7 Strategies For Smart Self Belief

"What has proved the greatest challenge on your Coaching journey so far?" I asked the sensational group of Coaches who were attending the Advanced Skills Training Seminar I ran for The Coaching Institute, Melbourne on Friday 9th April, 2010. The resounding answer came as no surprise to me: "A lack of self belief, where self belief is understood as confidence in personal abilities and judgments."

Whilst there was a real sense of the effort and commitment it took to attend the training, by virtue of the fact that all of these coaches were sitting in the room - and therefore each participant was taking action, there was a tangible sense of the widespread impact of low self esteem on study, performance, capacity to attract and sign paying clients and happiness. Lack of self belief lay at the heart of procrastination and overwhelm. I'd like to take a brief look at beliefs and offer 7 Strategies to Smart Self Belief.

The creation of new realities and restructuring of consciousness depends on mastery and management of beliefs. Rene Des Cartes had some great opinions on the subject! He was author of "I think therefore I am" and went on to proclaim "If we want to change our lives we have to stretch our minds". But how?

Our realities are created by beliefs that are thought forms through which we interpret, filter, and interact. Our beliefs create a separation or union between the self and the universe, and so we relate to something as "this" or "that", as similar and belonging to or different from and distanced.

The cause and effect relationship between the self and the physical universe is created by our beliefs and therefore what we choose to believe sets a blueprint for what eventuates in our lives. It is therefore vital that our beliefs, particularly those we hold about ourselves, nurture, support and sustain who we need to be to have the life we most desire.

When we choose to focus on our limitations it is just as Mignon McLaughlin wrote: "Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn out powers". Out of that space our successes cannot hope to seed and grow.

William Shakespeare reflected:" Our doubts are traitors, and make us loose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt". He's basically saying: "Man, we just don't get up and do stuff because we are doubting ourselves so much." Self doubt is the ultimate procrastination fast-food. The opposition to growth and progress firmly rooted in the mind.

Express your beliefs so that you can explore them, weigh them up. Take the conscious choice to adopt beliefs that serve the development of resourceful states of being, that provide fertile ground for creating your desired reality.

Here are 7 Strategies to Smart Self-Belief:

1. Attend to basics. Your relationship with life depends on taking care of exercise, touch, and enough sleep. Commune with, and appreciate nature daily, even if you only go there in your mind. Great if you can feel the sun on your face or the rain on your face. Stroke a feather that you have lying around, or hold a rock. Communicate with nature, daily. It's anchoring; it reminds us that we belong to a much wider system. That kind of widened back perspective also helps enormously to take care of our self belief. If we can develop the capacity to have free attention, to widen back, to see a higher purpose, a higher learning in each situation. Then life isn't so personal. You are not your creations. You have choice in each and every moment. Develop a great capacity to be in the now. Appreciate, appreciate, and appreciate. Look to who you aspire to be, and be that person, absolutely right now. You have everything within you.

2. Allow yourself to create. Simply allow yourself simply to create, in whatever form: sing in the shower, draw a doodle, write a line, create poetry, to listen to music and dance, create a collage, and create a meal. Develop your capacity to give and to receive. Often times, for many, it's so easy to give, but it's the gracious receiving. If you can open that portal, that will help your self esteem to truly grow.

3. Surround yourself with positive people. Seek out that which makes you smile, and have more of that. Do something you love every day, and practice taking action with courage. Find a coach, mentor and people that you're inspired to model. Adopt the strategies that you notice work for them.

4. Remain true to your heart, congruent with your truth, and let your focus and actions reflect loving interaction on all levels. Check yourself out. Put on your oxygen mask first. Develop heart space awareness, and own your own stuff. There isn't a shortcut, you've just got to deal and heal. Develop awareness, to develop that heart space. Go into the shadowy places in your heart and deal and heal.

5. Regard words as precious gems. There's a Native American Indian belief that each word that we speak is as a precious stone. Now if we considered that, then how much we not say might, and how much might we say. Speak kindly and truthfully from the heart. Opt always for an affirmation rather than what I call a "mashermation" (Where Mashermation is the diminishing, destructive language or self talk that crushes and undermines rather than uplifts and creates). What we say creates our reality. Words are energy, and we are manifesting in everything that we language, that we speak, and even that we think. So be certain that what you're thinking and speaking is that which you truly intend to manifest.

6. Develop your capacity for Free Attention. Widen back. Find a point of focus ahead of you and welcome in your peripheral vision - allow full awareness to be yours. Notice the widest span of the issue - get into the zone of expanded awareness and greater consciousness.

7. Practice, an attitude of gratitude and kindness. Focus on enriching the life of another rather than your own. I think, for me, the times I've been most down, that are kind of got me out of a hole. It's like "How can I make this space better off for being it", "How can I enrich the life of another". If I can do that by creating, if I can do that by helping someone to transform within themselves, then so much the better.
Bonus Core Creation of Success Strategy: This seventh strategy links closely to having a "Big Enough Reason Why" - Purpose.

When all else fails - what works for me is to plug in to my life purpose: To help those who help others; to be an example that Mira Moonbeam would choose to follow and be proud of; to leave every space better off for my having touched it; to contribute.

For Your Interest, here is Morris Rosenberg's self-esteem scale, which was used in social science research. You might calibrate how much you might require the 7 Strategies for Smart Self Belief, right now: Suggestion: You could rate yourself on a four-point scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
1. On the whole I am satisfied with myself.
2. At times I think that I am no good at all.
3. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
4. I am able to do things as well as most other people.
5. I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
6. I certainly feel useless at times.
7. I feel that I am a person of worth, at least the equal of others.
8. I wish I could have more respect for myself.
9. All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
10. I take a positive attitude toward myself.
* Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Start somewhere with something that is aligned with your endgame. Seek your "Big Enough reason Why" and write that down and pin it up where you can see it.

When the chips are down - what works for me is to plug in to my life purpose: To help those who help others; to be an example that Mira Moonbeam would choose to follow and be proud of; to leave every space better off for my having touched it; to contribute.