Happy Easter First of all, I want to wish you a belated Happy Easter. We had some amazingly hot weather here in England this year and so we were able to enjoy some sunshine for a change. Let’s hope the weather was good where you are and that you have a wonderful week. Instead of writing an article this week, I have spent my spare time updating my YouTube channel. You might not think that it is a week’s work, and you would be right because I have many other things vying for my time, but it is what I have spent my time on nevertheless. Check Out My YouTube Channel

I have been busy collecting together the best videos that I can find on the subject of self-esteem. So far, I have collected 20 videos on this subject and trust me, it has taken a long time to get that 20. I have viewed every one of them plus countless others so that I could find the best ones for you. Check them out here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/esteemraiser#p/c/76B8755536F0EEEF

The videos you see in my play list (on the right side of the page) are the ones I think are worth watching.

There will be more as I continue to research the subject of self-esteem and so it is worth coming back from time to time to see what’s new.

What do you want to see?

If you want me to research videos on a particular topic, please let me know. You can contact me by replying to this e-mail.

What about the colour scheme?

I have changed the colour scheme of my YouTube page as well, and although I think it looks good the way it is, I also think that there is still room for improvement. Please tell me what you think. I am very open to suggestions about how I might improve my page.

Above all, check out my ‘How to raise your self-esteem’ play list here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/esteemraiser#p/c/76B8755536F0EEEF See you next week.

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As ever, I hope you found this newsletter really useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog www.youtube.com/esteemraiser

How Can I Help?

If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to answer your questions in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog and leave a comment. You can do that here About Bill Webb has spent all his life supporting people to help them overcome obstacles in their life. He has been a Personal Development expert since 2000 and uses hypnosis and conversational change to assist people to understand how to achieve their life goals and their dreams.

For a change this week, I have two guest writers and no news analysis. My first guest writer is someone who likes to be known as Self Improvement Advisor and he has written an article entitled Use Self-Improvement Skills to Develop Self-Esteem. My second guest writer is Chris Yarbrough who has written on the subject Your Self Esteem Drives Your Life.

Although I am very happy with Chris Yarbrough’s article, I do need to mention that I do not completely agree with everything Chris says. I do not believe that it is possible to have too much self-esteem. High self-esteem, the way I see it, includes a recognition that we are all equal and so anybody who thinks that they are better than someone else cannot have enough self-esteem. I think it is slightly odd that Chris effectively admits this under the heading of Too Much Self-love yet under the heading Overconfidence, Arrogance And Conceit, Chris implies that this comes from too much self-esteem. I believe rather that it comes from low self-esteem instead.

With that said, I hope you enjoy the articles.

Use Self-Improvement Skills to Develop Self-Esteem, Be a Hit

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by Self Improvement Advisor

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Self Improvement Skills

Develop self-esteem with self-improvement skills, which I review in currently article, who can too blessing make self-confidence. They can be an effective application to help you be a hit through just about anyone. Plus, I tell how you can tweak thoughts in your subconscious mind to boost self-esteem. Not sole that, but I recent 3 tips to substantiate self-esteem & build self-confidence, which should help you come to find success in your life. Self Improvement Skills

The first tip to develop self-esteem and to build self-confidence, which might help you be a hit with your boss is: Appreciate the fact that you are not a superman.

Realize that you cannot always make everything better, but you must also know that you can change some things. “The Serenity Prayer” put it like this;…God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Take responsibility for your actions. Developing a successful attitude, rather than showing cowardice and low self-esteem, means to accept responsibly for your own failures as well as your own victories; and therefore you will know that it is your decision to do well in life; or wind up on skid row.

The second tip to develop self-esteem and to build self-confidence, to help you be a hit with members of the opposite sex is: Discover your inner personality. It is a step in the right direction to discover the root cause of why you often feel the way you do. Truly knowing yourself and your inner problems is the first step in achieving your goals in your life. Self Improvement Skills

Deal with your problems; and it will help you if you are struggling against low self-esteem; and aid you to act with the confidence you need in your day-to-day life. Make a supreme effort to overcome your lack-of-confidence.

You might need to seek professional help if you have a major problem, so you can effectively deal with it. You can then move on and develop other good qualities in yourself. You can develop self-esteem and build self-confidence simply by finding out why you act the way you do. Self Improvement Skills

Self-Improvement Skills

The third tip is really the easiest way to develop self-esteem and to build self-confidence, so you might be able to be a hit with practically everybody is: Change the thoughts in your conscious mind by conditioning your subconscious mind, ergo, you will change the thoughts subconsciously and react the way you really want to behave without having to think about it; and studies prove that that is exactly what happens roughly 90% of the time anyway. Always want to have a successful life? Kick the LOSER out of your life by getting the Internet #1 Self Improvement Skills Now!

About the Author

Don’t be a loser anymore.

Start changing your life Right Now by learning from Asia’s #1 Wealth Creator Self Improvement Skills Program Now!

Your Self-esteem Drives Your Life

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by Chris Yarbrough

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Self-esteem is a person’s psychological evaluation of his or her own Self-worth. This concept describes a person’s ability to view himself in a favourable manner. To put it simply, self-esteem deals with your ability to and the level with which you like yourself.

Self-esteem Is the Key to Happiness

Self-esteem is a crucial component of your mental health. The way that you feel about yourself will affect many other aspects of your life. It determines how you deal with stress, how you form relationships, your confidence levels, anxiety, success, leadership and many other factors that play a significant role in your daily life.

Self-esteem Affects the Quality of Your Life

People who hold themselves in low self-regard usually find that their lives are lacking many of the elements that bring happiness. This is a dangerous self-perpetuating cycle that needs to be broken. The low self image creates a void of good relationships, successes, positive physical image in a person’s life. These missing elements cause unhappiness and thus reinforce the low self-esteem. The negativity feeds itself. To stop this requires action. A person with low self-esteem will have to seek help and take positive action to reverse the effects. The good thing is that like negative self-esteem, positive self-esteem also feeds itself so getting started and taking regular steps is usually all it takes to reverse the process.

How Do You Feel About Yourself

It is important to have an understanding of where you stand with regard to your self-esteem. This is the only way to know for sure whether action needs to be taken or changes need to be made. This section contains some simple tests to help you evaluate your self-esteem. If you feel that, your self-esteem is low, start making the necessary changes today. Every minute that you wait, another crucial victory may slip away and another door is left open for the cold drafts of failure to waft in.

Low Self-esteem Robs Your Ability to Succeed

Allowing yourself to maintain low self-esteem is like inviting failure and negativity to come in and take control of your life. In some cases, it can be quite dangerous. Low self-esteem can lead to depression, which depending on the severity; can cause much more significant physical and psychological conditions. If you feel that you are becoming depressed, it is important that you seek help. There are many professionals available to help you regain your happiness and productivity.

Feeling poorly about yourself also has a tendency to prevent you from achieving success. This is because it affects your motivation to try, to make the effort, to take the risk, to make the changes necessary to succeed. It causes us accept negative situations in life that normally we would not tolerate such as abuse, disrespect, neglect or any other unfair treatment. If these things sound familiar to you, look over some of the articles and resources in this section to find out how you can start improving your self-esteem today.

Too Much Self-love

There is such a thing as too much self-esteem. In many cases, someone who appears to have too much self-esteem, that is, they seem to love themselves a bit too much, is simply trying to overcompensate for their low self-esteem. These people have serious doubts about their own worth and abilities but they put up a façade to hide it. This is usually due to the fear that if others sense your Self-doubt, they will lose faith or trust in your abilities, which could present other problems. This is especially common in competitive environments such as sports, the workplace, school, etc.

Overconfidence, Arrogance And Conceit

On the other hand, recent studies have found that there are people for whom this is not a front at all. These people actually do have too much self-esteem. They think abnormally highly of themselves. That is, they truly believe that they are better than everyone else is. Not surprisingly, some of these studies have shown that a significant number of prison inmates seem to have this attribute. Does over confidence and an abnormally high level of Self-regard make a person more prone to criminal activity? Is this typical narcissism? More studies will likely be needed to make such a determination but common sense tells me that the idea stands to reason. If I thought I was better than everyone else was, I would have little or at least a lesser regard for his or her rights, or the rules of society for that matter. I might very well be more prone to criminal activity. At this point, it is not much more than food for thought of course.

For the most part, it is always useful to pursue improving self-esteem. As long as it is realistic, a well developed sense of Self-worth can be a major asset and will bring many positive benefits to your life. High self-esteem will allow you to be confident and happy. It helps you to remain highly motivated in the face of challenge and maintain the right attitude to succeed.

Improving Self-esteem Will Improve Your Life

Learn to love yourself but do not overdo it. High self-esteem will improve your life but believing that you are better than or more important than everyone else is likely to damage your relationships and injure your ability to succeed rather than help it. It is a good idea to find a health balance, a middle ground (so to speak.)

About the Author

For information about effective Leadership Development or improving self-confidence, visit my self motivation site: How To Be Confident!

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As ever, I hope you found this newsletter really useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

How Can I Help?

If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to answer your questions in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog and leave a comment. You can do that here.

About

Bill Webb has spent all his life supporting people to help them overcome obstacles in their life. He has been a Personal Development expert since 2000 and uses hypnosis and conversational change to assist people to understand how to achieve their life goals and their dreams.

My bathroom is still a building site and probably will be for a while yet. I have another hospital appointment today. Considering that a few months ago I was very fit and ran often and had never been in a hospital in my life, yet now I do not have the breath to run above a fast walking pace – and even then I have to stop to get my breath back. Let’s hope the consultant has some good news for me.

This week, my article was stimulated by a client who had low self-esteem. In this article I define self-esteem and show the consequences of that definition.

We have a short dip this week into self-esteem and Government. Obviously, even they can get it wrong.

Soapbox

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Posted on February 7, 2011 on localgov.co.uk
by Martin Horton
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This time of year is always a bumper period for the self-help industry. And, given the difficult year facing many, self-help books seem more popular than ever.

The shelves are stacked with books to help us be the person we always wanted, to visualise a positive future or – my favourite – The complete idiot’s guide to enhancing self-esteem.

Don’t get me wrong. As with most things, these books can be of some use to certain people in particular circumstances. Seeing the positive and taking steps to get there is a generally a healthier place to be.

The problem is that many of the books over-hype the content, over promise on the outcomes that can be achieved, over simplify the problems being discussed, and can read like a list of platitudes.

Which brings me on to self-help government. I recently listened to a series of speakers, politicians and officials tell an all-party audience of councillors that the next few years would be a wonderful opportunity to rethink, reshape, reform… to be the council they and their citizens always wanted. The speakers seemed a little surprised, as the audience became increasingly disgruntled at each successive five-step plan to get more for less.

You can read the full article here.

How does this help us to grow?

As I say in my article below, we must be realistic about how long changes will take and what impact they will have on our lives. We need to know about the required resources and what we have to do to make it work. That’s why I keep writing articles like I do. I am certain that I have never written an article that will help everybody. Each article gives you another perspective and another choice. The more there are, the more likely that you will find the one you need.

Self Esteem Is Self Generating

I recently had a client who came to me because of issues of low self-esteem. I used NLP and hypnosis to help him and a few other techniques besides. He had many of the signs of low self-esteem and he would hardly talk to strangers because he ‘knew’ that they had a low opinion of him.

What is self-esteem?

I have mentioned this before, but it is worth mentioning again that self-esteem is simply the value that you give to yourself – it is not a value that anyone else gives to you. That is why it is called self-esteem – or self-value. Only you can be responsible for the value that you give to yourself, yet many people suffer the consequences of low self-esteem, believing that they have low worth and nothing seems to convince them otherwise. I think that perhaps the biggest problem is that those with low self-esteem believe that it is other people who give them a low value. They believe that everyone else has a low opinion of them and that makes them feel worthless or defective in some way.

This then feeds the feelings of low self-worth, which causes behaviour that tends to create the situations that they fear. For example, if you act and speak as though you lack confidence, then other people will see your lack of confidence and so they won’t have any confidence in you either. In other words, they will treat what you say, for example, with low value because you act as if it has low value. If you are not confident in what you say, how can others have confidence in it? The result is that you see that they have ignored you and what you said and this confirms to you that your words really do have low value and by implication, that you have low value as well. Low self-esteem generates low self esteem.

What if you have high self-esteem?

Please read the full article here.

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As ever, I hope you found this newsletter really useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

How Can I Help?

If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to answer your questions in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog and leave a comment. You can do that here

About

Bill Webb has spent all his life supporting people to help them overcome obstacles in their life. He has been a Personal Development expert since 2000 and uses hypnosis and conversational change to assist people to understand how to achieve their life goals and their dreams.

I often hear much rubbish spoken on the subject of self-esteem. Before the term ‘low self-esteem’ was in common use, everybody spoke about an ‘inferiority complex’. It was common knowledge then that anyone with an inferiority complex was likely to compensate by being aggressive because that makes them feel ‘superior’ – at least temporarily. Now, I often hear the the rather silly opinion that aggressive and self-important people have ‘high self-esteem’. The reverse is much more likely to be true.

Another rather silly attitude is that children should be protected from failure because it might permanently damage their self-esteem. Again, the reverse is true.

My newsletter this week concentrates on children and how you can build their self-esteem as they grow up. I have written about how you might do that with home-schooling. Of course, that might not be appropriate for you or your child, but it might be the best solution if your child has what they call ‘learning difficulties’. However, there are still many circumstances when normal schooling is best and so you must make up your own mind.

Stop “Self-esteem Police” Bullying

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Posted on January 10th, 2011
by Ben Leichtling
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George Will reported in his Newsweek column, “More Stimulating that the Stimulus,” that “In Ottawa, the sensitivity police in a children’s soccer league announced that any team attaining a five-goal lead would be declared to have lost, thereby sparing the feelings of those who were, if you will pardon the expression, losing.”

This was confirmed by many other articles including, “Win a soccer game by more than five pints and you lose, Ottawa league says.” Although the title says enough, here are some quotes from the article, “In yet another nod to the protection of fledgling self-esteem, an Ottawa children’s soccer league has introduced a rule that says any team that wins a game by more than five points will lose by default. Club director Sean Cale said the league’s 12-person board of directors is not trying to take the fun out of the game, they are simply trying to make it fair. The new rule, suggested by ‘involved parents,’ is a temporary measure that will be replaced by a pre-season skill assessment to make fair teams.”

You can read the full article here.

How does this help us to grow?

Ben Leichtling makes some very good points in his article and I suggest that you read the full article.

If you constantly ‘wrap your child in cotton wool’ and protect them from every conceivable danger or harm, then how are they going to learn to cope with it in adult life? Clearly the earlier they learn this the better and the earlier they learn it the more confident they will become. How can your child be confident if the first time they experience ‘failure’ is the first time they are fully exposed to the ‘real’ world? How will they learn that all ‘failures’ in life are the only opportunities that we have to learn? After all, if we always get everything right, we have learned nothing at all.

This terror of getting it wrong or of making a mistake that is taught in our schools is extremely counter-productive. The fact that we made a mistake is evidence that we have something to learn and it always comes with the opportunity to do just that. This means that schools should always encourage their pupils to have a go at anything and rejoice in their failure because that is the only time they can learn. If a school wants to teach you new things, then by definition you can’t do it. If you could, there would be nothing to learn. Thus, a school’s real job is to always praise a wrong answer because then they can concentrate on what you don’t know until you do.

Raising Your Child’s Self Esteem With Home Schooling

My grandson is has Asperger Syndrome and this caused him to have many problems at school. The biggest problem was that his condition was not officially diagnosed by the local paediatrician – as it can be difficult to diagnose – and without that my daughter could not get the support that her son needed at school. The result was that he became highly stressed in school and eventually my daughter decided that the only solution was to home school him.

The stresses of mainstream school caused my grandson to to have very low confidence and low self-esteem and although my daughter was reluctant to start home schooling, now that she has done it, she would never go back because there have been many dramatic improvements in my grandson’s social and intellectual abilities. If you are considering home schooling for your child, then I recommend that you do it, provided that you are prepared to put in sufficient work to educate your child. It will involve extra expense and joining local groups, but it is probably much easier than you think.

If you home school your child, especially if they have communication difficulties or are shy, then in many ways it can certainly be beneficial, both emotionally and intellectually, and it is likely to help your child to develop self esteem.

Please read the full article here.

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As ever, I hope you found this newsletter really useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

How Can I Help?

If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to answer your questions in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog and leave a comment. You can do that here.

About

Bill Webb has spent all his life supporting people to help them overcome obstacles in their life. He has been a Personal Development expert since 2000 and uses hypnosis and conversational change to assist people to understand how to achieve their life goals and their dreams.

Happy New Year!

This is the first week that I have sent the newsletter as html and I hope you like the difference. Html gives me much more control and gets rid of the very long lines. Of course, if you get your e-mails in plain text then you won’t see what I am talking about, but you will still get some of the other benefits.

Something that and html e-mail lets me do is insert links to the articles and news items that I want rather than including the whole thing here.  What you see below is just a summary. This makes the e-mails shorter, makes it much easier for you to read and you are not forced to trawl through a long news item that you may have no interest in just so you can get to the article at the end. I hope that you like this new format. Please tell me what you think. I always listen to what you have to say because I value you highly.

Although it makes it easier for you (at least, I hope it does), it has involved quite an effort for me to make it all work. I hope it has been worth it.

Overweight women ‘feel humiliated every day’

Overweight women feel humiliated about their size on a daily basis, according to a survey.

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Published 11:35AM GMT 02 Jan 2011.
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2011
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Aged between 45 and 54, the archetypal overweight woman has been married for 20 years, weighs 13 stone and three pounds, wears a size 18 dress, and experiences humiliation every day, according to weight loss group Slimming World.

The survey of 2,257 people, of which 1,467 were deemed to be overweight, found fat people struggled with their emotions in at least five everyday situations, such as looking in the mirror and at holiday snaps, seeing old friends, trying clothes on in a shop, and getting dressed for a night out.

You can read the full article here.

How does this help us to grow?

It is a pity that people feel humiliated about the way their body looks. This shows lack of confidence and low self-esteem. Of course, if they feel humiliated, it is because they are concerned about what other people might think – and they assume that the other people think something derogatory. This is most unlikely to be true. All those other people are too concerned about their own lives to pay that much attention to you. The chances are that most people won’t even notice.

While you might obsess about a double chin, for example, nobody else cares about your chin at all. I know there may be a family member or friend who may make your life a misery by mentioning it, and if that is the case then I would want to know what advantage they feel by doing so. Does it distract from something they feel self-conscious about?

Nobody will say anything bad to you unless they feel there is an advantage to them and they will almost certainly do it to compensate for something they feel bad about. Once you start to wonder what issues they have that cause them to say it, it will take the attention away from you and you will stop feeling so bad as you begin to realise that what they say is more about them than it is about you.

However, it is not a good idea to ask them directly – and certainly don’t accuse them – as this is likely to start a very negative discussion. Protect their self-esteem as well as your own. Keep it to yourself.

You Are Not What You Do

I heard in a news item that many people associate their job with their identity. One such person, after unsuccessfully applying for two hundred jobs, committed suicide. This is a huge shame because his suicide was based upon a false premise – that without a job he was useless and unimportant and that without a job, his life was pointless. None of those things are true, yet it is easy to see why he came to that conclusion.

Sometimes, a different approach is all that is necessary.

The English language makes it very easy to confuse what you do with who you are. You are not what you do. The job is not you any more than you are the job. You are much more than the job that you do.

We also confuse what we feel with who we are and for similar reasons.

Instead of committing suicide, what might have been a better solution?

Please read the full article here.

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As ever, I hope you found this newsletter really useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

How Can I Help?

If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to answer your questions in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog and leave a comment. You can do that here.

About

Bill Webb has spent all his life supporting people to help them overcome obstacles in their life. He has been a Personal Development expert since 2000 and uses hypnosis and conversational change to assist people to understand how to achieve their life goals and their dreams.

It is quite by coincidence that the news article this week is on a similar theme as I have written about, but having seen it, I could not help but include it. It is all about using fitness as a way to raise your self-esteem. The article is by an expert in the field too. Read more below.

After that I have written an article for you that gives you five tips on raising your self esteem. All in all, I think that with the news item I have quite a bit to help you raise your self-esteem.

So let’s get right into it.

Fitness: Positive changes start with self-esteem

Angie Ferguson

Published by www.news-press.com, December 14, 2010

Healthy self-esteem impacts your life in many ways. People with healthy self-esteem tend to be happier, more self-confident and have faith in their abilities to be successful.

Healthy self-esteem is essential for making positive lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking or changing your eating habits – both common New Year’s resolutions (hint, hint). People with healthy self-esteem tend to feel in control of their lives and have faith in their abilities to persevere even when life becomes difficult or presents obstacles.

Beginning and sticking to a regular exercise program is a great way to boost your self-esteem. Here are some guidelines to help you effectively boost your confidence through exercise.

Choose an appropriate program.

Follow a program that makes you feel successful. It should not only address any current health concerns you have but also work toward a long-term measurable goal. Your program should also be appropriate for your current fitness level, enough of a workout to offer a challenge but not too much that you risk injury or become frustrated with its complexity.

Determine achievable goals.

Identify appropriate and achievable goals. Too often people become frustrated with their exercise and quit because of unrealistic expectations. You didn’t gain 10 pounds in two weeks and you won’t lose it that fast, either. Rather, focus on smaller, attainable goals such as sticking with your exercise program for three weeks. Not only will you feel better and more motivated after three weeks of exercise, but you’ll also take satisfaction in achieving your goal.

Record your progress.

Keeping a workout log helps you stay visually tracked. It’s another way to reinforce your progress and celebrate how far you have come. In addition to feeling physically better, you’ll be able to quantitatively see the progress you are making each week.

Forget comparisons.

Remember that we are all individuals and appreciate yourself for who you are. Don’t worry about who is running faster, lifting more weight or biking farther. The only person that matters is you. Triumph in your accomplishments.

Employ positive self-talk.

Remember, we are exercising for ourselves, our health and overall general well-being. Challenge your critical self and replace the “I can’t” with “I can.” Whenever you catch yourself negatively criticizing your efforts, talk back and replace that negative feedback with positive affirmations like “I am trying my best, I am making progress,” and “I am fantastic!”

Positive healthy behaviors make you feel good physically and mentally. Regular exercise has a dramatic effect on our physical body; helping maintain weight, bone density and muscle tissue but it also does a great deal for your mental health as well. Regular exercise will improve your mood, elevate self-esteem and guard against depression.

Read the article on-line here:

http://www.news-press.com/article/20101214/COLUMNISTS52/12140302/1013/LIFESTYLES/Fitness–Positive-changes-start-with-self-esteem

About the author

Angie Ferguson is an exercise physiologist from Fort Myers. She is a USA Triathlon Advanced Level 2 coach and USA Cycling coach. For more training tips, read her blog at triathlontrainingisfun.com or contact her at gearedup.biz.

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How can we use this to help us grow?

I don’t think there is very much for me to say this week. I think that it is obvious that we can grow by raising our self-esteem and you have an expert giving you a few tips on how to do that. I think all you need to do is read it as well as the following article and then start taking action. Let me know how you do.

Please tell your friends about my video on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2MbhxJO5E

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How to Raise Your Self-esteem

Life is full of ups and downs and generally speaking we cope with that as a normal part of life. Yet, if we are feeling depressed, or if our self-esteem is low, we may not be able to cope with the downs as well as at other times. To help you deal with life’s problems, it helps to know how to learn how to raise your self–esteem and improve your confidence.

Self–esteem is the measurement or the that value you put on yourself. It is your self-worth. The way you value yourself has a huge effect upon your quality of life and the effects of raising your self-esteem are life–changing and dramatic because it completely changes your attitude and your outlook on life.

When you have high self-esteem, you will be self-confident and feel that other people love or care about you. However, if you have low self–esteem tend to feel worthless or useless. You may feel sad and be afraid to take risks by attempting new things. Unfortunately, this may also mean that you are unlikely to do much to improve your condition, possibly thinking that it is all rather pointless. Fortunately, it is not pointless; it is the only solution to your condition.

We start life with high self-esteem and usually it gradually becomes eroded by life experiences. Nevertheless, in most people self–esteem gradually increases again with maturity as we learn to assert ourselves. People who are not very assertive, or who perhaps go on assertiveness training, are those who need to raise their self-esteem. The way we handle difficult situations or a personal crisis depends upon how we value ourselves and how we process our environment.

When we have tough decisions to make, it is much easier to make those decisions if we feel confident, and we feel confident if we value ourselves. This is especially true if other people disagree with us.

We can help to improve our self-esteem using these five techniques:

1. Compliment yourself daily. Congratulate yourself for anything that you completed successfully or completed unsuccessfully. Either way, congratulate yourself for attempting it and be grateful that you are able to attempt it.

2. Make a list of all the things that you are good at. List your talents, skill, sport that you are good at or perhaps your ability at making other people feel better. We all have things that we are good at and if you can include those things in your job or career you become much more motivated and you will work harder and more effectively because you will enjoy what you are doing.

3. Fall in love with yourself. Appreciate how you look, including the size and the shape of your body, your face and your overall physical appearance. Be happy in your skin. There is nothing good or bad about how you look unless you decide it is. No matter how you look, your body can be a source of pride. Who cares what other people say? Only you can decide how you feel, so decide to feel good. This might take a bit of practice, but keep doing it until it feels completely naturally.

4. Do not let negative comments from other people affect you. Those people, however well intentioned, are really only talking about their perspective and from their point of view and what they see will depend upon their motivation and whether they feel good or bad when they say it. In other words, they are saying more about themselves than they saying are about you. Similarly, your reaction to what they say depends upon what is going on in your life at the time. It depends upon whether you feel confident or otherwise and whether you are feeling good or bad. Thus, When your self-esteem is high, you are much less likely to be affected by what people say because you know that it cannot affect you unless you choose to let it. When your self-esteem is low, you will likely believe that you have no control over how you feel.

5. Don’t spend your life attempting to please others. Remember the saying, ‘you can please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.’ It is impossible for you to please everyone and it is even impossible to please just one person all of the time. There is only one person whom you are always able to please – and that’s you. So always please yourself! Many people object to that because they think that it is selfish, yet it is not. Thinking that is selfish ignores the fact that you obviously care about other people, otherwise you would not say that pleasing yourself is selfish. The fact that you care about others will mean that helping others will please you and so if you please yourself, you will help others. I find that there is nothing so enjoyable or fulfilling as doing something that puts a smile on someone else’s face and so if I please myself, I also please others automatically – not all of the time, but most of the time. If you want to make other people happy, you need to be happy yourself – so do what makes you happy.

When you have high self – esteem you will be confident that what you do is always the best that you can do in the circumstances in which you find yourself. Be happy with what you have done, because you cannot change it. Forgive yourself for anything in the past that you are unhappy about. You always do your best and nobody can expect more than that. If you find yourself saying that your best ‘is not good enough’,  then you are wrong. Perhaps you are attempting to do something outside your area of expertise, in which case, do something else. Be aware that everybody else feels the same as you do; they just don’t tell you about their feelings of insecurity. If you act like you are confident – even if you are not – then everyone will think you are confident. All those confident people you see around you feel just as insecure as you do. They are just putting on an act – and so can you.

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If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to help you in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog home page and leave a comment.

Near the top of the page you will see the words, “How are we doing?” Click on “Leave your comment” and tell me about your biggest life challenge.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.rasingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

Last week, I only included a news item because it gave you a lot to think about because it implied that self-esteem is not helpful. Of course, it was based on a couple of misunderstandings. Firstly, it said that high self-esteem is associated with criminal behaviour based upon a particular piece of research. Yet if you remember that low self-esteem used to be called an ‘inferiority complex’ you may also remember that it was often associated with aggressive behaviour by way of compensation.

In other words, it was always low self-esteem that was the cause of criminal behaviour, not high self-esteem.
Secondly, high self-esteem is often associated with ‘an unduly high regard for oneself, conceit, vanity, egotism, self-admiration, self-importance’. This is a misunderstanding. Self esteem should really be defined as ‘a good opinion of oneself, self-confidence, self-assurance, self-respect, self-reliance, security’. For more information, see my article at:

What-is-Self-Esteem,-Confidence-Or-Conceit

This week I have an article for you that teaches you how to use visualisation to overcome stress in your life and to relax. As low self-esteem is normally associated with stress of one form or another, this ought to help you to become more confident.

Here is the article:

Learn To Calm Yourself With Visualisation

Introduction

You can quickly clear mental stress, tension, and anxious thinking by using visualisation and it is particularly useful if you are feeling fearful, anxious or stressed.

If you practise visualisation regularly, it is very effective at eliminating deep-seated mental anxieties or unfounded fears. To gain noticeable results, then each visualisation should last for longer then ten minutes if you want to receive maximum benefit.

Often, people will wonder about how exactly they should carry out the visualisation, so be assured that there is no right or wrong way to do it. Simply be intuitive and do not concern yourself with thoughts that you cannot do it or make mental images. As long as you keep your attention on the exercise, you will gain benefit.

Do your visualisation in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Once you get more experience, you will be able to get the same positive results in a busier environment such as the workplace, but initially you should avoid situations like this. Your visualisation will bring a calming effect on your state of mind along with a sensation of mental release and relaxation.

The Visualisation

When sitting or standing, close your eyes and start to pay attention to your breathing. An easy way to become aware of your breathing is to place one hand on your upper chest and one on your stomach. Take a breath and let your stomach move out as you breathe in and move back again as you breathe out. Make each breath the same as the last one and breathe in a gentle rhythm.
The hand on your chest should detect little or no movement. All of your breathing should preferably be with your diaphragm – moving your stomach only. If you find this difficult, don’t worry about it and just relax. If you need to practice diaphragmatic breathing beforehand, then stand up and raise your shoulders as high as you can. Holding your shoulders high, breath gently. With your shoulders held high, it is difficult to breathe using the chest and so all of your breathing will be with the diaphragm. Put one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest as before and check how it feels to breathe this way. Once you are used to it, continue with the visualisation.

Once you feel comfortable with this technique, start to slow down your breathing rate by pausing after you have breathed out and before you breathe in again. Initially, it may feel as though you are not getting enough air in, but as you practice, this slower rate will start to feel comfortable. Not only that, but this form of breathing is good for your health because it moves lymph around the body.
It is normally helpful to count as you breathe. Start by counting to three on the in-breath and four on the out-breath. When you are more practised, you can add a count of one before you breathe out and before you breathe in. After more practise, you can add a count of two to each phase, but you won’t be able to do that unless you have learned to be completely relaxed. Focus simply on your breathing and on nothing else.

If other thoughts enter your mind, just let them go and bring your attention back to your breathing and your counting. Continue to do this for a few minutes and then move on to the next step.

Now put your attention on your feet. Imagine your feet relaxing and as you do, they will relax. Imagine roots growing slowly down from your feet and then down into the earth, so that you become rooted to the earth and at one with the earth. Allow the roots to grow more quickly and to reach deep down into the earth. You can now feel stable like a large oak tree.

Stay with this feeling of grounded safety and security for a few moments. After a short while, once you have created a strong grounded feeling or impression of being safe and secure like a big strong tree, picture a bright white cloud forming very high above you. Something like soft lightning comes down from the luminous cloud and gently touches the crown of your head, which creates a band of bright white light that descends slowly from your head and down through your body, over your legs, and out through your toes.

As the soft band of light passes gently over you, feel it gradually clearing your mind, taking with it any stress or worries and it illuminates your mind while it clears any disturbing or stressful thoughts that you might have had. Continue to repeat this image, perhaps four or five times until you start to feel a sense of clearing and a release from any anxiety.

Now imagine yourself standing under a large, luminescent waterfall where the water is glowing and bubbling with the vitality of life. The water temperature is at a temperature that is perfect for you. As you continue to stand under this waterfall, you can feel the water running over your entire body as it soothes and fills you with a deep sense of calm.

Open your mouth and let some of the water run into your mouth, refreshing you. Notice how it tastes. Listen to the sound the water makes as it bounces off the ground around you. This water is life itself and is is deeply relaxing and it calms your mind and your body. After a short while, open your eyes and gradually allow yourself to become aware of your surroundings.

Helpful Tips

Use Your Senses

As you carry out this visualisation, use all of your senses to make it as real as possible. Use your sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell wherever possible. When you are under the waterfall, notice how the light plays on the ever-changing water, listen to the sound it makes as it splashes over you and onto the ground, feel the water trickling down your body, be aware of the taste as it enters your mouth and the very slight pleasant perfume that it has.

The more realistic you can make the visualisations, the more beneficial and soothing the results will be. Many people report extremely good results from using this simple visualisation frequently. The more you do it, the better you get and the more you will be relaxed and confident in your everyday life. You will soon be able to relax more easily and to let go of anxieties that you may have been holding on to.

Location

Look for a place or environment where you can be calm or relaxed. This is like finding a “happy place”. You don’t need to go there in reality, just so long as you can imagine it. You might feel relaxed in a swimming pool, in a wood, a grassy field, near a lake or perhaps by the sea on the beach. Simply imagine yourself there now. Make certain that wherever you go in your mind, it is a place where you can be calm and completely relaxed.

By imagining yourself in different situations, you are allowing your mind to find the best place to release stress and relax. The more often that you close your eyes and begin this process, the more you will find that you will automatically relax and let go of anything that you have been mentally holding on to and that includes anxious thinking.

To train your mind to let go of the stress, you will need to practice this daily. As you practice, you can easily learn to release all stress very quickly and shortly after you start the exercise. If you practice every day before you go to bed, it will help you you to sleep more soundly.

If you can, use your bedroom just for sleeping, rather than for something like watching the TV. That way, when you enter the bedroom and close the door you leave any mental stress and anxieties behind you. For that reason, it is often better to perform your visualisations outside the bedroom and perhaps in a place that you can reserve for that.

As a tool for dealing with mental stress, visualisation is extremely effective. It can help you to reach a deep feeling of inner calm. It is not likely to work if you are suffering an anxiety attack, but visualisations can can reduce the likelihood of an anxiety attack from happening in the first place. It is an extremely powerful tool that you can use to get rid of general anxiety.

Benefits

With practice, you will find that you can go much longer without any anxious thought entering your mind. As this happens more and more, you will realise that the level of general anxiety you feel has reduced significantly.

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If You Want To Make It Even Easier…

There is absolutely no doubt that visualisation works and it works very well, but if it is too much work for you, there is an alternative. Subliminal advertising is banned because it works way too well. Yet you can use the amazing power of subliminal messaging as an incredibly effective tool for helping you build the life of your dreams.

This is especially true right now because you can get the Mind Compass 2.0 system, which consists of an awesome range of products and bonuses for 75% off! Go see now before the offer ends:

Click Here to Check Out The Mind Compass 2.0 System

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Please tell your friends about my video on YouTube.
What Is Self-esteem?

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If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to help you in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to the home page of my blog and leave a comment.

Near the top of the page you will see the words, “How are we
doing?” Click on “Leave your comment” and tell me about
your biggest life challenge.

As ever, I hope you really found this useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.rasingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

An article in the National Review suggests that you are wasting your time by attempting to build your self-esteem, or rather to raise your self-esteem. I think it’s good to sometimes have an opposing viewpoint and this article certainly opposes my view. Obviously, I am very interested in this article because I help people to raise their self esteem. I think that such articles can devalue what I am attempting to do, but I don’t want to pretend that they don’t exist; I want to meet them head on. that’s why you will see an article that in many ways goes against what I believe.

However, it is not entirely opposed to my view. In some ways I am in complete agreement. Please see my comments under, ‘How Can This Help Us Grow’ just after the article.

Because this article gives us so much to think about, I have decided to just include the news item this week. I would love to hear your comments on the news article and on my comments. Please reply to this e-mail if you have anything to say on the subject and I will mention the general feelings next week.

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The Complete Self-Esteem Program
The Solution To Low Self-Esteem. 7 simply audio self esteem boosters and the highly acclaimed Complete self esteem Workbook. Make low self esteem a thing of the past.
The Complete Self-Esteem Program

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Here is the first part of the news item I mentioned.

Self-Esteem and Character

By Dennis Prager

From the National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com)
Posted: 30 November 2010 at 12:00 A.M

Want to raise a good person?
Stop nurturing your child’s self-esteem

By now, most people (with the exception of many psychotherapists) recognize that the self-esteem movement officially launched by California in 1986 has been at best silly, and at worst injurious to society, despite whatever small benefit it may have had to some individuals.

The movement was begun by California assemblyman John Vasconcellos. As the New York Times reported, “Mr. Vasconcellos, a 53-year-old Democrat, is described by an aide as ‘the most radical humanist in the Legislature.’”
In an interview at the time, Mr. Vasconcellos told me he had personally benefited from therapy. It enabled him to improve the poor self-esteem he had inherited from his childhood. He therefore concluded that improving other people’s self-esteem would greatly help society.

And so, California created its Task Force to Promote Self-esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility, whose guiding principle was to raise young people’s self-esteem in order to increase the number of socially responsible people in society.
This belief — that increasing self-esteem will increase goodness in society — spread through the rest of America like proverbial wildfire.

It turns out, however, that the premise was entirely misguided. There is no correlation between goodness and high self-esteem. But there is a correlation between criminality and high self-esteem.

Florida State University professor Roy Baumeister (Ph.D. psychology, Princeton University) has revealed that in a lifetime of study of violent criminals, the one characteristic nearly all these criminals share is high self-esteem.
Yes, people with high self-esteem are the ones most prone to violence.

The 1960s and ’70s ushered in what I refer to as the Age of Feelings. And one of the most enduring feelings-based notions that came out of that era was that it was critically important that children feel good about themselves. High self-esteem, it was decided, should be imparted to children — no matter how undeserving — whenever possible. That is why boys on losing teams are given trophies, why more and more high schools have ceased naming a valedictorian (lest the other graduates feel bad about themselves), why some states have abolished winning and losing in children’s soccer games (lest those on the losing teams suffer low self-esteem), etc.

A friend of mine provided me with a perfect illustration. At a Little League baseball game, he saw a pitch thrown a few feet above the batter’s head. Needless to say, the batter didn’t swing. But to my friend’s amazement, he heard both the batter’s father and coach yell out, “Good eye!”

For those who don’t know baseball, it does not take a “good eye” not to swing at a ball thrown over one’s head. It takes a functioning eye.

One result of all this has been a generation that thinks highly of itself for no good reason. Perhaps the most famous example is the survey of American high-school students and those of seven other countries. Americans came in last in mathematical ability but first in self-esteem about their mathematical ability.

But it turns out that feeling good about oneself for no good reason — as destructive as that is — is not the biggest problem.

Psychologist John Rosemond, a child-rearing expert, recently opened my eyes to the even more troubling problem: High self-esteem in children does not produce good character, and in fact is likely to produce a less moral individual.

This flies in the face of perhaps the deepest-held conviction among the present generation, as well as the baby boomers: that it is a parent’s fundamental obligation to ensure that his child has high self-esteem.

For the full article, please go to:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/254092/self-esteem-and-character-dennis-prager

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How can we use this to help us grow?

Although I am certain the researchers are have the best intentions and integrity, I think this comes from a misunderstanding about what self-esteem means and I think that this misunderstanding is becoming increasingly common.

Once low self-esteem would have been called an inferiority complex, and an inferiority complex was sometimes marked by aggressive (criminal?) behaviour as compensation.

Those who don’t value others cannot properly value themselves and so by my definition, it is impossible for a criminal to have high self-esteem. Anyone with a genuinely high personal value will recognise that everybody has equal value.

Pushing others down in an attempt to build oneself up is a compensation for low personal value – even if they are not aware of it. Some of the people who do this will become criminals because they ‘feed’ on the hurt they do to others and so it makes them feel powerful and important. This is really arrogance and egotistical behaviour. It is not high self-esteem at all, but derives from an attempt to compensate for an inferiority complex. It’s not those with high self-esteem that are most prone to violence, but those with an inferiority complex – just as it always used to be. The only difference is that now they seem to call it high self-esteem when really it is low self esteem. Changing the name has really caused confusion.

Finally, I definitely do not think that it is a good idea to give ‘losers’ medals so that they don’t feel bad about themselves. This ‘nannying’ is an attempt to protect the children from the real world and the result is that when they leave school they do not have the skills to handle ‘failure’. They need to learn that there are winners and losers and they will only become winners by learning how to handle disappointment. Changing the rules so that nobody loses a game or ‘fails’ an exam is silly and it fails to teach children how to prepare for adulthood.

Above all, you should know that it is only when you ‘fail’ that you have the opportunity to learn how to improve. It is by knowing that and dealing with it that the children can become well-rounded and confident and secure.

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If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to help you in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog and leave a comment.

Near the top of the page you will see the words, “How are we doing?” Click on “Leave your comment” and tell me about
your biggest life challenge.

As ever, I hope you really found this useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.rasingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

This newsletter is back to normal this week, though rather later than usual.

You probably don’t know this about me – not many people do – but I used to do Judo many years ago. There were many benefits including self-discipline, motivation and superb fitness, but most of the people I met were a little aggressive and that rubbed off on me. In the end, I gave it up because I didn’t want to get hurt (I often had some injury or another) and because I found that I was getting aggressive, which I didn’t like.

Of course, it needn’t have been like that. Although I had no ‘aggression’ problems with my Judo teacher, I once was rather surprised to hear him discussing with a couple of his friends how he and they were going to ‘sort out’ someone who had attacked a mate of theirs.

At a grading I went to, I met a highly qualified teacher of Judo. He was a small old man and yet he demonstrated some of the best Judo I have ever seen. He was amazingly gentle and had no aggression in him at all. If he had been my teacher, I would have been much better at Judo and I doubt I would have felt any aggression either.

This week, I have an article from a guest writer, Kyoshi John Leroux entitled Martial Arts Teaches Self-Control; Not Aggression. He tells us that properly taught, martial arts does not teach aggression, but it does improve self-esteem. I thought I should include his article to ‘balance the books’ so to speak.

But before that, I have some news from New York Magazine (nymag.com) about how NBC reported Emmy night. I have included it because it amused me.

Kelly Osbourne: Issues with my weight,

self esteem led to drug problems

Published by Fox News (foxnews.com), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 3:56 PM ET

Kelly Osbourne says nasty comments on her body before losing weight led her to abuse drugs.

“I understand that being judged by others comes with the territory, but it broke my heart and ruined my self esteem,” she said of the things people said about her.

“It sets you up to hate yourself in a huge way. I was so angry about the things people said about me. I truly believe it’s the main reason I turned to Vicodin and ended up in rehab three times. I just hated myself.”

The petite star dropped 50 pounds while filming “Dancing With the Stars” and in the months after to eventually reach 112 pounds.

Osbourne adds that she broke down in tears twice over her new bikini cover with Shape magazine — once when she shot the images and again when she saw the cover come out.

The shoot was the first time she has ever worn a bikini.

“I used to eat chips and cookies and drink soda all day long,” she said. “I had to start making better choices.”

Read more here:

http://entertainment.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/11/17/kelly-osbourne-issues-with-my-weight-self-esteem-led-to-drug-problems/#ixzz15aaiunRL

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How can we use this to help us grow?

Well having those things said about her, certainly affected poor Kelly Osbourne, but what can we learn from this to help us in a similar, if less public, situation? Well, it is my firm belief that nobody with high self-esteem would have been affected by those comments in the first place. If Kelly had unshakable self-confidence, she would simply have ignored all those comments and got on with her life. Instead, she let it get to her. While the article does not mention what was said, Kelly certainly hated it and then she started to hate herself as well. She trusted the opinions of others above her own opinion of herself. Of course, in public life, people will say bad things about you, but there will be many good things said also. Why didn’t she pay attention to them? The secret is always to focus on the good things in your life and be grateful for them. No matter what happens, there is always a positive way to look at it. Search it out and be grateful. As William Shakespeare said in Hamlet, Act II, scene ii, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. In other words, everything is neutral, so whether something is good or bad is merely an opinion. To put it another way, beauty is in the eye of the beholder – and so is ugliness. Always look for beauty.

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Please tell your friends about my video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2MbhxJO5E

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Martial Arts Teaches Self-Control; Not Aggression

by Kyoshi John Leroux

The commonly held notion about martial arts is that it creates scores of kids who are extra aggressive as a result of learning how to punch and kick for a whole Saturday afternoon. This could not be any farther from the truth, really. Martial arts focus on respect rather than violence, and self-esteem and discipline rather than beating up or bullying one’s peers. Because martial arts teach these invaluable life lessons, the martial arts can actually work to prevent aggression and kids. Don’t believe us? Here are some reasons as to why martial arts can be extremely beneficial in preventing kids from participating in bullying, violence, or unintentional injury.

• Respecting Others – One of the main points taught in martial arts is that it is crucial to respect others, and to treat others the same way that you would like to be treated. Thus, kids who study martial arts are less likely to bully or pick a fight with another student, because they empathize with and respect their peers. Aggressive sports like football or wrestling are more likely to breed kids who like to pick school yard fights, as these sports don’t have the same emphasis on respect as the martial arts do.
• Discipline – Martial arts teach kids discipline, which is one of the reasons that so many parents choose martial arts educations for kids who are showing signs of slipping grades or rebellious behavior. This emphasis on discipline helps to prevent aggression in kids because it teaches them to control themselves, especially if they find themselves in an argument with one of their peers. Contrary to popular belief, a child who is a student of the martial arts is more likely to walk away from a fistfight than a child who is not, because the child who practices martial arts understands that physical violence is not something to be taken lightly.
• Self-Esteem – Kids who participate in martial arts have very high self-esteem. The bottom line is that kids with great self-esteem are typically above useless behavior like bullying or schoolyard brawls. These enlightened kids have their priorities straight, and are less likely to behave in these useless and aggressive activities.

As you can see, a martial arts education is more likely to create an A-student than it is to create a school yard bully. Despite what you may have heard, you need not fear that your child will become violent or aggressive as a result of a martial arts education. For more information on how martial arts will benefit your child, please visit www.ottawakaratedo.com located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

About the Author

Our instructors and instructor assistants are trained to focus on more than just teaching martial arts skills. Instructors also learn how to work with all students, tailoring their martial arts teaching methods to fit the individual child. Emphasis is put on encouragement and positive correction.

For more information on a martial arts education please visit www.ottawakaratedo.com. John Leroux’s World KarateFIT Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

About the Author

Information on sinus ear pressure can be found at the Sinus Medication site.

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If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to help you in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog home page and leave a comment.

Near the top of the page you will see the words, “How are we doing?” Click on “Leave your comment” and tell me about your biggest life challenge.

As ever,  I hope you really found this useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

Many people suffer from stress at work, at home, or anywhere else. This week I have provided you with five tips to quickly reduce your stress, plus a bonus tip. Enjoy.

But before that, I have a quick news item about an organisation that improves people’s self-esteem using clothing. Take a look below.

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Group helps build confidence

with clothing

Working Wardrobes (http://www.workingwardrobes.org), an Orange County Charity Organization, empowers men, women and young adults in crises to confidently enter the workforce through career development and wardrobe services.

Each year we serve over 5,000 clients from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, including Welfare-to-Work, alcohol & substance abuse, domestic violence, transitional homelessness, catastrophic illness and other life crises.

On Sunday 10/10/10, Working Wardrobes held a “Men’s Day of Self Esteem” at Los Amigos High School, targeting men who have experienced homelessness, alcohol or substance abuse and other traumatic episodes. The program provides professional attire donated by Men’s Wearhouse as well as other organizations and individuals. Grooming services and career development skills were also offered as part of the event.

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How can we use this to help us grow? Remember the saying, ‘Clothes maketh man’. Dressing up smart and wearing quality clothes nearly always makes you feel good. Even if you don’t do it very often, do it now and again, especially if you are going out somewhere. It will make you feel good and build your self-esteem.

Please tell your friends about my video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2MbhxJO5E

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Five Fast Ways To Overcome Stress

One of the biggest causes of health problem in modern society is stress. Whether there is a recession or not, there are always financial pressures, then there are interpersonal or family pressures and pressure from work. There always seems to be too much to do and too little time to do it in. so if you want to reduce the pressure on you and relieve the stress, here are five fast ways to help you to do it.

1. Chill Out

Find some time every day to relax and switch off from the daily trials and tribulations. Try to spend as much as an hour every day if you can, but even fifteen minutes will make a difference. Shut out the world and do something that you enjoy, whether it is reading, playing a game or an instrument, take a relaxing bath and unwind. Alternatively, start doing some meditation, people who meditate every day say that they find it extremely beneficial. Taking a break every day will make a big difference to your mental health.

2. Take A Break

If you are regularly feeling stressed and you always seem to have too much to do, then it can be very hard for you to find a solution. Those people in the midst of a problem are the least likely to be able to find a way out. It is always a good idea to distance yourself from your problems, which will help you to get a different perspective. If you can, take a whole day or even a complete weekend away from your normal surroundings. Go somewhere peaceful where you can relax. Jot down any new ideas that you have in a journal so that you can put them into practice when you get back. You will feel calmer after the break and you will be much more likely to find solutions.

3. Look On The Bright Side

If you find it difficult to handle change, then you will find all change stressful. Times when there are major changes in your life, such as getting married or divorced, changing your job or moving house, are times when most people exhibit symptoms of stress. Yet change happens constantly throughout life and if you don’t accept the changes, your stress levels can soar. When you are faced with change, or anything else that you find stressful, look for a positive way to look at it. Everything in the world can be viewed either negatively or positively, so find a positive way to view the change and start to embrace change instead of resisting it. Every change and every problem is an opportunity for you to grow and you can always find something positive in even the most difficult of circumstances. It is not change that brings stress, it is how you process, or react, to the change that stresses you. If you process it differently by finding the positive side of it, you will discover there is little or no reason to be stressed at all.

4. Tackle Outstanding Jobs

You may think that there is not enough time to tackle outstanding jobs, but I remember being completely overwhelmed at work with people constantly telephoning me for a solution to their problems. I could not cope with it all, yet I did dealt with it by taking a week out! I spent the week training other people and after that the telephone fell silent. So that endless list of jobs that you have, whatever they are, are the things that keep you overworked and stressed out. The more you put them off, the more the list will grow and the greater your stress. So make a list of all of the outstanding jobs that currently cause you the most stress and deal with them. The jobs that are currently causing you the most stress are probably the ones you least want to do, so make a decision to deal with them straight away and get them out of the way. Pick a day when you can spend as much time as possible blitzing through all these problem areas. Don’t make excuses! Put everything else off. The world will not end just because you have done this and in fact, after you have done these jobs, you will have more time and feel much better. Get up early and spend the whole day sorting out each ‘problem’. Don’t worry if you don’t finish, you will have made headway and you can always do some more at another time. Take short breaks and a quick lunch and just keep going. Getting these jobs done will reduce your stress and, perhaps more importantly, you will discover just how effective and industrious you can be when you want to be.

5. Pamper yourself

Give yourself a day off and pamper yourself. Women are much more likely to understand how to pamper themselves than men, so to put it another way, spend a day doing something or nothing that makes you feel good. Escape from the hustle and bustle of life and enjoy some stress-free rest and relaxation. Afterwards, you will feel great and it will raise your self-esteem. During the day, perhaps have a light workout such as a swim or gentle run, maybe have a sauna, try a jacuzzi or steam-room. If you can have a massage, then do so. Do this at least once a month if possible because it is an excellent way to reduce stress.

Even if you think that you will not be able to fit all this in, trust me that you can. And just to give value for money, here is another tip.

Bonus Tip

Make certain that you get enough sleep. If you are short of sleep, everything will seem much worse and so make certain that you get eight hours of sleep. You may not need to do this every night, but keep it up until you wake on your own – without an alarm clock. Once this happens, you will learn how much sleep you need and then you can plan your days and nights accordingly.

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If there was one thing that would turn your life around, what would it be? I will do my best to help you in this newsletter or in my blog. The simplest way for you to leave feedback is to go to my blog and leave a comment. You can do that at:

http://raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog/

Near the top of the page you will see the words, “How are we

doing?” Click on “Leave your comment” and tell me about

your biggest life challenge.

As ever, I hope you really found this useful.

To your success,

Bill Webb

www.rasingyourselfesteem.com

www.raisingyourselfesteem.com/blog

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Bill Webb has spent all his life supporting people to help them overcome obstacles in their life. He has been a Personal Development expert since 2000 and uses hypnosis and conversational change to assist people to understand how to achieve their life goals and their dreams.