have formed and how to turn them into empowering (positive) beliefs will help you release the constraints weighing you down.
Definition: A belief is a feeling of certainty about what something means to you.
3. Use the Right Tone
When you recite affirmations, focus on the tone. Say it aloud, focusing on the way you express the words, and listen to the tonality. Use intonation and emotion and project the words with passion. Your subconscious mind picks up on the emotional aspect of what you’re saying more than the actual words. A good and strong tone will have a positive impact on the subconscious mind.
4. Repetition
Once you have established your positive affirmations, practice use them by vocalizing them several times a day.
Remember, your subconscious mind is constantly playing back old, negative messages – so you want to counteract those as they occur. When you find yourself having negative thoughts, keep reciting your positive thoughts. This will train your brain to listen to the positive affirmations on a regular basis and helps the neuro pathways accept a change in attitude and behavior.
5. Time
Give it time. Remember that it will take time to change those old, negative messages in your mind to something more positive.
It could take a few weeks or even months before you’ll notice an obvious difference in how you feel, and you may be tempted to think it isn’t working.
Stick with it, and eventually, you will see a difference but don’t expect it to happen overnight. This is called incremental change, as it's one step at a time over time.
Summary
Little by little, you’ll start feeling more positive and notice that you’re feeling a bit happier and lighter. That’s your signal that it’s working! Live CONFIDENTLY with improved self-esteem to achieve the success in your career or life that you desire.
Want to find out how to improve your self-confidence and self-esteem? Then contact me to book a one to one 15 minute discovery call with me to identify how you can do this.
Don't hesitate to put that call into Andrée today on 07702 818665 or complete the contact form https://behind-the-mask-book.com/contact/. Look at our website for coaching programs and our infamous Behind the Mask
program https://afcconsultants.co.uk/individual-coaching
programs/https://afcconsultants.co.uk/personaldevelopment/behind-the-mask/
Andrée Funnell, Senior Level Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Andrée is a multi-award-winning Coach, Learning & Development Consultant, best-selling author, and speaker who is the founder and driving force behind the success of Aspiring Future Competence (AFC). Since its inception in 2002, AFC has helped clients across a wide range of business sectors to get visible, get heard, and get ahead by applying inspirational ways to bring about positive change and empowerment. She has over 20 years of HR & training experience working in corporate organizations and a further 18 years delivering development solutions that make a difference to people’s careers and lives. She is a qualified coach, professional trainer, and NLP Practitioner. She discovered that Authenticity is the key to happiness, fulfillment, and success and is keen to get the message out there to others. ‘Behind the Mask’ is Andrée’s literary debut about ‘Authenticity’. It’s an essential interactive step-by-step guide to turning your life around and achieving the kind of life you deserve by living authentically.
.jpg)