HUGO GEGAJO

SELF-CONFIDENCE

“Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.” Psalm 27:3

“Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.” Hebrews 10:35-36

Self-confidence is the positive belief that one, with his ability, talent, power and personal judgment, can generally accomplish what he wishes to do. One increases self-confidence from experiences of having mastered particular activities.

Unless you trust yourself and your power and abilities you can neither be successful nor happy. Inferiority complex hinders the achievement of your goals, self-confidence leads successful accomplishments.

Lack of self-trust is one of the big problems beleaguering many people today. In a college survey, seventy five of percent students listed lack of confidence as their most difficult problem.

To build self-confidence, we present here some workable rules to overcome self-doubt and to learn exercise faith. Practice these principles and you will develop faith in yourself and erase inferiority complex forever.

How To Develop Self-Confidence

1. Visualization: Picture Yourself Succeeding

For ages, visualization have been used by successful people to achieve their desired outcomes. The practice has helped high achievers create their dream lives by accomplishing one goal or task at a time with determined focus and complete confidence.

Create Goal Pictures

Developing a photograph of yourself with your goals as already completed is a very powerful visualization technique.

Ø If one of your goals is to own a new car, have a picture taken of yourself driving your dream car.

Ø If your goal is to graduate from college, imagine or picture yourself receiving and holding your diploma.

Ø If your goal is to visit Rome , find a picture or poster of the St Peter's Basilica or the Colosseum,and cut out a picture of yourself and place it into the picture.

Visualize in your mind a mental image of yourself succeeding. Hold the the image and don’t let it vanish. Your mind always develop and complete what it imagines. No matter how hard things are going your way now always picture “success”. See yourself already succeeding.

Visualization techniques accomplishes the following essential things.

² Your creative subconscious is activated, and once activated it will work out ideas to achieve your goal.

² Your brain will be programmed to see and know the things necessary to achieve your dreams.

² It triggers the law of attraction, thereby drawing into your life the people, resources, and situations you will need to achieve your goals.

² It stirs your internal motivation to take the necessary actions to achieve your dreams.

It is quite simple to visualize. All you have to do is set aside a few minutes per day. The best times is when you are most relaxed, these can be when you first wake up or before you go to sleep.

Put yourself in a comfortable position, close your eyes and vividly imagine your dream already realized. Place yourself in that situation, imagine being inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes at the ideal desired result.

After visualizing you can open your eyes and go about your business. Making visualization as part of your daily routine will amaze you at how much improvement you will see in your life.

2. Voice a Positive Thought

Willfully utter a positive thought whenever a negative thought about your abilities emerges. This is to delete the negative thought out.

Everyone experience that little voice in our minds. That tiny voice is our inner critic and often times it is self critical and demeaning. This small voice holds a big power over us. How many times have you criticized yourself such as “ I always fail”, I never do anything right”, “I look terrible”.

This diminutive but very critical inner voice is the source of stress, negative self-esteem, unhappiness and worry in our lives. Whenever these negative thoughts come to mind, replace them with positive thoughts. As you notice yourself saying something negative in your mind, you can stop your thought mid-stream by saying to yourself "Stop" then replace that thought with something more positive.

Below are example of negative thoughts (left) that should be canceled out by positive thoughts (right).

Negative Thought	Positive Thought
I've never done it before.	It's an opportunity for something new.
It's too complicated.	I'll tackle it from a different angle.
I don't have the resources.	Necessity is the mother of invention.
There's no way it will work.	I can try to make it work.
It's too radical a change.	Let's take a chance.
I'm not going to get any better at this.	I'll give it another try.

3. Eliminate Obstacles in your Imagination

When you are trying to accomplish something, often you have to overcome obstacles in your way. But the most difficult ones to overcome are mental obstacles.

Many times you may not even be aware of mental obstacles. You may have limiting beliefs about yourself. You may be held back by old habits. These beliefs and habits may have been useful in the past but now they do not fit reality anymore.

You can still be successful. But you have to adjust to standards. Avoid stacking up obstacles in your mind. Difficulties must be seen only for what they are. Minimize the so called hindrances and stumbling blocks. Depreciate them.

To overcome mental obstacles, here are some tips.

² Do not fool yourself

Sometimes you think that you are moving forward. But in reality you are going around in circles. At those times, it is good to stop a while and assess what’s going on.

You may have some assumptions that are not beneficial for you. You may have some plans that you keep doing that aren’t productive at all. Ask yourself. “Are those working for you?” It will help you see things as they really are. So that you won’t deceive yourself.

² Face reality

In this any kind situation, just see it for what it is, not what you wan it to be. Confront reality. Never assume the situation is better than it is. Let the reality of the situation soak in. Then you can do something about it.

² Believe you will prevail

Thomas Edison reportedly said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found out that won’t work.” When you feel like you have failed 10,000 times, maintain your total belief that you will one day be successful.

Despite the pull to believe otherwise, confront reality and believe that you will one day win. That attitude will prepare you to overcome mental obstacles.

4. Be Yourself: Stop Comparing Yourself with Others

Avoid being awed by other people and try to copy them. Most people are often as scared and doubtful as you are. Be yourself.

When you feel you can’t accomplish a goal because you see others are already way ahead of you, you are demeaning your own greatness. Stop comparing the best of someone else with the worst of yourself. Matching yourself to others will ruin your chances of success.

There are so many people spending valuable time looking at the success of others and neglect to focus on building their own.

In mulling over your own fears. These thoughts are useful to prevent demeaning self-comparison.

² Successful people also started where you are and spent the time and effort to get where they are now. Be persistent, be patient.

² Your goal is not a contest with someone else. It is not a race.

² Your values are more superior and should not be compared than the accomplishment of material things

² Focus 80% of your time on your goal not on someone else's.

² Disengage yourself from watching others live their life.

² Your life is yours to live. You have something to offer only you can share.

² Comparing yourself with others can’t be done fairly and accurately. You are not them. You are you.

² Life is valuable, stop wasting your life by keeping on comparing yourself with others.

² Spend more time achieving your goals so you don't have time to watch everyone else achieve theirs.

5. Do an authentic estimate of your own ability.

Make a list of all of your positive attributes. Truthfully measure your own ability then raise it by ten percent. Do not be selfish but develop a wholesome self respect.

How to Discover Your True Talent

You have frequently heard that you need to know your talent to achieve success. But your biggest problem is that you have no clue what your talent is.

You are not alone. Many people feel the same way. The only difference is that they discovered the talent they could use to be confident and successful.

But how do you discover your talent?

One way is to wait for your talent to show up and hope that one day it would just appear before you. Good luck with that wait.

Start discovering your true talent by going through these simple questions.

² What do you do mostly do during your rest days?

On rest days you are suppose to rest but your free time will tell you a lot about the things you like to do because it is within your control. You don’t oblige yourself into doing things for other people. What would you do if every day is your rest day?

During your rest days, that “thing” that takes you to a place where minutes run into hours and makes you feel good about yourself would be your talent. And if what you love what you are doing , that would be your talent. Your talent allows you to call your own shots.

² What are your natural gifts?

You have unique talents that are inborn and come easily to you. Maybe you are great at writing, drawing, explaining things or working with numbers. All those things that come easily to you have always been in you since you were born; you just never thought of them as talents.

² What’s your life experience?

We gain experience from learning and practicing. And during that learning, we develop a talent.

² What’s your job accomplishment?

The knowledge we gained from our former or current jobs can tell us more about our talents. You can create your own job where you don’t have to depend on others.

Some talents may be easier others may be tough, but identifying your talent is worth it. Imagine how great you’ll feel to use that one skill you already have.

6. Get a competent counsellor

The feelings of inferiority and self-doubt often begin during childhood and to help you understand the origin of these feelings you need the help of a competent counsellor. This will lead you to a cure.

Psychotherapy is one way of treating self-doubt. Talking to a trained therapist or other mental health professional can help one feel supported, and simply feeling understood can help alleviate feelings of self-doubt. A therapist may also be able to help people strengthen their sense of confidence and develop greater faith in their own abilities, but therapy may be particularly beneficial because a therapist may be able to help an individual discover and address the source of the self-doubt.

7. God is with you Always

Always remind yourself that God is with you and nothing can defeat you. Put yourself in God’s hands. Simply state “I am in God’s hands.” Feel the power of God flowing into you and believe you are now receiving all the power you need.

Stop reading and repeat the following dynamic words now:

“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

“If God is with me, who can be against me.” Isaiah 50

Those magical statements are the most powerful antidote to the inferiority thoughts. Believe that you now receive the power from God.

How To Develop a Solid Study Plan

Formulating Your Study Schedule

Enumerate the subjects you need to study. The first thing to do is list all of the subjects you need and courses you need to study. Be specific. Writing your specific duties will help you have a clear perspective of what you are going to do.
Determine what you need to do for each subject or exam. Allocate certain amount of time per subject such as time for reading, for reviewing, and study guides for your exams.
Prioritize. Rank the subjects according to importance. This can help you know what subjects you need to spend the most time and which of them should get the best time slots. Assign numbers, give the number one to the subject that need your time most, put number two to the next, and so on.
Break up your weekly study time. To manage effectively your available time for per week, divide your time into study blocks. A study block is a ‘mini-schedule’ within your overall weekly schedule. Assigning mini-schedules to a subject will develop your study routine and consequently build a positive study habit. Plan only for a week at a time and then figure out how your schedule works.
Fill in your study blocks. Fill in your schedule. Write down the subject to study in each scheduled session. This will keep you on track and allow to to organize your study materials head of time. You can use a basic notebook, a daily planner or anything similar to write down your schedule. And if you have one, program your schedule into your smart phone.
Allocate time for non-academic activities. To succeed in your studies, it is important to have balance between your personal and academic life. Reserve enough time for your family, friends, spirituality, and rest. If you have very limited time before important exams, consider postponing or canceling regular social or extra-curricular activities.

Consider Your Personality and Schedule

Evaluate your present schedule. Assess your current study plan and how you spend your time. This will help you identify areas where you can be more efficient and which activities should be cut. If you are working, create your study schedule around your work schedule.
Know your learning style. Figuring out your learning style will help you how you can use time you don’t normally use. You can determine if you can do some activities simultaneously. Can you listen to audio study material when driving a car or working out? or Do you just see pictures or watch videos to learn?

Commit yourself to studying. The best designed study schedule will not guarantee your success in managing your study time. You need commitment, if you don’t commit yourself to studying, your awesome schedule will mean nothing.

If you lose focus frequently and often take breaks, put in extra time into your schedule.
If you procrastinate, insert in extra time before due dates.
If you got a solid work ethic, always complete the work early and create an extra spot in your schedule and use it to get ahead on any subject you want.

Follow and Stick to Your Schedule

Maximize the use of your off time schedule. When you are on your off time, get out, do something relaxing and stay away from your study zone. Look to your off time as a reward for studying, and as a way of recharging yourself. Make the most of it. This will help you resist the temptation when you tend to ward off your schedule and do something more entertaining. Making the most of your off time will help you focus when you get back to your study.
Take short breaks and abide by them. Insert a break per study block. Stick to your schedule and take only the allotted time for breaks. Prolonging your breaks or taking an extra one will compromise your studying plans. Use your break wisely to refresh and recharge yourself. Avoid any distraction that could extend your break.
Stick to your schedule. The reason why you designed a study schedule is to have a guide to follow. If you don’t stick to your schedule, then what’s the point making it, your schedule will just be a mere piece of garbage. Adhere to your schedule. Make a habit of looking regularly at your planner, once you have build this routine it will be easy to set yourself to study mode.
Inform others about your schedule. Schedules are sometimes difficult to follow because some people in our lives distract us. People who care about us want to spend time with us. To prevent this, tell them about your schedule, if they want to take some of your time, they can plan around your study plan.