Too much confidence is even worse....

It is doubtful whether this issue would be a realistic concern for any of us. I suppose our journey to increasing self belief would be complete if we grew over confident. However, I think this could be even worse than failing self esteem.

Lets take our old friend Donald Trump who recently awarded himself an A for effort after the initial few weeks of Precidency. He is now waking up to the harsh reality of 24/7 coverage from the world media and we have had a number of embarassing episodes. The Mike Flynn resignation, the courts blocking his executive order for the travel ban, his arbitrary bans on various media organisations and now we have his Attorney General Jeff Sessions in hot water over his links to the Russian administration.

It's not so easy being in the hot seat as it was being the rogue, populist outsider only a few months ago. This is only after a few weeks as well without any real negative foreign affairs or economic issues to deal with. All these problems have been created internally driven by Trump's hubris.

I suppose the moral of the story is that it is positive to try to build our own confidence but be very wary of those who display too much. It generally leads to disaster.

Cheers

Dr Steve Peters for Kids

There was a report recently in the local media here in Scotland about some research conducted at a school in Scotland in helping the pupils deal with stress. The report went to say that around 40% of the pupils were stressed and needed extra support. They cited the twin stresses of forthcoming exams (an age old problem) and the pressure to appear to have a perfect life on social media (a newer problem).

I think my old friend Dr Steve Peters has a lot of really useful input here and my view is that his theories should be taught to children as well as adults.

This video is a really useful starting point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6bHxhfJGIU

Cheers

Building Confidence in Children - Carol Dweck

Carol Dweck has completed some very interesting research into how to motivate and support individuals and children in particular.

Startlingly, she concludes that tell children they are smart and clever can be damaging to them. This is because if a child believes they are smart they are less likely to push themselves as they don't want to fail and lose their "smart" label.

Better to reward children for being determined, willing to attempt challenging tasks and showing grit. These should motivate kids to keep going even if they fail at first.

Cheers

The point of this blog

The point of this bog is to help others (and myself) become more confident. I am fortunate that I have managed to build my confidence, slowly, over many years.

Daniel Coyle's blog is one of the many really useful resources I use. It can be found here http://thetalentcode.com/  

One of the lessons I have learned is that we can all reach a high level of compentence in any skill we chose. We just have to apply ourselves to engage in purposeful practice over a sustained period of time. The videos on the improvements that can be made in table tennis and playing the violin are amazing.

I think, however, we need to be kind to ourselves. Learning and progress is messy and certainly does not move in a straight line. I think when learning a new skill we can be easily put off initially as we don't feel we are making enough immediate progress. If we view it as a process with peaks and plateaus we can become a little more relaxed about it and not expect massive improvements every day. We should only judge our progress after a sustained period.

The good news is that we can also apply this logic to the skill of building our confidence. Don't anticipate overnight success or even large improvements in a short space of time, just incremental improvements on a weekly basis.

Cheers

Pilates

As I may have mentioned before I have found exercising really beneficial to improve physical and mental well being and can be slightly addictive.

I have been running regularly for the last 10 years or so and cycling for about 5. I also try to do a bit of amateur yoga as I am not the most flexible.

However, I pilates recently and what a difference, it improves posture, composure as well as conditioning and strength I hope. I remember the recently retired Manchester United player Ryan Giggs stating that he felt his career had been prolonged by regularly taking pilates classes.

I'm still a complete novice and have only tried beginners videos on Youtube but it is well worth a try.

Cheers

Self Esteem and Dopamine - Simon Sinek

I really enjoyed Simon Sinek's youtube interview about the generation known as millenials. He talks about many of the subjects we have covered here; self esteem as a result of failed parenting strategies and dopamine hits as a result of getting positive feedback on social media. These factors have affected younger people more than others.

He goes on to say prolonged periods on social media result in people feeling worse rather than better about life. Younger people are becoming reliant on devices rather than friends resulting in superficial friendships. It all sounds like a recipe for a lack of confidence and increased likelihoods of depression.

Instant gratification is another expectation younger people have; however, we only become fulfilled where we put the work in over the long term. Really interesting viewing.

What it here at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU

Cheers

Happy New Year?

There is a view that 2016 was not a great year; a stream of very popular celebrities many for here in the UK passed away at a depressingly speedy rate throughout the year.

Combine this with the puzzling Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump across the Atlantic many would have you believe that last year was the worst ever.

But was it really?

The UK team enjoyed unprecedented success at the Rio games, Andy Murray won Wimbledon and my own football team enjoyed a very successful time.

So what can we conclude from this?

All the events I mentioned are objective, there are plenty who have a completely opposing view. Also I had no direct influence over them. We can be hostages to fortune if we look to external events to ensure we feel happy.

Happiness and confidence are an inside job, for every time your team or sports star overachieves they will also fail to meet expectations. So how to we ensure we are happy; meditation, eating healthily, plenty of exercise and treating others as we would like to be treated ourselves.  That's what I'll be doing as well as having my fingers crossed Donald Trump isn't re-elected in 202, hopefully there will only be four years of damage done!

Cheers