It's back to school time, back to the old routine. Which is a good thing after the summer holidays, of time with family and friends and visiting in different countries and making new friends.

The nights are drawing in, time to draw the curtains earlier, and snuggle up on the sofa. Great time to be gardening, and digging up all of the vegetables for a tasty and wholesome meal.

What was you 'r favourite moment in the summer hoilday's?

"Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen." Foka Gomez

What is self-confidence?
Where do I get it?

Definition of self-confidence: Confidence in yourself and your abilities. Freedom from self-doubt. Being able to stand up for yourself without being too aggressive or passive.

Are you confident? How do you know that you are confident? What are the main attributes of being confident? Who do you know that has loads of self confidence? What has this person got that you admire about? What don't you have that this person has?

I haven't always been a confident person, but through learning about myself and changing my circumstances and environment, I have learnt to be more confident by the day. If you'd have asked me 5 years ago, what would I be doing in 5 years time? I probably would've said something along the lines of working in an office. I wouldn't have said running my own business. Let alone talking to others about their confidence, and how to improve their self confidence and self esteem.

When I was younger, I was very shy and didn't seem to have any confidence at all, but the fact I started making my own decisions, and believing in myself, that made the difference in my life. I started to appreciate myself much more, also taking control of my own life. I started making an effort with myself, and learnt more about myself, the things that I hoped for, what made me happy, I am still on this journey today, and am loving what I find out about myself and others too.

I also like to watch other people's body language, as its their non-communication through their body language tells me more about them than what they do say. How do you perceive yourself? Do other people perceive you the same too? Ask them to find out what they think of you, use it as positive feedback. Keep an open mind; ask a few people, to see if their impressions of you are similar to your own.

What are your strengths, can you list a few? What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing in your personal life as well as your working life? It's these things that give you confidence in yourself, and your self esteem grows too. What are your weaknesses, what do you not enjoy doing? It's these weaknesses that either have a negative or positive effect on you. It just depends how you deal with your weaknesses. What can you do to improve them?

What is Self-Esteem?
How can you improve it?

Self -esteem is a person's self-worth or self-image at an emotional level, what and how they perceive themselves. The word 'esteem' comes from a Latin word which means 'to estimate'. So, self-esteem is how you estimate yourself. As Nathaniel Branden once said " the experience of being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and being worthy of happiness".

People deal with success / failure in different ways. It is your self-esteem that makes all the difference to how you deal with it. Success is a great thing, but it doesn't come easy to people. Also people's definition of success is different. It depends on what you see and what you want in life. What have you always dreamed of doing?

All successful people that I have met have all said that they had to work hard to get where they are now. Ask those people around you, what have they got that you could do with having?

Those with self-esteem tend to appear friendlier, more expressive, more active, more self-trusting and trusting of others, and less troubled by inner problems and criticism.

Accentuate the positive
Everyone makes mistakes, but if you have had a bad day, ask yourself "what have I done right?" rather than focus on what you have done wrong. A client of mine, was having a hard time in work, He used to mentally beat himself up after every mistake that he made. He would go over and over tiny errors in his mind. Now he writes an account of each task shortly after he's completed it. I have encouraged him to write about all the things that went well - not badly. He doesn't need to write about the bad things - they will stick in his memory and he will try hard not to repeat them. But he will forget the good things - unless he writes them down.

So when you have a bad day, or something goes wrong in your relationship or at work, write an account of what went right with that episode, not what went wrong. The results will surprise you - and improve how you see yourself.

What will you do in the next 24 hours to be a step closer to achieving more confidence? Contact me to get your free Confidence Evaluator Kit that will enable you to evaluate your confidence and see what will work out in the future.

Have a great September, we're off for a late holiday in the sun. Just to re-charge our batteries before the next few busy months.

"Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives." William James

This newsletter is written and distributed by Mari Humphreys. If you enjoyed this issue please forward it to someone you know who would find it interesting.