GPYP Guide to Self-Confidence

GPYP’s Short and Sweet Guide to Self-confidence:

I ran this post about 2 weeks after I started the blog and the “long version” is in the book, but I thought I’d repost the Cliff Notes ™ version here today.

I know that one review of the book was very positive but took issue with the affirmation part as “self-help mumbo jumbo” and kind of poo poo’d the idea of affirmations as a Stuart Smalley silly thing, but as someone who happened to have changed my entire life with the help of affirmations, I can say that even if they get bad press, they work when they are done, as the book teaches, in the right way, for the right amount of time and are revisited and revised as necessary.

The book teaches you why affirmations work and how to do them RIGHT (there are a lot of BAD affirmations and guide to affirmations out there). You have nothing to lose by trying them and everything to gain. They make up TEN pages of the book. Suck it up. Read those ten pages. They come in handy when you’re afraid of anything or when you’re not feeling confident or you have to face a certain situation.

I still use mine to get me over “the hump” when I am afraid to face something. I do it every day now when I deal with Michael’s illness. I HAVE to get out of bed some days and just affirm I am okay. I am okay. I am okay. Sometimes it just comes down to self rah-rah-rah…when no one else is there to do it.

Sometimes the “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough….” mantra, silly as it sounds, IS the right one. I do that one before just about every single performance review on a job over the last 15 years.

And though Al Franken did Stuart Smalley with tongue firmly planted in cheek, he does credit Al-anon and their “positive self-talk” teachings as helping him to free himself from raging codependency. (hope those are still working today Al!)

Anyway, I truly believe that positive self-talk and affirmations really have the ability to turn your entire life around. Whenever I’m in a stressful situation or I start to fall back on “I suck” attitude, I snap it off and do my positive self-talk. Whenever I want to change something in my life I do a set of affirmations. Don’t believe me. Try it.

I had to pick the best of 22 years of research and professional and personal experience for inclusion in the book. I had loads of more material than presented but I wanted the absolute best in there. The affirmation part of the book isn’t in there to take up space. Positive self-talk is a very important part of living a positive and healthy life. Nothing in the book is fluff and that certainly is not. Don’t SKIP IT. Read it. Practice it. DO IT.

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Here’s the original post:

In GPYP seminars, we work on breaking down goals and the action steps to get there into small, manageable bits. We keep things structured and orderly so as not to get lost in what can seem like the overwhelming chore of life change.

However, someone always asks for a “big picture” walk through of how we work on thinking, behaving, and feeling in one area. This is a very abbreviated big picture “walk through” for becoming more confident in everything you do.

Remember the key words: Observe (journal), Prepare (visualize, affirm, act “as if” and work through the past), Cultivate (constantly define the immediate next step while keeping the bigger goal in mind).

1. Keep a journal. Observe what you think, what you feel and what you say. Don’t comment or analyze. Just observe and record for a week or two.

2. After a week or two, go back and read it. What are you saying to you about you? What messages are you giving yourself? What messages are other people giving you? What kinds of behaviors are you engaging in that you don’t like? What feelings from the past come up when you’re under stress? What situations make you wish you were more confident? What are you feeling in those situations? What do you want to change?

3. Start to visualize the next step…not the “self-confident, I rule the world” but the immediate next step…the step from where you are now..what would that look like?

4. Visualize a person who is more confident than you are now. Remember what we talk about in GPYP seminars about visualizations. Use your GPYP Guide to Visualizations. Ask what a confident person LOOKS like to you. Ask what YOU look like as a confident person. What do you see yourself doing when you are more confident? What does it look like? Think about it. Write down what it looks like. See it in your mind’s eyes.

5. Then write out affirmations. I am [whatever the person looks like in your visualization].

6. Write 10 affirmations. As we teach in GPYP, they must be positive and present and believable. Refer back to your GPYP Guide to Writing Affirmations. Remember, they should be a little uncomfortable to say but not so far out, you can’t believe it.

7. Say them several times a day. Make sure you spend some timeEACH DAY saying them and visualizing the end result. Keep visualizing yourself at the next level of self-confidence.

8. Start to DO things that a self-confident person does. What is that? A movie alone? A day at the beach alone? A shopping trip alone? A meal alone? Asking someone to do something? Arguing with customer service (or saying the magic words, “I want to speak to a supervisor.”)?

What is it that will show TO YOU that you are gaining confidence? Do something that TO YOU says “I AM CONFIDENT”

You may be afraid but DO IT ANYWAY.

If you can’t do something big, start small. Do this at least once a week and try to go for bigger every week. Again, try things that are a little scary but not so scary you’re frozen with fear.

9. Think about where this lack of self confidence comes from in your past. Use your journal. Talk about it. Write about it. Write letters to people who hurt you or put you down or made you feel worthless or question your ability.

Get mad, get sad, get anything you need to feel but remember the GPYP rule: always wrap up your “closure” communications on a positive note.

WRAP IT UP ON A POSITIVE
NOTE when you’re ready.

Keep it positive. It’s about closure. It’s about banishing the messages forever. (“What you made me feel about me is not who I am. You were wrong about me and I am changing every day. I let you go with love.”)

10. At the end of 30 days revisit your affirmations and bring them to the NEXT step of visualization. What does the NEXT step of self-confidence look like? Visualize it, rewrite your affirmations, make them stronger.

Keep journaling,visualizing, affirming and doing the work of getting to the bottom of it.

Lather, rinse, repeat.