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Strengthen your Ego for Success

Many of us feel that we haven't reached our full potential. We look for ways to improve our lot. Much of this behaviour stems from a weak ego and low self esteem. A weak ego makes you self critical and this can make you over aware of any negative or percieved negative aspects of your personality and behaviour. Often we try to hide this view of ourselves by putting on a mask that we try to show to the world instead. People we see in newspapers and on the TV as examples of being successful often have the same insecurities about themselves as people who constantly under achieve. Some of these people are described as being driven, and what drives them is often the need to hide a weak ego. This is the first step to a new you as you can see we are all in the same boat. These feelings aren't unusual. I've been through it, you've been through it, we all have. You are not alone.

True success relies on having a strong balanced ego. This way you are comfortable and happy in yourself and able to find satisfaction in your achievements. To be successful you need to see and be content with the good aspects of your life, have a set of realistic goals you can achieve to overcome any real negative aspects and the belief that you are able to cope with lifes problems and challenges. I've gathered some techniques below that have worked for me and I hope will help you.

First we need to stop weakening our ego, before we can make it stronger. The easiest thing in the world to do is to weaken your ego. We all find it easier to accept criticism of ourselves. When we were kids the whole world was huge and confusing. We were told don't do this and that, your not old enough or big enough. This all adds up to one thing - You're not good enough. This is especially true if, like me, you have older siblings to contend with. As adults we carry on telling ourselves that we aren't good enough when things become difficult or go wrong. When you find yourself avoiding something or berating yourself when something goes wrong, stop and listen to yourself. It might seem hard at first but if I can pick it up, so can you. After a couple of times of noticing it becomes a lot easier. Notice what you are saying to yourself when you become self critical. Now you need to reduce its impact. Change the tone of the voice to something squeeky or comical. Mickey Mouses voice works well for me. See how it is hard to accept what the voice is saying as being important. The ridiculous voice has little effect anymore. To go a bit further take the voice and move it so it sounds as if it is no longer coming from inside your head. As you move it further away, you can send it to the corner of the room for being dim, notice how the volume gets lower and lower. A quiet, squeeky voice sent to the corner of the room for being naughty has little or no effect on your ego.

For the next part we are going to look at building your ego by taking control of how you view yourself. This technique has two aspects, the first is a daily maintainance and the second is a boost for whenever you need it. Try to set aside a regular time each day. It seems to work best either just before bed or when you get up in the morning. Honestly, its not that much of a chore as it only takes a few minutes and you feel great afterwards. Take a moment to think of a time when you felt confident. If one doesn't come to mind then an imagined situation will work just as well as long as it is realistic, no imagining you're Wonder Woman. Picture the scene and try to add as much detail as possible. Let the scene unfold and run through it a few times adding more details each time. Remember smells, sounds and colours. Focus on your feelings. Make the scene brighter, larger and louder. Straighten your posture and raise your head high, feeling the confidence filling you. To boost the effect, imagine you are in the scene as it is happening rather than just watching it from outside. As the feelings of happy, content confidence fill you, press a finger and thumb together to form a link between those feelings and the finger press. You can use this finger press and straightened posture to bring those feelings back when you need a boost. I find the more I use this boost the more effective it is and the longer it lasts.

This next technique is simple to understand but does take a bit of effort to put into practice life. The technique is to spot negative behaviour and attitudes in yourself, stop and asses them. Its really difficult to stop in the middle of an argument over whose turn it is to do the washing up but when you do you can asses why it is you are arguing. Start with calming yourself by relaxing your posture and slowing your breathing. Are you feeling negative because you've had a bad day, you feel underappreciated or you feel things are out of your control? When you know the real reason you can work out what you what to happen and then work out how best to go about it. Try to focus on how you can change the situation and not blame others or situations. This helps you see problems as things you can cope with rather than overwhelming situations that make you feel helpless. I find this makes life seem manageable.

My last technique is to take control of your life and where it is heading. First list all the important and good things in your life. Things like family, hobbies, pets and even work if you enjoy it. You should take time to relish these things as often as you can. Next list the things that weaken your ego and you would like to change. Your final list should contain the things you would like to have in your life in the future. These last two lists should be prioritised in order of importance to form a joined list of what you need to tackle first. For each item you need to work out what end result you want to achieve. When you have done this take the first change you want to make and break it into smaller steps. Each smaller step should be manageable in a few days and you must make sure you follow each step in turn. You can follow more than one change at a time, but make sure each set of steps is spaced so you don't overwhelm yourself. If you do find you have taken on too much put the lesser priorities on hold. My example is my aim to get an accountancy job. I broke it into little steps. My first step? I went to the library to find out about local courses. Next step was to call the college. Next I signed up for and paid for the course. As you can see, each step is small and easily attained.

I am still doing my accountancy technician course and taking it step by step. It all seems more possible and under my control now. Each of these techniques have helped me loads and I hope they do for you.

Originally published at I Conjure Candles
Written by Ruth Sanders

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<center><h2>Strengthen your Ego for Success</h2></center>
 
   Many of us feel that we haven't reached our full potential. We look for ways to improve our lot. Much of this behaviour stems from a weak ego and low self esteem. A weak ego makes you self critical and this can make you over aware of any negative or percieved negative aspects of your personality and behaviour. Often we try to hide this view of ourselves by putting on a mask that we try to show to the world instead. People we see in newspapers and on the TV as examples of being successful often have the same insecurities about themselves as people who constantly under achieve. Some of these people are described as being driven, and what drives them is often the need to hide a weak ego. This is the first step to a new you as you can see we are all in the same boat. These feelings aren't unusual. I've been through it, you've been through it, we all have. You are not alone.   
True success relies on having a strong balanced ego. This way you are comfortable and happy in yourself and able to find satisfaction in your achievements. To be successful you need to see and be content with the good aspects of your life, have a set of realistic goals you can achieve to overcome any real negative aspects and the belief that you are able to cope with lifes problems and challenges. I've gathered some techniques below that have worked for me and I hope will help you.   
First we need to stop weakening our ego, before we can make it stronger. The easiest thing in the world to do is to weaken your ego. We all find it easier to accept criticism of ourselves. When we were kids the whole world was huge and confusing. We were told don't do this and that, your not old enough or big enough. This all adds up to one thing - You're not good enough. This is especially true if, like me, you have older siblings to contend with. As adults we carry on telling ourselves that we aren't good enough when things become difficult or go wrong. When you find yourself avoiding something or berating yourself when something goes wrong, stop and listen to yourself. It might seem hard at first but if I can pick it up, so can you. After a couple of times of noticing it becomes a lot easier. Notice what you are saying to yourself when you become self critical. Now you need to reduce its impact. Change the tone of the voice to something squeeky or comical. Mickey Mouses voice works well for me. See how it is hard to accept what the voice is saying as being important. The ridiculous voice has little effect anymore. To go a bit further take the voice and move it so it sounds as if it is no longer coming from inside your head. As you move it further away, you can send it to the corner of the room for being dim, notice how the volume gets lower and lower. A quiet, squeeky voice sent to the corner of the room for being naughty has little or no effect on your ego.   
For the next part we are going to look at building your ego by taking control of how you view yourself. This technique has two aspects, the first is a daily maintainance and the second is a boost for whenever you need it. Try to set aside a regular time each day. It seems to work best either just before bed or when you get up in the morning. Honestly, its not that much of a chore as it only takes a few minutes and you feel great afterwards. Take a moment to think of a time when you felt confident. If one doesn't come to mind then an imagined situation will work just as well as long as it is realistic, no imagining you're Wonder Woman. Picture the scene and try to add as much detail as possible. Let the scene unfold and run through it a few times adding more details each time. Remember smells, sounds and colours. Focus on your feelings. Make the scene brighter, larger and louder. Straighten your posture and raise your head high, feeling the confidence filling you. To boost the effect, imagine you are in the scene as it is happening rather than just watching it from outside. As the feelings of happy, content confidence fill you, press a finger and thumb together to form a link between those feelings and the finger press. You can use this finger press and straightened posture to bring those feelings back when you need a boost. I find the more I use this boost the more effective it is and the longer it lasts.   
This next technique is simple to understand but does take a bit of effort to put into practice life. The technique is to spot negative behaviour and attitudes in yourself, stop and asses them. Its really difficult to stop in the middle of an argument over whose turn it is to do the washing up but when you do you can asses why it is you are arguing. Start with calming yourself by relaxing your posture and slowing your breathing. Are you feeling negative because you've had a bad day, you feel underappreciated or you feel things are out of your control? When you know the real reason you can work out what you what to happen and then work out how best to go about it. Try to focus on how you can change the situation and not blame others or situations. This helps you see problems as things you can cope with rather than overwhelming situations that make you feel helpless. I find this makes life seem manageable.   
My last technique is to take control of your life and where it is heading. First list all the important and good things in your life. Things like family, hobbies, pets and even work if you enjoy it. You should take time to relish these things as often as you can. Next list the things that weaken your ego and you would like to change. Your final list should contain the things you would like to have in your life in the future. These last two lists should be prioritised in order of importance to form a joined list of what you need to tackle first. For each item you need to work out what end result you want to achieve. When you have done this take the first change you want to make and break it into smaller steps. Each smaller step should be manageable in a few days and you must make sure you follow each step in turn. You can follow more than one change at a time, but make sure each set of steps is spaced so you don't overwhelm yourself. If you do find you have taken on too much put the lesser priorities on hold. My example is my aim to get an accountancy job. I broke it into little steps. My first step? I went to the library to find out about local courses. Next step was to call the college. Next I signed up for and paid for the course. As you can see, each step is small and easily attained.   
I am still doing my accountancy technician course and taking it step by step. It all seems more possible and under my control now. Each of these techniques have helped me loads and I hope they do for you.

Originally published at I Conjure Candles    Written by Ruth Sanders

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