Archive | January, 2010

How to Build the Confidence Habit

“If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

We are all beset with doubts sometimes. Even the most self-assured and successful people can be unsure of themselves. Some people are clearly more confident than others, though. To what extent this is ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ is unclear, though I suspect that ‘nurture’ has a lot to do with it. I’ve seen my own confidence wax and wane over the years, and external factors have certainly played a part. Some signs that you might be lacking somewhat in confidence are:

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Reactionary or Revolutionary: What’s Your Attitude to Change – And Is It Holding You Back?

Broadly speaking, there are two political outlooks on change. Reactionaries see change as a bad thing, something to be treated with caution. Revolutionaries celebrate and embrace change.

Take, for instance, attitudes towards the rapid changes in society due to technology. A reactionary would voice concerns about children playing video games, about the short attention spans caused by the internet, and about security and privacy risks. A revolutionary would talk about the new possibilities created – new ways of working, new art forms, and new connections with people all around the world.

Who’s right? Neither. Sometimes, we need change in order to get rid of things which aren’t working. And sometimes, we need to recognize the value of what we already have.

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Signs of Aging

My recent birthday gave me ample opportunity to reflect, as I always do, on my life thus far and what the forthcoming year means to me. As a woman I’ve become very aware of how our society puts an extreme amount of emphasis on aging as a marketing tool for beauty products (most of which are completely unnecessary and useless- but they smell good and look pretty!)

I find it fascinating how aggressive the marketing is aimed at being anything other than your age. Specifically if you’re a woman over 40- that is the target demo. Those are the ones to be convinced that everything about that age is wrong and must be changed immediately or something very bad may happen…. Everything is centered around: reclaiming youth, stopping the aging process, reversing signs of aging, stopping the clock, etc etc etc….

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How Poker Can Transform Your Life

By Henri Junttila Poker is a tricky game. If you aren’t familiar with the game it can seem like a game of random events, when in reality the game has intricate patterns and a culture of its own. Poker has a large degree of luck, which means that it will take longer for the true [...]

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My Online Poker Addiction

Prior to 2009 I had very little experience with gambling. This changed, however, when one night in early 2009 I was invited to play Texas hold’em poker with some friends. I had no idea what I was doing, and unsurprisingly came away little bit poorer (say $20). Despite this small loss my interest in poker was sparked.

In the middle of 2009 I was invited to celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday in Las Vegas. While I had now read a couple of books on Texas hold’em, I had very little experience actually playing the game (just two subsequent occasions with the same friends). Not wanting to be seen as a donkey (that’s a poker term for a bad player) in Vegas, I decided to gain some experience by playing online.

While you can play online poker with pretend money, it is basically a waste of time because people don’t act as they do when real money is at stake. This hints at the major reason I enjoy poker – there is a good deal of psychology involved. Because poker is a game of incomplete information, players must make educated guesses as to what will happen next and what their opponents are holding.

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Staying the Course: How to Keep Your Resolutions

How are your New Year’s resolutions? Are you still going strong or are you flagging already? When we first make a resolution or set a goal, we are naturally motivated to make progress and so we can’t wait to get out there and make things happen. But, of course, resolutions often fall by the wayside – I recently read an anecdotal statistic that 95% of New Year’s resolutions are never followed through.

So is there any point in making them? Obviously, people do succeed in achieving their goals – 5% at least! There are, essentially, two rules for becoming successful. Set goals, and take consistent action towards them. Most people don’t even do the first part, and of the minority of people that do, most will not follow through. There are many reasons for our lack of resolution. Here are some common ones, and some suggestions for overcoming them.

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Breaking Open

In Baron Baptiste’s book 40 Days To Personal Revolution, he explains his Twelve Laws of Transformation. Law 2 is “Be Willing to Come Apart.” He uses the example of a mustard seed that must first break apart before it can grow to be a majestic tree.

Looking around the classroom that is Nature, we are given so many examples of this very transformation. A seed must crack its exterior to grow into a mighty oak tree. A baby bird struggles to break free of its life-sustaining shell. A beautiful butterfly must tear away at its chrysalis in order to fly for the first time. The crystallized array of colors in a geode must have its exterior broken open before it can shimmer.

Nature gives us these gifts so that we can understand that we also must break through our hardened shell in order to release our greatest potential.

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