If there’s one trait that can empower you to achieve what you desire, it’s confidence. Self-confidence is a feeling of trust in your own abilities and the belief that you have everything it takes to face any challenge that might come your way. When you are self-confident you trust and have faith in yourself and the future.

Confidence is the powerhouse behind everything you do. If you have strong confidence you’ll be unstoppable. Your belief, your confidence that you can achieve something will power you through.

But if you lack confidence you’ll second guess yourself.

An enabling New Year’s resolution is to build, develop and enhance your confidence.

Strong confidence allows you to build other resolutions in the certain knowledge that you can achieve them.

Take a look at some of the tips and techniques for building your confidence:

New Year Resolutions

One of the best things about the New Year is the chance to re-evaluate yourself and your life. For example, if you find that you’re constantly beating yourself up for some nagging reason, now is the perfect time to clear some clutter from your brain and focus your energy on what really matters.

In addition, you should consider taking a year long self-confidence building sabbatical. Not only will you get a fresh perspective, but you’ll also get to see your strengths and weaknesses in a new light. The result is a more balanced and confident you. You might even come up with a few goals for the coming year that you never dreamed possible.

It’s no secret that being confident can make you happier and more productive at work, but it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing proposition. You can achieve your full potential while minimizing the stress of your day-to-day life. Fortunately, there are plenty of nifty tips and tricks to help you reach your goals. Here are some of them.

Choosing the right type of goal can be tricky. For example, you need to pick an objective that is relevant to your career and life goals, and that you can realistically attain. Similarly, you need to ensure that your motivation is consistent. If you have no idea how to do this, you should consult with a professional. Aside from that, you should take note of any advice given to you.

It’s a good idea to do a few comparative analyses of the various goals you have in mind. Specifically, you should determine what your priorities are, and what you need to do to achieve them. Doing this will provide you with a road map to success. Taking a look at your past successes and failures will allow you to gauge the best course of action to take in the future.

Boosting Self Confidence

Recognize The Positives

One of the most effective ways to boost your confidence is to give yourself a pat on the back for the right things. There are many ways to achieve this, from volunteering to joining a gym, but the most straightforward approach is to acknowledge your accomplishments, and . Lastly, try not to beat yourself up for having a bad day. This might be a hard thing to do, but if you can reclaim some of the energy you expended, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your objectives.

Build A Support Network

Appreciate the people in your life that support you. If there are some people who constantly criticize and put you down, consider whether you want these negative people in your life. This kind of constant toxic feedback can really hit your self confidence. One New Year’s Resolution could be to distance yourself from toxic company. If this is not possible, look for any positives you can in the negative conversations. Some negative people may believe they are trying to help you and looking out for your best interests. If this is so, then you MAY be able to find a positive comment or you may be able to turn around a negative comment to extract the positive from it. This however, may take considerable self belief, which you may not YET possess. Build positive relationships. Those who are negative and try to bring you down can often drain your confidence.

Be Kind To Yourself

Be your best cheerleader and even when things don’t go as well as you would like, don’t “beat yourself up”. We all know people who call themselves “stupid” or “worthless” when they make a mistake. This is not true. Everyone makes mistakes. Tell yourself that your next try at this will be better. Practise self-care. Self-confidence and self-care are often closely linked. Think of things you can do to practise self care, these can be as simple as a long hot bath or shower or taking a long walk.

Practise Affirmations

Affirmations are stories you tell yourself about how you want to be. They are always positive and formed in the present tense, eg “I am” (NOT Future, not “I will”). You say these to yourself several times a day and put as much belief into them as possible. Here is one affirmation: I am confident and value myself. You can find many similar affirmations online and you will be able to find one that resonates with you. You can write several of these down on a small card that you carry with you and read several times a day.

Set Yourself A Challenge

Find something you would like to try or improve on, whether it’s playing a musical instrument, running a marathon, volunteering, building a website, travelling, blogging, improving your education or whatever you would like to do, find something that you would enjoy and that would be a challenge for you. It should not be really, really difficult but neither should it be easy. It should be something at which you can feel true satisfaction for completing.

Having a solid list of goals can be a daunting task, but it’s a fun challenge. When deciding what to do, you can go with a list that contains everything from activities you enjoy to those that will advance your career. Also, don’t forget to think about the best way to spend your free time. Whether you prefer to play golf, ride a bike, or simply spend your time at the office, be sure to take advantage of your free time by using it to build your self-confidence.

Larger homes have their benefits, especially if you’re doing a lot of entertaining or holiday hosting in retirement. However, there are just as many advantages to downsizing into a smaller home as you age—including fewer bills, chores, and daily responsibilities. And while downsizing isn’t the right move for all seniors, these tips and resources will help you to prepare for the process if you believe you’re ready to downsize your home in retirement.

Downsize Your Belongings

 As tough as it is, one of the first steps to downsizing your home is donating, tossing, and decluttering your personal belongings. These tips will help you to let go of clutter and cope with the emotional challenges of doing so.

• Discover the benefits of decluttering and determine which items to keep or donate.
• Donate unwanted books, vehicles, clothing, electronics, appliances, and furniture.
• Make sure to manage any challenging emotions you experience when decluttering and downsizing.

List Your Home

Once you’ve decluttered your belongings, you’ll need to start getting your home ready to sell.

• First, learn how selling your home could affect your financial situation as a retiree.
• Make necessary home repairs and improvements.

Buy a New Home

From buying a senior-friendly home to planning a safe and hassle-free move, these resources are here to help you every step of the way.

• Learn everything there is to know about buying a home and applying for a mortgage.
• Think about the age-friendly features you’ll want or need in your new home.
• Prepare for the move into your new home.
• Learn how you can prevent falls in your new home.
• Install a pullout pantry and add slip-resistant flooring in your kitchen to make it senior friendly.
• Install an under cabinet range hood to vent grease and smoke from your kitchen.

Downsizing isn’t always easy, but it’s oftentimes the right decision for seniors looking to save money on housing expenses and cut back on home and yard maintenance as they age. Before they know it, seniors will be reaping the many benefits of downsizing and living their Golden Years to the fullest!

This article is brought to you by Motivation4Success.net. For more information, please visit our website today!

Disclaimer: This article provides some useful information and links on downizing your home in retirement. It does not provide any financial, business or health advice. If you need advice on managing your affairs in relation to moving or downsizing, please consult a relevant professional.

Happiness is a Choice

We all want to be happy in life. We talk about how we want to be happy, but most of us do nothing about it. Most of us believe in a lie. We believe that we can only be happy when everything in our life is perfect. We believe happiness is the relationship, job, ring, country home, vacations, beauty products, wardrobe, and weight loss.

The problem is, these things alone don’t create real and lasting happiness.

So, happiness becomes this mysterious thing we want but we don’t know how to get.

Happiness Does Not Depend On External Things

It’s not external – this is good news because that means we don’t have to wait for everything in life to be perfect, nor do we have to have control of everything to feel a certain way. We can have happiness NOW. Knowing this, is a game-changer because it means we can be happy right now. And something great happens when we do this: when we feel happy, our outward experience changes in ways we could never imagine.

It’s common to fall into the trap of thinking we’ll be happy only when everything in our lives is exactly the way we want it to be. And for us to be happy, we must work hard to control these external circumstances to make them “right.”

But, when we make these things happen, we want them to fill us up, validate us, or make us feel whole and complete. Even if they do for a while, these changes will not be sustainable. With luck, we eventually realize that external things don’t make us happy long-term.

Choose Happiness Every Day

For you to be happy, you must first understand what happiness is. Happiness is pleasure and purpose. Pleasure means feeling positive emotions, such as delight, joy, and surprise, in the present moment. And purpose is about living a life which is worthwhile to you.

When you are happy, you savor the food you eat, are more mindful in your daily experiences and appreciate all the beautiful things life has to offer. You count your blessings, are kind to others, and focus on being the best you can be. Every day you are mindful, appreciative and enthusiastic about life.

Making Yourself Happy

Being truly happy starts with being good to yourself. A few ways to do this include:

• Become more aware of your thoughts and feelings.
• Listen to your inner self. It’s pretty smart.
• Forgive yourself for past mistakes.
• Accept who you are in this moment.
• Set realistic goals for yourself.
• Stop holding yourself to unreasonable standards of perfection.
• Take pride in what you’ve accomplished, even the small wins.
• Make yourself a priority.
• Remove negativity from your life.
• Set realistic boundaries and hold firm to them.
• Do nothing. Take time to simply be.
• Reconnect with loved ones.
• Start each day with intention.
• Find the positive in every situation.
• Do more of what you love and less of what you don’t.
• Practice gratitude.
• Find joy in the small things.

Loving and valuing yourself means accepting that you’re imperfect and choosing to be happy anyway. It means working every day to find fulfilment in your life. It means looking in the mirror every day and telling yourself “I love you and I choose to be happy.”

It all boils down to you. You have the choice to be happy. You have the power to be happy.

Do you have the courage to make the changes necessary to be happy?

30 Day Happiness Journal

Get the 30 day happiness journal that provides information on small steps you can take right now, to improve your level of happiness and a page for each of the next 30 days in which you can record what you are doing to increase your happiness and how it turns out.

How To Have a Good Life

A school newspaper is a great way to learn about what is going on in the organization. That is not the only benefit for those who are involved with this publication, though. There are many advantages of school newspapers and some of them will be shared in this article. Read on to learn how a school newspaper can motivate study skills and contribute to personal development as it does so much more.

1. Team Work. When creating a school newspaper it takes a lot of teamwork. While some students may choose to do the research and the writing on their own, they will need to collaborate with the other members of the school paper to help them decide what to write about, what angle to take, where to place the article in the paper, and more. Because of this, those who work on a school newspaper will learn important skills pertaining to team work. And when you are willing to learn how to work with others, this can help with your studies. Sometimes studying is an individual act, but many times it can be a group activity. With appropriate team work skills, the study sessions will be much more effective with a lot of learning taking place.

2. Research. Research is not only an important life skill, but it also helps with improving study skills. In order to write good articles, many times it takes a lot of research. Practising this skill while creating reputable pieces will help you with studying. By taking the time to read various pieces, talk with people, and dig through information, this helps to discern valid information from that which isn’t quite as credible. Learning how to critically examine information is part of education and studying as it allows you to determine what is most important in what you are learning about. Knowing how to focus on the main and valid information helps tremendously with school and life in general.

3. Time Management. Being a part of the school newspaper requires time management. When is the article due? When does the paper need to be complete? When does it need to go to the publisher? There are so many requirements that involve time management when dealing with a school newspaper. This means that anyone who has the opportunity to take part in this experience will definitely learn great time management skills. Not only is time management crucial in the newspaper world, but it is so very important in life and for studying. When you are trying to prepare for a test or have an assignment due, it is important to use time management. You will want to pace out your actions so you can obtain the knowledge necessary and complete the necessary actions to doing what is needed.

4. Quality Work. Performing the tasks for creating a school newspaper requires quality work. To ensure the layout of the paper is appealing: to sharing interesting and relevant articles: to readable fonts, there are many factors to consider when creating a quality publication. It can take practice, perseverance, knowledge, and more to do this. By spending time working with a school newspaper, you can learn the skills to create quality pieces. This transfers over into studying as it is important that the time spent studying and working on school activities is quality time. Plus, making sure that the effort of your actions are quality is important, too. For instance, if you have an assignment that involves writing a paper, you will want to make sure that you have followed the rubric shared and turn in a piece that reflects your best efforts.

5. Perseverance. Working on a school newspaper takes a lot of perseverance. There are times when the work is not ideal, but necessary. There are times when the work may be difficult. However, when you are willing to push through to the end, it is quite a rewarding experience. This type of perseverance is quite helpful in the learning environment, too. Studying may not be particularly exciting, but when you have the perseverance to do what it takes, the end result is very rewarding.

6. Social Skills. Interviewing people is a good way of learning and improving the social skills you need for improving study skills and for life after study. Asking questions, listening to the answers, critically examining the information you have been given and keeping the other person on course to provide the information you need for a good story are all great social and study skills.

In conclusion, a school newspaper is a great way to learn, use, practice, and refine many important life skills. Through being a part of the publication, you learn how to be a good team player and learn the important skills of research, time management, quality work, and perseverance all of which can help improve your study skills.

Motivational Quotes

Babe Ruth said, “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up”. Writers facing writers’ block have been told, “Apply rear end to seat and stay there until you have written X number of words”.

But sometimes, motivation doesn’t seem to work!

No Motivation

Is motivation the only key to success? When you feel motivated, it may seem easy to finish your tasks and work towards your chosen goals. After all, when you feel motivated, you feel like you can fly though every task and easily reach your every goal. But the problem may be how to reach your goals when you do not feel motivated to do so?

When your motivation to achieve is missing, every task related to the goal may seem like drudgery. And it may seem that your goals will never be realized. There are two ways to get through those times when you don’t feel motivated. One of them is to commit to something and stick to it. The other is to have developed a habit that will carry you through. The second method means you plan ahead, developing a solid habit, knowing that those times will come. But when you just cannot work up the motivation to get you through the tasks you need to complete to achieve your goals, and you have not developed a habit that will carry you through automatically, sit down and remember the commitments you made to yourself.

Sometimes, we find it easier to keep promises, or commitments, to others, than to ourselves. As children, we may have been taught never to break a promise made to others. But we need to treat ourselves as just as important as anyone else, in that we keep our promises to ourselves also.

Why Do We Fall – Motivational Video

It’s also easier to stick to commitments when they are written down and especially if they have been published for everyone to see. If you want to stick to a commitment you have made, write it down and post it on a social media page, or pin it to your home bulletin board. Even write a letter or email and send it to someone who will ask about it.

Motivation quotes

“Only I can change my life, no one can do it for me”, Carol Burnett

Conclusion

If you know that your motivation for a goal may not last the race, plan ahead, develop a habit that will carry you through. Write down your commitment and publish it. Check it regularly and check your progress towards your goal.

Insanity has been defined as “Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results”. There is disagreement on who coined the phrase. There is even disagreement on whether the saying is useful at all.

But I was reminded of it this morning on a rural walk. I take the same walk most mornings in the week. It’s over 3 miles and includes a fairly steep climb. That makes it a useful exercise.

I also like to take photographs of what I see on the walk. On a country road with no footpath, it is safer to walk on the same side as traffic coming towards you. That means I mostly see things on one side of the road. That’s also the sunny side of the road, so the light is often better for photographs. Walking the same walk every day can become part of your comfort zone.

Today, I changed sides and walked on the other side. It was shadier. I also had to keep an ear out for any cars coming up behind me. BUT, I saw a lot of things I did not see on the sunny side. It’s now autumn, so there were many different kinds of fungus, even one unusual rare one that was not present on the sunny side. The blackberries were slightly behind those on the sunny side, extending the season for foraging.

So what does this say about life in general? Walking on the same side every day is pleasant but you can miss a lot.

If you change your way of doing things, even by as little as walking on the opposite side of the road, you can get results you never expected because it takes you out of your comfort zone and lets you see things differently. You may notice something you never realised was there before. That also goes for walking the circuit in the opposite direction. The hill is steeper that way, giving a tougher exercise.

What different small change could YOU make to something you do often? What results do you think you might get? Try it and see. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results from a walk on the other side.

I heard an unusual quote the other day. It was just a throw away saying on a radio program.

A music professor said, “Craft doesn’t need art.” “But art needs craft.”

That took a bit of thinking about.

But he had a point. In fact, a very good point.

It takes practice to make something beautiful. Whether that is a musical composition, a poem, a website, a wooden ornament or a tasty dinner.

The word “Craft” usually means “skill in making things by hand”. We talk about a craftsman or craftswoman, producing furniture, garments or jewelry. They will have practised for many hours to make their beautiful items.

We also talk about artists, yet without the skill and hours of practice at the craft, their art often does not come to fruition. Artists of any kind practise and practise.

Is this where perfectionism comes in? An artist of some kind wants to produce something beautiful without the many hours of practice required for that craft?

I am also reminded of the story of a sculpting class in university, where students were instructed to create a model of some kind, using as a base, chicken wire fastened to a metal structure.

Making the chicken wire and metal construction took time and some students were too impatient to bother with this mundane crafting step. Their clay models collapsed because they had no foundation.

Art needs craft.

What craft work do you need to do in order to provide good support to your art, whatever your art may be?