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Creating Your Success Self-Concept

Some of the things I would suggest are to work on your self-esteem, take care of your health, and to give to others. Too many people have low self-esteem and it can impact all of us. People tend to behave in alignment with their self-concept or their beliefs about themselves and who they are. So here's what I suggest: create a success self-concept for yourself. When you are the success you wish to be, based on how you define success, what would your behavior say is true of you in terms of your traits, qualities, and characteristics? Would it say…

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Her Unshielding (Poem)

Be kind to you~ Her Unshielding She beat herself up From her weight to her toes From the size of her thighs To the shape of her nose- And on her walk home When she was alone She’d talk to herself In the harshest of tones- She could never enjoy All the good that she had For she spent all her thoughts On how she was bad- She woke up one day Overwhelmed with her stress And cried out for help For her life was a mess- And though it sounds strange Even hard to believe As soon as she…

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Deserving

So often we don’t we have what we want. Why? The more I think about this question and review my own life attitudes, the more I come up with the same answer: We don’t feel we deserve it. So many of us feel we must earn worthiness. Repeating Hail Marys, trekking to Mecca, toiling in the Amazon, writing incessantly, doing massive loads of laundry, cooking massive amounts of meals, denying ourselves massive amounts of what pleases us. Sometimes we think we can earn worthiness by stockpiling money, houses, fame, titles, awards, degrees, publications. When we’ve achieved these, we may look…

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How Self Esteem May Be Holding You Back

I recently read an interesting excerpt from the book NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. The book focuses on teaching and parenting styles, but I think it also provides an interesting glance into the power of self-empowerment over self-esteem. Let me try to explain how I see the difference between self-esteem and self-empowerment. Self-esteem comes from the praise of others, therefore it is outside ourselves and something we can not control. Self-esteem is based on the belief in unchanging facts, like “you are smart.” Self-esteem is a noun. It is a descriptor. On the other…

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Ask a Luminary

How Can I Get Over Shyness?

"How can I stop being shy? I have had this problem since my early childhood and I can't get rid of it. Every time I try to make a change and finally become sociable and be comfortable with talking to new people or to stop blushing, something embarrassing happens and I fail. I feel like I'm stuck in this endless nightmare for the rest of my life. I always think my particular situation can't be solved because I BLUSH a lot and I can't control this. Please help me overcome this shyness and perhaps stop blushing and becoming more comfortable…

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Growth through Writing… Empower Yourself!

Since man formed his first vocabulary, family and tribal news was carried from tribe to tribe, village to village by a storyteller. They would be welcomed in each cave, hut, or council house as an honored guest and nights would be spent around the fire listening to the latest news from family members living afar. Famine, a good harvest, movement of wild herds, warring tribes, births, deaths, alliances, all were carried by the professional storyteller. After a few days passed the news had been told and the storyteller, rested and refreshed, would move to the next tribe or settlement. While…

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Bouncing with Style: Have You Seen My Self Esteem?

By Sandra Beck. When people hear my story of heroically leaving a cheating husband while my mother dies of cancer with two small babies while building a solid business and creating two popular radio shows, it sounds really glamorous. Even to me and I lived it, but I’m here to tell you the truth. It was pretty ugly. My husband moved out and he had been living in a spare bedroom for a year, so you would think it wouldn’t be a shock to my system, but it was. I cried every day for 43 straight days. I noted it…

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When We Admit Something To Ourselves (We’re usually the last to know!)

Day Four was so much better than Day Three! After a sleepy late start, I missed exercise yesterday in the morning, because of pre-scheduled appointments. I broke my own rule and jumped right out of bed and into work without taking the time for me. Sometimes when there are too many things on our plate, it's difficult to schedule time for us. In spite of missing my walk, the day evolved into a very productive one. I had good energy all day and wasn't hungry or grumpy. Most importantly, whatever was going on the day before seems to have gone…

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