Self Esteem

10 Steps To Instant Confidence

You’ve probably come across plenty of fancy websites with slick videos offering you instant confidence in return for some of your hard earned cash. Skeptical? Don’t be! Just because you’ve struggled with anxiety and low self-esteem all your life is no reason to doubt those online testimonials claiming overnight success.

Why shouldn’t you be able to undo years of negative programming in an instant?

Don’t waste time and energy delving into negative beliefs, exploring your emotions in therapy, expanding your comfort zone, learning social skills or doing dicky things like public speaking, when you can have 100% Instant Confidence just by following these 10 fun, easy steps:

Be like this guy… Instantly!

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By Graham Stoney, ago

You Can Take Not Caring What Other People Think Too Far

Most of my life I’ve been plagued by the fear of what other people think of me manifesting as self-consciousness, social anxiety and fear of rejection. While this exaggerated fear can be really annoying, in moderation it turns out not to be an entirely bad thing.

A few weeks ago I started playing open mic nights with my new band The Sketch Artists. At our first gig in the inner west we met a guy who was a regular at the venue. Let’s call him Peter, because that was his name.

Peter seemed friendly and sociable, and soon joined my band-mates and I at our table while we waited to go on and perform. One of the first things that Peter said to us proudly was:

“I don’t care what other people think”. (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Become a Confident Man

I’ve been working like a man possessed for the past few months on a new project to help men build self-confidence. I know what it’s like to lack confidence as a man, and frankly it sucks because every other area of your life suffers. Sure, I learned plenty of coping mechanisms so that at times I may have appeared confident, but that wasn’t what was going on inside. Some days, it still isn’t. And since this has been one of my greatest challenges in life, I want to help other in guys facing it too.

Self-confidence is an awareness that you have the ability to rise to whatever challenge life throws at you. It’s also a sense of being at ease with yourself in any situation, and with who you are as a man. Confidence is the single most important asset that a man can possess, because it determines … Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Loving Yourself by The Human Awareness Institute

I spent last weekend at a workshop on Loving Yourself run by The Human Awareness Institute (HAI). It’s the second in a series of workshops they run on the topic of Love, Intimacy and Sexuality. While the confidentiality agreement prevents me from talking too much about the content of the workshop, what I can say is that it was an opportunity to profoundly deepen the connection that I felt with other people, and with myself.

I’ve always struggled with the idea of really loving myself, and when I first heard about the HAI courses I knew that this workshop was for me. I did the pre-requisite level 1 workshop about a year ago, and then had to wait a year before having the opportunity to do level 2. Over the course of the workshop I found myself gradually losing the inhibitions and fears about other people’s judgments, which tend to … Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Voice Dialogue, Self Awareness and Your Inner Child

We like to think that we’re consciously in control of everything we do, but the reality is that the emotions, beliefs and memories buried deep in our subconscious are running the show most of the time. And while the subconscious baggage we accumulate may have served a purpose in the past, sometimes it isn’t so helpful in our present day lives. Getting in touch with our subconscious to change what’s lurking down there so that it works for us rather than against us is hard because our conscious thinking gets in the way and we can end up just over-analysing ourselves.

A few years back I decided that some self-awareness was what I was missing. I just didn’t see myself as positively and as capable as I seemed to be in other people’s eyes. So I found a group working on self-awareness by doing inner child work. They used a … Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

My Life So Far by Jane Fonda

I am a generation too late to really know much about Jane Fonda, and started reading her autobiography when a friend recommended it. There is lots of name dropping; clearly Ms Fonda was well-connected in her prime, but I don’t recognise most of the names since they were just before my time. Nevertheless, it’s a compelling story.

I was fascinated to read how such a successful woman could be haunted all her life by feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. Despite her feminist leaning and her courage (or was it foolishness?), there’s a strong theme that without the support and approval of men, she felt worthless.

I found her description of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnamese war a disturbing indictment on the power wielded by the American military and the way in which the U.S. President of the time used it to play out his power games in a foreign … Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago