Posts Tagged ‘Confidence’
Monday, June 14th, 2010
 Career transition has money and career on many women’s minds lately. Since many women are sensing the change in the air, I’ve heard several comments about using this time of workplace instability to “find your bliss”.
What I’ve noticed is that often it is believed that if you “just do what you love”, you will be successful and your hobby will morph into a business that can take the place of your job. It would be nice if all we had to do were “build it and they will come”.
Nowadays, this is not even the case and what is really not likely to happen is that you will suddenly find yourself with a thriving business by simply following your bliss. No, what you are going to have to do is have a vision and a plan in place to put structure to your bliss so that it can take form in the marketplace.
This I know for sure, as I currently am following my bliss and I’ve had to take lots of action to turn it into a business. When I was a practicing physician opening a brick and mortar office it was obvious. Starting an online business or building a speaking or coaching business is no different in that you still have to know where you want to go and put structure around your ideas to bring it into manifestation.
If you do not, your bliss is going to stay a hobby. It is easy for people to get confused when they hear already successful people say things like “don’t worry about the money, just do your bliss” and assume that the well known successful one just became that way by showing up. If it were that simple everyone would just follow their bliss and watch the employees, programs, education and training and all other support just show up.
While I would not suggest you ever “worry” about money, (it’s a great way to stay broke or stress out trying to get and hang on to it – worry is a form of lack consciousness), the truth is, you are going to have to take action and do some planning. So, what are some things you need to consider as you consider leaving that job you hate or if you have been laid off?
Here are some things I did as I decided to continue to grow and move on to my next career adventure:
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Tags: Career Transition, Confidence, Follow your bliss, Life Purpose, Money and Career, Women and money
Posted in Money and Career | No Comments »
Monday, June 7th, 2010
 Empowerment and being able to navigate the fear of change go hand and hand. Please hear this without judgment; if you keep doing what you do, you will keep getting what you are getting – no exceptions. It is all to common for people to want a thriving business, happy, fulfilling relationships and good health without adjusting their attitudes and behaviors.
There’s truth to the saying “your attitude determines your altitude”. So, why is change so challenging? There can be several reasons, yet at the root of it is social conditioning. This conditioning is not really intentional; it is actually habitual and passed down through generational thinking. We often think that the way we see life is just “the way it is”.
Actually, reality is “mind-made”; it is a way of seeing or perception. Perception rules as it wires your brain to see what you have decided to believe as true – whether it is or not.
Once you believe something, your brain will seek to prove you right. It becomes a “self-fulfilling” prophecy as your nervous system will screen in the things it has been wired to look for and screen out the things you decided don’t work or may be harmful to you.
Of course these things could certainly just be relative and based on assumptions that are not even factual. It does not matter; this is why what you mind matters. What you keep your attention on can ultimately manifest in your life, so it can manifest, or turn into matter (a science term for physical form).
The trick is to stop focusing on what you fear or don’t want. If you associate change with “don’t want” or “bad”, then your emotional reaction will gear up for battle in the classic “fight, flight or freeze” response.
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Tags: Career Transition, Confidence, Empowerment, Happiness, Neuroscience of Change, women in business
Posted in Empowerment, Money and Career | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
 If confidence and self-esteem does not come from the inside out, we are bound to seek it from outside in. This is a never-ending bottomless pit. Who cares, you may ask. Why even concern yourself with confidence or self-esteem issues?
Well, for one thing, what the French author Anais Nin said many years ago is true:
“We don’t see things the way they are; we see them as we are”
You will not ever really rise above your own self-image. You may outwardly look pretty good, but inside, you won’t have peace of mind if you are always comparing your sense of self-worth, or even your material possessions to someone else.
This behavior often also impacts your attitude and the altitude that you rise to in life. You will always find someone who has more or less than you in some area. This is true whether the comparison is love, money, beauty or intelligence.
The answer is not in finding someone less than you to make you feel good about yourself. The answer is to learn how to love and accept yourself independent of the world around you. I had someone ask me recently in regard to her thoughts about feeling inadequate, “what if what they say is correct”?
Here’s my short answer. Everyone has their opinion and most of it is just a projection onto you of their own self-judgment. You see, what you do is not the same as who you are in your essence. What you do does reveal your character at the moment and it does reflect your level of consciousness, but consciousness shifts. What you do changes.
Even the roles you play changes. The external world is constantly shifting and changing. The key to personal power and peace of mind is to learn how to separate who you know you are from who you THINK you are.
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery, Spirituality, women in business
Posted in Confidence and Self-Esteem, Practical Spirituality | No Comments »
Monday, May 31st, 2010
 Being a woman entrepreneur and professional myself has given me a genuine hands on perspective of what it means to succeed in business and yet stay at the top of my game with my professional skills.
In my case, I was a practicing eye surgeon who right out of fellowship training took a corporate job for a couple of years, just long enough to get my practice up and running. After over two decades of owning and operating my practice (I had also acquired my mentor’s large practice when he retired), I sold it to do what I am doing now.
I help women entrepreneurs and professionals eliminate the blind spots that limit their self-image and constrict their vision for business success and it should be noted that the two are definitely linked.
In fact, how we see ourselves also constricts our relationships, including our ability to network effectively, how we dress, the opportunities and risks we are willing to expose ourselves to and even impacts our overall health in a huge way. I just came across an article in the small business section of the Wall Street Journal dated Monday, May 17, 2010 on What’s Holding Back Women Entrepreneurs? and I would recommend it for sure. Here are two highlights that the author, Sharon G. Hadary, sited as being the answer to this question and I quote:
1. First, you have women’s own self-limiting views of themselves, their businesses and the opportunities available to them.
2. But equally problematic are the stereotypes, perceptions and expectations of business and government leaders.
Now here’s what I know from my own personal experience; number one is more powerful than number two. When you deal with number one, you are far better equipped to deal with negativity from others.
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Tags: Confidence, Self-Esteem, women empowerment, women entrepreneurs, women in business
Posted in Money and Career | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
 Self-esteem is essential to living free of external “busy bodies” that want to tell you have to live. It is very important to love and accept yourself if you want freedom of expression and to live out a high level of your potential gifts and talents.
As long as you are “looking for love in all the wrong places” you will not find it. You must first begin within and then you will see it “with out” – out there in the world. Now ego gets a bad rap and a lot of people who are seeking spiritual principles are inclined to think that they need to get rid of it.
Another challenge I see in people seeking spiritual awareness is that they tend to judge almost everything in sight! Well, one spiritual truth that has made all the difference in my world is learning to stop judging people, including myself – actually, especially myself.
As I’ve come to embrace the “shadow” parts of my ego, forgive myself and “upgrade” the beliefs around these parts of my self, I’ve become more compassionate and loving towards others. Judgment is a tool to show us where we need to develop compassion in ourselves, for others and ourselves.
It is not about condoning behavior; it is about transmuting it. It is about changing the energy around the beliefs about the behavior as a reflection of who you THINK you are. You see, what you do is NOT the same as WHO you are.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Happiness, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
Posted in Confidence and Self-Esteem, Practical Spirituality | No Comments »
Monday, May 24th, 2010
 Self-image and confidence is not to be taken lightly. You cannot really rise above, or at least stay above your self-image. In fact, your brain acts as a cybernetic mechanism, which is a fancy way of saying “thermostat”. Whatever is your set point tends to be your self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you have a low self-image, you tend to struggle more with confidence and fear of rejection. You are less likely to take risks, and I certainly can say that dealing with change will be frightening if you are afraid of going into the unknown.
Now I hear people say often, “a part of me feels like…” I say it myself at times. What most people do not realize is that these “parts” of us can run your life. If you believe the real you is this “part” or that you are your thoughts and memories, you will be a set up for the stories and dramas that you tell yourself are “just the way life is”.
Actually, our life experiences are a reflection of the way that we see ourselves.
“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are” ~Anais Nin
There’s science for this. You see there is no “out there”. What we see and how we see it has more to do with our perception. We are conditioned to believe that what we do is WHO we are. Actually your “part” that is feeling a certain way has more to do with the way that you wired your brain to think of yourself.
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Tags: Brain Research, Confidence, Empowerment, Self-Esteem, Self-Image
Posted in Brain, Confidence and Self-Esteem | No Comments »
Friday, May 21st, 2010
 Healthcare is on many people’s minds these days. Unfortunately it is a heavy weight on most people’s minds as they are focused on worry, or actually “dis-ease” care when it comes to their health.
This is a part of the very problem we are faced with – worry and focus on disease. Your brain does not like stress; in fact it is toxic to brain cells and a health hazard in general. I believe that the financial pressure from our existing system will likely be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I don’t care how much money is pumped into the system, until the waste stops and people change their paradigm, their belief system about HOW they think – about themselves, their bodies and life in general – the system is going to fail ultimately.
What do I mean by “how we think”? We focus on fear and what we don’t want without realizing that this is not only damaging our brains, it’s creating the very havoc we see in our lives. The hormones and processes that are released in your body when your worry and stress (both based in fear) can not only kill off brain cells, it can damage your heart, your immune system, your digestive tract and your musculoskeletal system…among other things.
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Meditation, Neuroscience, Self-Esteem, Stay Healthy
Posted in Brain, Staying Healthy | 5 Comments »
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
 Empowering behaviors and beliefs can seem paradoxical to us because for the most part, what we have been taught is actually contrary to leading a truly confident and empowered life.
What we learn is not only contrary; it’s often outright backwards. We think that how we think about ourselves is independent of how others think of us. In fact, we think that what others think about us is more significant than what we think about ourselves.
For example, from the time we are two, we are unconsciously taught to seek for love, security and self-esteem outside ourselves. This is where we first start “looking for love in all the wrong places”. We are taught that the opinions of others are more important than our own, and that our significance comes from our associations, titles and material possessions.
Considering that these are all external to our very Being, it is no wonder that we give our power away regularly. We even make the mistake of trying to “get” love from others when we don’t even give it to ourselves.
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Tags: Brain, Breakthrough Fear, Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Brain, Empowerment | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
 Empowerment is a frequent topic these days and I think it is reflective of where
we are in our evolutionary growth as humankind. It seems pretty obvious to me that people are looking for answers other than business as usual.
One thing for sure is that we cannot solve some of our current challenges by looking in our current memory toolbox of how to solve problems. The consciousness or “mindset” that that got us here will not be the same ways of thinking that help us to change the world.
I don’t equate change with “bad”. Why not just see things as evolving to the next level, especially when it comes to individual growth? Now here’s the dilemma – the Universe is still expanding and unfolding, yet, because of the way that we have as a whole conditioned our brain we tend to fear change.
We are still “unfolding” just as the Universe is. While there is more to us than meets the eye, meaning at our core we have a spiritual essence, a “True Self”, we still live and experience life as human beings living in a physical body.
Without this body, you cannot effect change or be alive as we generally think of it relating to being on the earth. So, while I’ve heard the saying “we are spiritual beings having a human experiences”, we need to learn how to skillfully live into both aspects of our natures.
We need to become aware of how to manage our human body’s sensory/perception system – the brain and mind. Otherwise you can be so “heavenly bound that you are no earthly good”. Enter Neuroscience.
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Tags: Brain Research, Breakthrough Fear, Changing Times, Confidence, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Brain, Empowerment | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
 Core Confidence is having the courage to unplug from the beliefs of society that keep us playing small. I’m very happy and hopeful for the use of the advances in neuroscience.
We have learned more about the brain, mind and nervous system in the past decade than in all the recorded centuries combined.
Why now? There can be several reasons and the ones I feel are surely relevant would be the following:
1. New technology
2. Open-minded scientists who are willing to explore the unknown instead of only staying within their “controllable” comfort zone.
It is a travesty how some researchers fight off new information that conflicts with what they want to perpetrate or believe. Knowing the tricks that the mind can play though, I think that sometimes this is done innocently. Our fear-based mindsets tend to want to hold onto predictability so unless there is a deeper awareness of the willingness to embrace change, it is common for people to close their minds to information that conflicts with their existing paradigm of the world.
Today I saw on the Oprah Show a conversation regarding weight and self-love. Overall, the message is one that I talk about often, which is that self-love and acceptance needs to be the starting point to personal growth and empowerment. There is a myth perpetuated within the psyche of most people that beating ourselves up is perfectly acceptable as a way to change behavior.
Talk about ignorance, this is just want you need to avoid! What you resist persists and creating feelings of shame is the last thing you want to do if you want to feel “good enough”. Just think about this – you are trying to feel good enough by beating yourself up. This is backwards.
Think of the flower garden since it is springtime. When your perennials come through the soil they look scrawny and dull. Or, if you plant a seedling, it starts out puny looking. Do you step on it? Do you spit on it can call it stupid, ugly or too skinny/big?
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Happiness, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem
Posted in Confidence and Self-Esteem | No Comments »
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Career transition has money and career on many women’s minds lately. Since many women are sensing the change in the air, I’ve heard several comments about using this time of workplace instability to “find your bliss”.
