How to Kill Your Self-Confidence in 7 Easy Steps

I write consistently about how career women, women entrepreneurs and women in general can boost their self-esteem and self-confidence. But I never write about things you may be doing that could be drastically diminishing your self-esteem and confidence. So I wanted to take an opportunity to put these in front of you so you can mull them over and decide if you’re putting your self-confidence in harm’s way.

1. Keep interacting with negative, degrading people who squash your dreams and trample your enthusiasm.

a. As hard as it may be, do not allow yourself to remain in relationships or situations that attack you physically, personally, intellectually, mentally or spiritually. You must protect your tender esteem and confidence. Think of your esteem and confidence as your innocent children that someone is attacking and draining. Protect yourself from negative forces that can devastate your confidence.

2. Spend lots of time in an environment that is hostile, chaotic and out of control.

a. Start by making sure your living arrangements are conducive to your well-being. If they are, look around and note all the things, clutter for example, which make you feel overwhelmed and unorganized. Clean house, restructure, and reorganize. A peaceful, open environment will translate into how you feel. Play nice music, buy a nice picture to look at, place a little mini-waterfall on your desk. Light candles. Protect your environment by eliminating things that make you feel overwhelmed, unproductive, anxious, unhappy or exhausted.

3. Let everyone and anyone interrupt you and demand your time.

a. Control your time. Tell people when you will be available. Leave the door open, but with the understanding it’s not an open-door policy, it’s just for air. Draw lines of expectations for others in your household. If you designate an hour for quiet meditation, let everyone know when that is and make sure that they understand the guidelines for interruptions. Interruptions greatly reduce your productivity, impacting your confidence in the ability to get things done and done well.

4. Set your expectations on hopeful wishes.

a. Hoping is nice and we all need it in an overall life-perspective kind of way. But it will not systematically move you toward what you desire. You can hope you WIN a million dollars, or you can create a plan to make a million dollars. The second is much more lucrative than the first. Set your expectations of accomplishment based on the desired outcomes of actions you will take to achieve an end result.

5. Set goals that are unrealistically high.

a. Let’s say you need to lose fifty pounds and you set a goal to do this in 60 days. You are setting yourself up for failure from the word go. It is neither realistic nor healthy to try to achieve this goal. Instead, set goals high, but realistically, so that you can stretch and enjoy the accomplishment, but not stretch one day and fall down on the next. Setting unrealistic goals is a surefire way to underachieve and miss your mark, again bruising your overall confidence.

6. Set goals for things that are easy to achieve.

a. Do the laundry. Clean the car. Spend time with the kids. Yes, these are things you want to make sure you tend to, but they are not goals. They do not build new skills, stretch your capabilities or build confidence…they are important for staying your course but not for confidence enhancement.

7. Set goals that depend on someone else and are out of your personal control.

a. Say your goal is to build your new house in six months. You are relying on a world of other people who may or may not do their part on time, not to mention the weather. You can push this goal but you cannot control it. That is, unless you are building the house all by yourself. And in that case you’ll probably need a lot more time! Setting goals for which you can control the outcome is critical to feeling confident and capable.

Protect your self-esteem and confidence. They are the two most critical emotional elements to your personal and professional success and the key to achieving ultimate life fulfillment.

Kathleen Aston is the authority on creating confident, courageous, successful women who strive to reach purpose-driven prosperity. Ms. Aston’s proprietary systems help women to build solid foundations of self and rapid-fire business growth, profits and success. Discover The #1 Secret to Stop Procrastination and Boost Profits! https://www.kathleenastonintl.com/getgoing/

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