Facing fears – moving beyond your comfort zones

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877976_55461491 rebel

Self confidence – what are the keys to self confidence? Those that have subscribed to my newsletter will have received two articles on the keys to self confidence.

To recap:

Firstly, knowing who you are, what are your strengths, what matters to you and what you want in life. Part of this is setting boundaries and being able and willing to say “no”.

Secondly, knowing where you are heading and setting goals in order to get there.

Facing fears is a necessary part of setting boundaries and also moving forward towards your goals. I’ve noticed a correlation in my willingness to move beyond my comfort zones and the speed at which I move forward.

I fear heights – so recently went abseiling. Continue reading →

We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are.

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877976_55461491 rebel
‘We don’t see things as they are;
we see things as we are.’

~ Anais Nin

Wow, what a powerful quotation. If we want to change something, or change the way we see something, we need to change ourselves.

ACTION CHALLENGE:

Pick a situation that is challenging you right now. Don’t go for the biggest one just yet, perhaps a smaller challenge.

Secondly, imagine you are someone else. Perhaps a wise old woman, or a young rebel or a civil rights campaigner. Take a few minutes to imagine what it would be like to live as this person.

Thirdly, look at the challenge through that other person’s eyes. What do you notice? What becomes possible from this point of view? How does this affect your self confidence?What action do you want to take?

Let me know your thoughts on this below. Whose perspective will you choose?

Biggest challenge to professional women is self confidence

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WOMEN jumpingBiggest challenge to professional women is self confidence, feeling an impostor in their role – result of my interviews

I interviewed about 30 women about the challenges they face in their work in corporate roles and also in their personal lives. Continue reading →

Developing women leaders

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Great article from Kristi Hedges. Here’s an excerpt:

‘Give it to women straight. When Heath goes in to provide a leadership development program, she first delivers personalized feedback to the participants. The all-too-common response is: “I’ve never heard that.” The corporate culture in most companies doesn’t provide a consistent process for feedback. And women pay the price. According to Heath, feedback is akin to a GPS system that allows women leaders to modify their behavior. Heath has conducted surveys at organizations including law firms and banks, where male executives frequently say they dislike providing feedback to women because women expect lengthy explanations and can react emotionally. The men often elected to forgo the feedback.’

Rest of the article here:

http://www.womenentrepreneur.com/2009/08/create-leaders-without-breaking-the-bank.html

Let me know your thoughts. How does your company develop women?

Why self confidence?

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self confidenceSo why self confidence?

I’ve been carrying out interviews of career women this year. I’ve asked them about the challenges they face. I’ll tell you more about the results in a future issue.

It affects us all

The theme of self confidence came up time and time again. Worded as the ability to talk about your success in the same way as your male colleagues. Or believing in your abilities. Or fear of failure holding you back. Some women feel like impostors who risk being found out.

Continue reading →

Wanting to talk – and putting it off

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I have been wanting to write in my newsletter and it has been near the top of my to-do list for longer than I care to admit. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about my relaunch as ‘Self Confidence for Women’ which you will have noticed.

Putting things off

So why the procrastination?

Self confidenceI’m learning not to beat myself up at times like these. There’s usually a reason for procrastination, often a good one. I’ve spent a bit of time sitting with this and being curious. (Something I’d recommend for something you are putting off). Continue reading →

Does perfectionism get in the way of getting things done?

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Earlier this year, a friend and I agreed to apply to run a 10K race, partly to motivate ourselves to get out and run. I’ve run a 5K event before and wanted to stretch myself a bit more. My friend applied for an early April race which I felt didn’t give me enough training time to be sure of running the whole distance. I wanted longer to train so started to look at May races. In fact I did not apply for a May race and I have only just started to train.

988576_90886406-runningIf I had turned up for the April event, I would have been training since February. I would now be fitter. I might not have run the whole 10K run in April, maybe I would have walked some of the route. Yet, given that my goal is to get fit, or fitter, rather than have an impressive time for the event, that wouldn’t have mattered.

I don’t think of myself as perfectionist, yet my desire to make a ‘proper’ go of the event got in the way of my real goal – to get fit. Continue reading →

New daily habit – webtool

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dontbreakthechainI read recently that Seinfeld is said to have spoken of the value of writing every day. He used a large wall calendar and scored a big red x over each day that he wrote. He was motivated to carry on crossing off the days and not breaking the chain.

It isn’t always the big steps that get us where we want to go, it is the consistent daily action, a succession of baby steps that build amazing outcomes. Daily action builds habits. Continue reading →