A confidence building exercise on building awareness

Sep 22, 2011 by DianeCorriette

When it comes to confidence building the first step to making an big change is awareness, and although monitoring every thought you have is a time consuming exercise it is exactly what I am going to ask you to do! Well at least for 7-10 days.

Every time you have a negative thought, a thought that doesn’t make you feel good, or a thought that is focused on bad feelings towards something else, whenever you catch yourself I want you to ask the question

“Where has that thought originated from?”
“What is the underlying purpose behind that thought?”

There will be a reason you are having that thought. Maybe it stems from needing to be right, or wanting to protect yourself. Perhaps you need to make yourself feel better by making other people feel bad. What you may come up with is that you are just too hard on yourself, or you do not have a good word to say.

I want you to keep a notebook and carry it round, making a note of your thoughts for the next week. Then take a look at them and make the decision to end the thoughts that do not empower you or make you/others feel good.

Only after completing this exercise for 7-10 days (you can go on for longer if you wish, your choice!) do you end by choosing new thoughts. You have to know what thoughts you want to rid yourself of and what new thoughts you will use instead.

So make a table with two headings “Old disempowering thoughts” and “New thoughts by choice” then write them down. Again this can seem time consuming but will be worth it. Writing it down lets your unconscious mind know it is time to think differently, it begins to build a picture in your mind of where you want to go with your thoughts instead.
Affirm “I have the power to choose my thoughts and I choose empowering thoughts as often as possible”

Say this confidence building affirmation as many times as you can during the day and night.

The best times being when you wake up and as you fall asleep.

Visualize: See yourself thinking empowering thoughts and begin to connect to the feelings of personal power that arise as your thoughts change.

Use your affirmation and visualization together as often as you can. Speak it, see it and feel it, then take action to make it so.

Now with this exercise you are looking at a long-term commitment.

Your thoughts may magically change overnight and you will feel empowered and alive, however you may want to give yourself a break too. Rather than use having negative thoughts as a reason to be hard on yourself recognize that this is a journey

If you want to learn an easy way to create and use confidence building affirmations <== read this blog post and watch out for more confidence building exercises.

About Diane Corriette

I write on this self development blog about building self confidence, and living a life of full self expression where you are free to be you. Being able to be confident is not so much about how you think but what you feel. To successfully build self confidence you must use your thoughts to create an image of who you want to be, and your emotions to help you feel this amazing new you and then visualise & focus on it until it becomes your reality.