Alexis Silver Therapy provides support and encouragement to clients while teaching coping skills to manage difficult emotions, handle stressful situations and increase problem solving skills. Call Alexis today at (508) 579-2748 to learn more!

The Best Way to Rebuild Your Confidence and Re-Enter the World

Success starts when we recalibrate our inner compass from self-doubt to self-confidence. This self-confidence emboldens us to re-enter the world, ready to live our best lives. You might have a plan to change your life to meet your career goals. Alexis Silver Therapy outlines the best ways to build your confidence.

Make a Career Change

To some people, re-entering the world means making a career change. Some reasons for this are the opportunity for remote work and better opportunities in other companies. If you want to showcase your academic background, career experiences, and skills, you can create an appealing resume quickly and easily using a curriculum vitae design template. Using a free online CV builder, you can choose from a large library of professionally designed templates, which are customizable, allowing you to add your own text, fonts, and profile photo.

Also, Forbes notes that returning to school helps you make a career change. You can pursue a degree that you’ve put off for some time, whether it’s a bachelor’s or master’s, an online course, or a certificate program. A business degree could allow you to develop your business acumen, whether you’re pursuing a course in marketing, economics, finance, business ethics, or an IT-related course. This move increases your chances of getting the next career prospect. As you research the many options of programs available online, here’s a good option when it comes to completing coursework from an accredited school – a course can be completed in just five weeks.

Start Your Own Business

A great way to build your confidence is to pursue entrepreneurship. You stand to gain from earning more instead of living from paycheck to paycheck. You also get the freedom to schedule your time. For this approach to succeed, you need to develop a business plan that clearly delineates your services, business structure, and the capital required for operations.

No doubt, the entrepreneur path is challenging. Tackling them is what helps build confidence. One of the main challenges is invoicing clients. Most beginners fail to clarify when and how they want to be paid. It’s essential to have a consistent, easy-to-use invoice system to help you avoid getting frustrated and expand. You can also clarify payment terms, send your invoice promptly to clients, and set up various payment methods. An invoice template helps you create professional-looking invoices with your logo. There’s an assortment of pre-made templates online that you can customize by adding your name or other pertinent information.

Deep Clean Your Home

Giving your home a deep cleaning may be one of the first things you can do to rebuild your confidence. A clean home is a happy home, and since it’s where you spend most of your time it makes sense that a clean, uncluttered and organized living space is conducive to good mental and physical health. For advice, tips and tricks on how to best clean your home for optimal living, click here to read articles that are sure to help you.

Focus on Fitness and Nutrition

Fitness boosts self-confidence. Research published by the National Institutes of Health shows that losing excess weight and toning the muscles helps you feel better. Yet only 42.1% of people in Texas, for example, manage at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity weekly exercise according to the CDC. This number can be more should you choose to start a fitness routine if you don’t already have one. Incorporate fitness into your daily life, and you’ll see your confidence improve.

Fitness goes together with eating nutritiously. When you lay off the Beaver nuggets, burgers, and fries or swap them with healthier alternatives, you’ll build your confidence by getting a healthier body and mind.

Find Ways to Relax

As you pursue a career change or entrepreneurship, it’s important to schedule a time to relax. You need your body to be more productive in achieving your goals. So, create time for relaxation in your daily routine where you can take a stroll in nature, write down your thoughts, or breathe.

Change Today

It is possible to build your confidence and re-enter the world. This is the best time to make it your goal to reinvent yourself. With the above tips in mind – including changing jobs, going back to school, cleaning your home, staying healthy, and finding ways to relax – you’ll be better equipped to re-enter your life and get re-energized to accomplish your life goals.

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We live in a society that rewards those with courage and valor. We are taught from a young age that it’s good to face our fears, for doing so is often the catalyst for powerful and lasting change.

And yet, how many of us allow ourselves to be vulnerable?

Think of the amount of courage it takes to allow yourself to be in a position where your heart might get broken. To say “I love you” first. How much courage does it take to put yourself out there and make new friends? Go for that promotion? Rely on others instead of only ourselves?

The Benefits of Vulnerability

We know the obvious benefits of courage. Wars are won, bad guys are put in jail, people are saved from burning buildings. But how can we benefit from being vulnerable?

More Intimacy

Opening up to another human being and sharing your deepest emotions is what ultimately builds healthy and lasting relationships. When we expose our authentic selves, we set ourselves up for potential heartache, yes, but also for ultimate connection.

Better Self-Worth

Being vulnerable also allows us to accept ourselves as we are, flaws and all. This helps us to STOP comparing ourselves to others and experience a tremendous boost in our self-esteem and self-worth.

It Begets Compassion

Getting comfortable with our own vulnerability means we can also be comfortable with others’. And this means, in those times when the people in our lives show their vulnerability to us, we can respond with compassion.

Start the Journey

As they say, every journey starts with a single step. Your journey toward embracing your own vulnerabilities will also start with a single step. This may mean spending more quiet time alone. It may mean the next time a good friend asks, “How are you?” you tell them the truth.

It may also mean digging deep and uncovering some old wounds and darkness that you have been ignoring. And for this part of the journey, you may want to consider seeking guidance from a trained therapist who can offer tools and advice.

If you’d like some assistance on your journey, please get in touch with me. I’d be more than happy to discuss how I may be able to help.

RESOURCES:

• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/200810/the-power-be-vulnerable-part-1-3
• https://intentioninspired.com/6-powerful-benefits-of-vulnerability-and-shame/
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201801/how-vulnerable-should-you-let-yourself-be

Many people set goals to get in better physical shape. They want tighter buns, six pack abs and arms that never jiggle. But how many people decide to work on their inner selves?

No matter what we look like on the outside, it’s who we are on the inside that really dictates our lives. Self-esteem reflects the relationship we have with ourselves. The better this relationship is, the better our other relationships can be.

Most of us could use a good self-esteem boost. What’s the best way to do that? Through goal setting.

But these goals can’t be just any ol’ goals. To really set ourselves up for success, we need to set S.M.A.R.T. goals. Smart stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

What does this look like in real life?

Is there something you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t gotten around to? Perhaps you started a project a while ago but have yet to complete it. Deep down this lack of completion has caused your self-esteem to take a hit.

Let’s say you’ve been wanting (and very much needing) to clean out the garage. You’ve probably said to yourself, “I’ve really got to go through the garage and throw a bunch of stuff out.”

That’s an okay start, but as goals go, it’s pretty vague. Let’s use S.M.A.R.T. goals to get the job done.

Here’s a Specific goal: “I am going to clean out and reorganize the garage.”

That’s good. Now how do we make that Measurable? Let’s add some words that will help us know when and if we complete our goal. “I am going to clean out and reorganize the garage so both cars and all of our bikes fit.”

You’ll also want to be able to measure your progress toward your goal to be certain you are staying on track. So, you could decide to spend two hours each Saturday and Sunday for the next 4 weeks. If you do that, you will know you’re on the right path to achieving your goal. If you don’t meet these milestones, you’ll know you’ve gotten off-track.

Now let’s talk about whether or not your goal is Achievable. Well, other human beings have cleaned out and organized their garage, so you know it’s possible. You have the desire and you’ve carved out an appropriate amount of time to complete the job. Yep, this seems like a very achievable goal!

Instead of cleaning out the garage you already have, your goal could have been to build a new garage by yourself all in one weekend, but no, that would not have been an achievable goal.

You know your goal is achievable, but is the schedule you’ve set for yourself Realistic? Do you actually have 4 hours on the weekend to devote to this project, or with your work and family time, is half an hour more realistic? While it’s understandable you want to get the job done as fast as possible, you also don’t want to set yourself up for failure. So be sure your schedule is realistic.

And lastly, you’ll need to set a Time-bound deadline for the attainment of your goal. Will this task be completed in 4 weeks? Will it take two months? Choose a deadline that’s reasonable and motivating at the same time. It’s a balance between being practical and pushing yourself slightly. A date too far in the future could kill your motivation.

Let’s recap. We started with the vague goal of “I’ve really got to go through the garage and throw a bunch of stuff out” and ended up with “I am going to spend four hours every weekend for the next four weeks cleaning out and reorganizing the garage so that both cars and all of our bikes fit.” Now you have a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound (SMART) goal with built-in milestones to get you there. But more importantly, you’ve made a promise to yourself, and keeping this promise is what will enhance your self-esteem.

Of course, sometimes it takes a little more work than reaching a goal to lift our self-esteem. There are experiences in our lives that can truly devastate our sense of self-worth, and often we need the guidance of a therapist to help us recover our sense of identity and self-esteem.

If you or a loved one have struggled with self-esteem issues and are interested in exploring treatment, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.