January 24, 2014

How to Stop Being Envious

Envy can be a real pain in the ass.

I’ve heard some people say that envy is good, because it gets you motivated to do great things in life, in order to be better than others. But I don’t really know about that. I find that envy does much more harm than good, and overall it’s something to overcome.

The Perils of Being Envious

First of all, I find this assumption that envy creates motivation to enhance your life to be severely flawed. In my coaching I often interact with people who are very envious, or people who themselves deal with other people who are very envious.

And more often than not, what envy actually creates is a strong tendency to backstab others, try and sabotage them, spread rumors about them or be passive-aggressive towards them. I guess it’s more convenient to try to pull somebody down than to lift yourself above them.

Second of all, even if envy motivates you to achieve something in life, it might be something you don’t really want. You just go for it because others have it. But it doesn’t make you intrinsically happier.

Think of all the people who work 80 hours a week, in a crappy job, so they can make more money than other people around them. And they eventually end up making more money, but then they find out that, besides the fleeting pride, more money doesn’t make them that much happier, and having more time for themselves would have been a much better path. It’s a very common situation.

envy

Plus, even if you surpass a person in one aspect of life, soon enough you’ll find another aspect where they’ve surpassed you. You’re making more money than they are, but they have a happier marriage than you. Bummer! Later you’ll find individuals who are making more money than you, so more envy gets triggered.

Because you’ll always find people who are better off than you in at least one area, you’ll always feel envious. You’ll be spending lots of time feeling angry and bitter towards others because they have something you don’t. Not a good way to live your life.

4 Ways to Get Over Your Envy

This being said, let’s look at how to stop being envious. Envy can be a deeply ingrained emotion, and overcoming it does require some smart strategies. You may wanna stop being envious just like that, but it’s not that simple.

In time, I’ve discovered that 4 strategies in particular work very well in overcoming envy. Here they are, one by one:

1. Stay Less Informed About Others

In today’s world we are encouraged to constantly keep in touch with every person we’ve ever met and know every detail of their life. We connect with others on Facebook and Twitter and other social media outlets, and we find out what they’re wearing, what they’re eating, what parties they’re going to every day.

However, when we learn something about another person, it’s common to automatically compare ourselves to them. It’s pretty much human nature. And when we do, we are likely to find reasons to feel envious. So having too much info about other people’s lives stimulates envy.

There are actually studies that show, for instance, that spending a lot of time on Facebook leads to a decrease in overall life satisfaction, because of this very dynamic.

This is why it’s a good idea to avoid being too connected to the lives of a large number of people. Of course, keep in touch with friends and people you care about, learn about their lives, but don’t stay too informed about too many people. It’s bad for you.

2. Embrace Abundance

One reason why some of us feel envy very easily is because we are in a mindset of insufficiency. Consciously or not, we deem that there are very few resources in this world, and if others get a lot of them, there won’t be enough left for us.

If others make a lot of money, there won’t be enough left for us. If others date attractive women/men, we won’t have anyone attractive to date. Or so the logic goes.

But it’s a flawed logic. The truth is that while many resources are limited, the limits are placed somewhere very high. We do live in a world of abundance and frequently there is plenty to go around.

It’s an excellent idea to practice this way of thinking. Embrace the idea of abundance and don’t let your mind trick you into seeing false shortages. It will make you much more relaxed.

3. Learn to Like Yourself

Another typical reason why we are envious of others is because we don’t have a good opinion of ourselves. So when we find out something positive about another person, it acts as a reminder of our own shortcomings. And when you have a poor self-image, any such reminder hurts like hell.

Considering this, a big part of learning how to stop being envious is to improve your self-image and learn to like yourself. Not only that it will make you less envious, but it will transform your whole life for the better.

Improving your self-image is an entire psychological process, which entails dealing with several limiting belies. I don’t plan to discuss this process in detail here, but if you wanna learn more about how it works, I suggest you watch this instructional presentation, where I share my formula for improving your self-image and social confidence.

4. Build Stronger Relationships

You may have noticed that we don’t feel that envious when a close friend or a dear relative achieves something awesome. That’s because we are strongly emotionally connected to them and their success sort of feels like our success. So we are happy for them rather than envious o them.

This is why a great but often overlooked way to overcome envy is to build better, deeper relationships with people. Having lots of acquaintances and no real friends doesn’t make a fulfilling social life, and it predisposes you to feeling a lot of envy. Having good friends and acquaintances is the way to go.

Deepening your relationships with others does depend on having good social skills and a dose of social confidence. And lacking them is what prevents many folks from developing fulfilling relationships.

So if you wanna improve your social skills and confidence, I recommend that you join my free social confidence newsletter, where I share most of my advice on these key topics. I’m sure you’ll find the content you’ll be receiving from me very relevant for you.

Feeling envious rarely leads to good outcomes. If you often feel envious of others, my advice is to make overcoming this issue a priority. And if you know other people who easily get envious, try to help them work on overcoming this as well.

The resources to work effectively on overcoming envy do exist. I trust this article is one such resource. Start putting the ideas laid here into practice, and I’m certain you’ll like the results you’ll see.

Image courtesy of Romancement

Filed Under: Attitude, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 1 Comment
July 16, 2013

How to Stop Being Needy

Do you often sabotage yourself by being needy? Whether this happens in job-related situations, around other people in general or around members of the opposite sex that you fancy, I want to let you know that you can learn how to stop being needy and solve this issue. Permanently.

Over the last several years, I’ve coached dozen of individuals who were needy and I helped them gain the self-confidence they desired. The fact of the matter is that being needy is a process, created in your mind by the way you think about yourself and others.

And you can reverse this process through proven psychological techniques, thus replacing neediness with sell-confidence. Here’s the gist of this procedure.

1. Build Trust in Your Strengths

First and foremost, you have to get in touch with you own strengths. Do some self-exploration and get to know your own strengths. Acknowledge them to yourself and become aware of their value in this world, for you or for others around you.

If you’re often needy, it’s almost certain that you don’t have a very good opinion of yourself, and that has a lot to do with seeing your flaws but not seeing your strengths. A big part of learning how to stop being needy is correcting this state.

The goal is for you to know our strengths better and trust them. Thus you’ll see yourself in a better light, which will make more things seem possible for you, which will automatically make you less desperate. There is a lot of power in seeing yourself in an overall positive way.

2. Think in Terms of Abundance

freeAlso common for people who are needy is a perception of shortage. “If I don’t get this job I will never find another one like it.” “If I don’t get this person to be with me, I will never find anyone like them.” This is how their routine thinking goes.

But this is never true. In reality, no matter how special an opportunity is, there are many other opportunities similar to it. That are many great jobs and great women/men out there, and this is something that you need to realize and internalize.

Put another way, in order to stop being needy and desperate, it’s essential for you to think in terms of abundance. To see this world as a world full of opportunities, in which when one door closes, another one opens. It is very much true. And this is a way of thinking that you can develop with practice.

But, this is not as straightforward a process as it may seem. There is an entire art and science to changing the way you think. To learn more about it, I recommend you watch this practical presentation right now, where I discuss it in more detail. It’s loaded with relevant confidence building advice for you.

3. Challenge Yourself

One of the amazing things about challenging yourself is that besides helping you be more confident, it also helps you stop being needy.

This makes a lot of sense. When you challenge yourself and you surpass these challenges (which one way or another you almost always do), you prove to yourself that you’re capable and you can rely on your won person.

This in turn builds the perception that you have many options in life, in dating, in your career, and so on. And that’s how to stop being needy in any of these areas.

Our regular tendency is to avoid challenge. Because challenges create struggle and sometimes generates anxiety. This tendency is especially true for people who are needy. So it’s crucial for you to correct this tendency and begin doing the very opposite.

Consistently challenge yourself. Push yourself out of your comfort zone, try new things, and take calculated risks. You’ll be surprised what you can achieve and how your image of yourself and of the world can change.

For more advice on how to stop being needy don’t forget to watch this video, and put into practice the ideas you’ve learned so far.

The truth is that you don’t have to be needy. It’s not a fixed personality trait. It’s a mere habit you’ve picked up over the years through some bad social conditioning. You can completely remove this conditioning and be the confident person you want to be. Many before you have managed to do so.

Image courtesy of blinkingidiot

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Relationships Tagged With: , , , Leave a Comment
March 8, 2013

How to Stop Being Self-Conscious

Are you frequently self-conscious when around other people? Does your attention automatically go to your body, clothes, behavior or overall person, and you feel somewhat awkward or insecure? Well, you can learn how to stop being self-conscious and put an end to all of this.

As a social confidence coach, I work with people who are self-conscious on a regular basis. Individuals who are shy, or socially anxious, or they don’t think too highly of themselves are typically also very self-conscious in social settings. And I help them overcome this.

I’d like to show you how they manage to overcome being self-conscious. By applying the ideas that I’m about to share with you, you will be able to attain the same results as them.

Alcohol Isn’t the Way

I was recently chatting with a friend and the topic of how to stop being self-conscious came up. He half jokingly commented: “Oh, it’s easy to stop feeling self-conscious! Just have a couple of drinks. It works for me!”

The truth is that many people do relax and become more comfortable in social settings by drinking just a bit. I’ve certainly experienced this myself. A beer or a couple of shots can reduce the overanalyzing that’s going on in your head and gets you feelings self-conscious, thus making you feel more confident.

However, this is not by far the best solution, and I don’t ever recommend it. It makes you dependent on drinking in social settings in order to feel comfortable; it doesn’t address the roots of the problem, it makes it even harder to feel comfortable without drinking, it damages your health in the long-run, and it creates all sorts of other tangential problems.

So, drinking is out. It’s time to consider better alternatives regarding how to stop being self-conscious.

Practice Shifting Your Attention on Others

Self-consciousA big component of feeling self-conscious is the fact your attention is focused on you. But if you deliberately shift your attention away from you, on other people or on the environment, you’ll immediately begin to relax.

This is why shifting your attention is a great exercise to practice. Whenever you’re feeling self-conscious, try to swing your focus away from your own person.

For instance, if you’re having a conversation and the other person is talking, focus on what they’re saying. Listen attentively to them instead of contemplating the way you look or whatever.

With practice you’ll get better at shifting your focus and you’ll be able to loosen up more and more in social situations.

The “Stop” Technique

A very useful and simple technique to stop feeling self-conscious is this: notice your internal dialog for just a second or two, and then yell to yourself in your inner forum (not out loud): “STOP!!!”

You see, when around others, you’re probably questioning and criticizing yourself in your internal dialog, and this makes you feel self-conscious.

By using this technique, you’re commanding your fault-finding thinking to end and you’re interrupting it. This instantly brings a sensation of relief.

The trouble though is that usually the effect will only last a couple of minutes, and then your self-doubting will be back. This is just a temporary fix. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to implement a permanent solution for your problem. And that solution can only be to…

Change Your Self-Image and Your Perception

Ultimately, people who are self-conscious are this way because at some level they think they’re not good enough, or that they must always get others to like them, or some other irrational stuff like that.

This is what makes them focus on themselves and become very aware of their faults in social situations. If you would truly like yourself, be okay with some people not linking you, and so on, you wouldn’t focus on you and you wouldn’t become self-conscious in the first place.

So really the definitive solution to stop being self-conscious is to work on changing your thinking and your self-image.

The good news as that beyond all the self-help junk, there are some proven psychological tools that you now have available for doing this, which work incredibly fast.

I talk about them in this special presentation, which I recommend you watch right now. It could be one of the most useful and motivating presentations you’ve watched in a long time. So make sure you check it out.

I’ve been helping people learn to look at themselves, others and the world in new, better ways for the past 5+ years. I know this is a change any person can achieve with the right tools and consistent application.

And I know that with a better self-image and gained confidence, a whole lot of things become possible. Being significantly less self-conscious is just the beginning.

Image courtesy of Anne Ruthmann

Filed Under: Attitude, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 2 Comments
February 22, 2012

How to Stop Being Shy

If you’re shy, learning how to stop being shy, whether it’s around girls, guys or people in general could be one of the most important things you’ll learn in your entire life.

Once you understand how to stop being shy, you can become more confident, connect with others better and have and enormous amount of fun in social settings. As a social confidence coach, I’ve been able to observe repeatedly how learning this can turn a person’s life around.

There is a lot of advice out there on how to stop being shy. Regrettably, most of it comes from people who don’t have a real comprehension of the psychology of shyness, and it’s too naive or vague to actually do anything for you.

I want to provide you the advice that truly works. So I’m gonna point out the four crucial actions that if you take, will truly allow you to stop being so shy.

Step 1: Stop Being Shy by Starting To Be More Social

Shy people typically get this the other way around. Many social settings make them feel anxious, so they try to find ways to get rid of this social anxiety from home, so they can then be more social.

But the trick is that to a large degree, you get rid of the anxiety by being more social.

Even if social settings make you nervous, you get into them anyway instead of avoiding them. Even if being more talkative is challenging for you, you push yourself to talk more anyway.

You deliberately do the things you fear. And as you do so, you gain social experience and you gradually become more accustomed to engaging in social interactions. Thus, your shyness dwindles away.

If you find it too hard to push against the anxiety and be more outgoing, you simply have to find social opportunities where it’s easier to do so. Start with those and gradually move up. This is a key idea concerning how to stop being shy.

Step 2: Catch Your Distorted Thinking Patterns 

Working with shy people, I’ve noticed that without exception, they have a way of seeing themselves and seeing social interactions that is largely inaccurate.

For instance, they may see themselves as uninteresting when this is clearly not the case, or they may think others are making fun on them in a social settings although there is little evidence to support this notion.

When talking about how to stop being shy, I always emphasize how important it is to identify this inaccurate thinking.

Doing so achieves two things. First, it gives you more motivation to go out, face your fears and be social, because you know your fears are not rational. Second, it enables you to correct the flaws in your thinking. Which leads me to my next point…

Step 3: Put Your Thinking Straight

I often like to refer to shyness as a mental bug. You’re thinking is bugged: it generates distorted predictions and interpretations, which creates nervousness. And you need to debug your mind.

Once you know what’s inaccurate in your thinking, you can start to practice thinking in a new, more constructive way.

You can begin to see your qualities, not just your flaws, see the things you do right, not just the things you do wrong, and not make a big deal out of doing something silly in front of others once in a while.

This video I created explains in more detail how to correct your thinking effectively and make the fastest progress possible. Make sure to check it out.

As you practice this new type of thinking, it gradually replaces the old type and it builds your social confidence.

Step 4: Keep Walking. Keep Practicing

The last but possibly the most valuable thing to realize is that once you know how to stop being shy, it’s not enough. It’s the implementation that yields results.

I’ve seen many people turn from shy to social: young and old, guys and girls. What they all have in common is that they found a method for overcoming shyness that works and they applied it consistently for at least a couple of months.

And through this continuous application over a period of time, they effectively reprogrammed their thinking, feelings and behavior. This is what enabled them to be more outgoing, make friends and fully enjoy social interactions.

Watch this presentation I designed to find out the exact steps these people applied to eradicate their shyness. If you want to achieve the same results, this is a must see presentation.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep walking; to apply the knowledge consistently.

One of the most common mistakes shy people make is that they give up too soon, often when the results just started to show and their confidence is close to taking off. And this is precisely what keeps them stuck.

Learn, apply, persist and be willing to invest in yourself. This is the recipe for the utmost success in overcoming your shyness. There is a big, beautiful world out there, with lots of cool people in it. And they’re all waiting for you.

Image courtesy of dreamylittledancer

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 65 Comments
June 21, 2010

Stop Trying to Control Your Emotions!

A lot of people think that I teach others how to control their emotions in order to improve their communication and people skills. I don’t. And let me make it clear right off the bat: I believe that trying to control your emotions is messy, dangerous and ineffective stuff.

Emotions are not meant to be controlled

Emotions are not supposed to be something we have direct and instant power over. That would defeat their purpose. Imagine one of our ancestors in the Stone Age who is attacked by a hungry bear, feels fear and has the impulse to run like hell.

But then, he decides: “Hey, I’m gonna control my fear and try to negotiate with this bear.” And he somehow switches off his fear just like that. You would have a dead caveman in the next 5 seconds, regardless of his people skills (a… bear skills). Our species would be extinct if we could all command emotions like that.

So, what is it that I teach within my attitude-based approach? What is it that you can effectively do about those nasty negative emotions you don’t want? The point is this:

Instead of trying to control your emotions, learn to manage them.

Controlling emotions vs. Managing emotions

Managing your emotions is subtly but meaningfully different than trying to control them. When you try to control your emotions, you do so by rejecting and repressing them. It’s like putting a cap over a pot of boiling water and pretending the water isn’t boiling. I see this as a bad idea for several reasons:

  • It requires a lot of effort and is intrinsically painful;
  • It doesn’t really work; you can only control your emotions to a small degree;
  • The emotions eventually bottle up and they overwhelm you;
  • In the long term, the whole process is stressful and damaging to your health.

Managing your emotions is not about trying to reject them or repress them. It’s not a combative process, it’s a transformational process. To manage your emotions means to:

  • Accept they are there and there’s a positive intention behind them;
  • Understand both the external aspects of your life and the internal aspects of your thinking which create them, amplify them and sustain them;
  • Address these aspects and change them, in order to change your emotional reactions.

When you manage your emotions, they do not change all of a sudden. There are leaps in awareness in this process which can create instant emotional changes, but for the most part, the whole process is gradual. It takes place step by step, as you either change how your life is or how you habitually think about it.

Sometimes, negative emotions are just signals that you’re doing things that are not aligned with your values and an external change is required; sometimes they are signals that your thinking in certain situations is irrational and an internal change is required.

Either way, by managing you are not addressing your emotions head on and you are not fighting them. You are going to the root of your emotions, you are pulling out the weeds and you are planting new seeds. This is why in a very Zen way, managing your emotions makes a lot more sense than trying to control your emotions.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 13 Comments