• What are you really trying to achieve?
• Why is it so important?
• What about your other values? Are you in a rut or a tunnel?
• Who are you trying to prove yourself to: your boss, father, mother, spouse?

Beware the Tyranny of The Shoulds

I should...

...be earning much more money
...be the best provider for my family in the world
...be at the very top of my profession
...get all my work done on time always
...never make any mistakes...ever
...always make the right decisions
...always know exactly what to do
...always feel enthusiastic and energetic
...always win all my arguments with everyone
...always be on top of everything

• You no doubt have other Shoulds to beat yourself with
• But who says you have to be perfect? Or inhumanly invulnerable?
• Can you live up to your Shoulds AND maintain perspective?
• Having excessively high standards is a no-win situation with you as the number one loser
• Unachievable standards = low self esteem = pushing yourself even harder
• Exerting even more effort and still failing = even lower self esteem
• Hence you are caught in a self-defeating vicious circle

	What names do you call yourself? When you make a mistake, do you say... What an idiot! How can you be so stupid! Can't you get anything right! What a loser! There you go again! You're not really up to it, are you?!! Who else has talked to you this way in the past? Why are you still listening to them? You can't change your past, but you can change the way you talk to yourself today. Start by making a LONG list of all the good things you have ever done Catch yourself saying nasty things to yourself Exclaim: Stop it!! Say the opposite to yourself, that you have achieved a lot of good things Recite your list of achievements to yourself Regularly review your list of Shoulds and tell yourself it is OK to be less than perfect Convince yourself to be proud of what you have done and of what you are working on



	Why do you think you have so few strengths worth celebrating? Because everyone has always pointed out your shortcomings - as you do yourself. Because you rarely get any positive feedback for a job well done Because the things you do well are so familiar to you that you take them for granted Because you have learned to focus only on your mistakes Audit your strengths This is not as easy as it seems because you will have discounted your strengths Find a good listener to help you review everything you have done Anyone who hasn't done what you've done will be more objective about what you can do Discuss every work and non-work project you have been involved in over the last 5 years Strive to avoid discounting the other person's attempts to name your strengths Celebrate your strengths Make a list of your strengths and read it to yourself regularly, adding to it as you go Praise yourself for what you have achieved Compare yourself favourably with peers who have not done what you have done Review your strengths whenever you are feeling particularly defeated
	They are: confident without being overbearing not devastated by criticism not overly defensive when questioned active and achievement orientated without being driven mostly happy with themselves as they are not easily defeated by setbacks and obstacles able to accept and learn from their own mistakes unlikely to feel a need to put others down open and assertive in communicating their needs self reliant and resourceful without refusing help from others not overly worried about failing or looking foolish not harshly or destructively critical of themselves not aggressively driven to prove themselves able to laugh at themselves, not taking themselves too seriously Import%20Images/peopleself.gif" width="301" height="25"> width="287" height="10"> They are: confident without being overbearing not devastated by criticism not overly defensive when questioned active and achievement orientated without being driven mostly happy with themselves as they are not easily defeated by setbacks and obstacles able to accept and learn from their own mistakes unlikely to feel a need to put others down open and assertive in communicating their needs self reliant and resourceful without refusing help from others not overly worried about failing or looking foolish not harshly or destructively critical of themselves not aggressively driven to prove themselves able to laugh at themselves, not taking themselves too seriously How to gain self-confidence How happy our life is if we live with self-confidence. I have seen so many depressed and anxious people. They will get better if they regain self-confidence. I have performed a number of research about this and I will show my results as well as others here. 1. The mechanis of loosing self-confiednce Everybody was born in this world with very big self-confidence. However, in the family life or school, we are compared with others. This is the basis of losing self-confidence. As an adult, we cannot go back to the past. However, we can change our cognition and regain the lost self-confidence. How can we do for it ? 2. To be with yourself. The first step to gain self-confidence is to like yourself. If you don't like yourself, this is not possible. So how can we do it practically ? The initial step is to enjoy the moment you are alone. You can read a book, go for a walk, do gardening and so on. 3. Don't make human relationship as your first priority. Many emotional problems occur through the conflict of human relationships. Those who suffer social phobia regard human relationship most important in their lives. THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE MISTAKE.