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How to Use Self-Affirmations 

Do you struggle to feel sure of yourself? Do people tell you that you lack confidence? Or does negative feedback rattle your sense of self or well-being? Then learning about self-affirmation may be helpful for you.  Each of us faces numerous threats to our self-worth (insults, criticism, etc…). Yet, we are often able to look past these threats and still feel good about ourselves. Researchers propose that this is because we have a psychological protection system—a system that involves a variety of automatic, defensive mental strategies that protect our self-esteem from plummeting in the face of threats (Sherman & Cohen, 2006).  For example, we tend to believe that we are responsible for positive outcomes but that we are not responsible for negative outcomes. We also…

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Tips for Building Self Esteem

Learn more about self-esteem and how you can achieve higher self-esteem in your life.  Self-esteem represents the foundation that supports the relationship you have with yourself. It carries over into every aspect of life. If you’re reading this, you probably value this relationship and may want to build your self-esteem. By the end of this article, you should have a better understanding of self-esteem and ways to improve it.  Let’s start with a simple definition. Most psychological theories agree that self-esteem refers to your evaluation of yourself (Mruk, 1995). Self-esteem can also be thought of as how much you like, approve of, or value yourself. Self-esteem can be applied to you globally (e.g., “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself”; Rosenberg et al., 1995)…

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5 Ways to Be More Confident 

Discover science-based tips to boost your confidence.  Most of us want self-confidence because we want to feel good about ourselves. But, self-confidence is also important for other things. The higher our self-confidence, the higher our motivation to act. Plus, self-confidence helps increase the chances of success when we do act. That’s because when we expect to fail, we are more likely to do so (Bénabou & Tirole, 2002). For all these reasons, it makes sense that we would want to increase our self-confidence. Here are some tips and techniques to do it:  1. Know Your Worth  Perhaps the most important part of being confident is knowing your worth (Owens, 1993). We are all worthy. Yet, some of us have a deeply rooted belief that we’re…

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Tips for Setting Long-Term Goals 

Goals, broadly speaking, are defined as the desired states that we seek to obtain, maintain, or avoid (Nair, 2003). Long-term goals can be defined as the set of goals that need a longer period of time to achieve. For example, they could be goals related to our education, career, relationships, fitness, etc. Long-term goals require planning and sustained effort, so they can be a bit trickier to achieve than shorter-term goals. Here are some tips to get you started.  How to Reach Long-Term Goals  1. Set specific and challenging goals. It turns out that we achieve more by setting specific goals that are a little bit bigger or challenging, but not too challenging. If we set easy goals, we often don’t achieve as much as…

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4 Ways To Know Your Worth 

Those of us who don’t know our worth may consciously or unconsciously believe that we are worthless. These beliefs can affect our thoughts, emotions, actions, and experiences. Knowing your worth and believing that you are indeed worthy is absolutely essential for happiness and well-being. So, let’s dive into the research to learn more about how we can better know our worth.  What Stops Us from Feeling Worthy?  Many of us let our self-worth be contingent upon external events. When our self-worth depends on external situations, it’s unstable. As a result, our feelings about ourselves can end up being at the whim of the world.  Obviously, we want to experience things that make us feel good. And engaging in activities that boost our self-esteem makes us…

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Mental performance and you: 10 things you need to know

Our mental performance, how we think, analyze, and perceive the world, influences how we work, tackle challenges, relate to others, manage stress and more. Where we choose to put our focus has a tremendous impact on how we feel and perform in our day-to-day lives. Julie Jones, Mental Performance Coach and Institute instructor, specializes in helping people boost their mental game, and in teaching them how mental training, positivity and self-awareness can help us do better in our jobs, our personal lives, as leaders, as athletes, and as members of the community.  As a former Division I softball coach, Julie specializes in training athletes in mental performance techniques. The same brain strategies that can help a softball player improve her swing can help us all…

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