Hiten Vyas's Blog, page 8

How to Stand Out From the Crowd

In this day and age, there are some key characteristics that differentiate those who settle for less, from those who strive for the best they can be. Perhaps you’re looking for ways to really stand out and make something of your life. The desire to do so is there. However, maybe you’re not sure what you need do.

Below are some tips you can use to maximise your potential and leap ahead of the rest:

Have passion

Is there something you’re passionate about? It could be making a major change in your personal life. Perhaps it’s undertaking a project at work. Maybe it’s standing up for the rights of a group of underprivileged group. Having a deep passion about something, which can make you dream about it, is the kind of thing I’m talking about. If you have this level of passion, then you have the seeds to stand out from the crowd.

Take action

Passion without action is like having tea without a cup to drink it in. Those individuals who are true successes turn their passions into concrete actions, which drive them to create the change they want to see. When you have found out your passion do what you can to make it a reality.

Go the extra mile

Extra work doesn’t mean anything to those, who go all out to achieve excellence. In fact, they expect to do more work than the average person as it this extra effort that will result in the larger rewards. Put in the extra effort in your work. Spend additional time with your family and friends to enhance your relationships. Help others beyond the call of duty.

Make the best of strengths and weaknesses

Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. Those who are high achievers make a conscious effort to bring to light their strengths and weaknesses, understand the importance of both and know how to use them wisely. Consider how your current strengths support you and use those strengths with focus to help you achieve what you want. List your weaknesses and reflect on which ones you can work on, to increase your abilities and competencies.

Have a positive attitude

Successful people generally spend more of their time being positive than they do negative. While other people around them are talking about the sorry state of their lives, respective nations and anything else that can be moaned about, high achievers remain happy, positive and focused.

Learn to look for the good in everything, including other people. Even if your mind tries to get you to be pessimistic, train it to look the other way, through understanding and practicing the cultivating of good thoughts and attitudes. The power to think is yours. You also have the power to divert your thoughts to happiness and positivity.

Continue to break down stumbling blocks

Those who get ahead in life are not superhuman. Just like other people, they do have problems, fears, worries, anxieties and bad days. However, those who overcome their difficulties are committed to doing so. Just like they have a passion to change their lives and the world they live in, they are also passionate about overcoming personal adversities, as they see these as opportunities to continue their journeys on the road to success.

Aim to do something that pushes you, way out of your comfort area at least once a week. This will help you to continue to overcome self-created mental barriers, whose only goal is to prevent you from realising your potential.

Friends, it’s over to you:

What other factors differentiate those who stand out in the world from those who settle for less?
What do you do personally, to help you aim high and achieve remarkable results?
Please share your valuable views, experiences and thoughts in the comments box below.
Please also share this post on your favourite social networks.

How to deal with stress

Life in 2013 can be stressful. You might be working long hours and not seeing much of your family. You may not be finding time to socialise and hang out with your friends. You might be worried about prospects for the future, especially in these difficult economic times.

However, there a number of things you can do to help yourself stay relaxed and resourceful in your daily life. Below are some tips on how you can deal with stress:

Take a break

This may seem obvious. However, in the midst of stressful times, sometimes something as obvious as taking breaks can seem a very hard option to see. Ideally take a peaceful holiday for at least a week. Or if this isn’t possible, take a long weekend off and go and see some new sights, hear some interesting sounds and get a feel of a place you’ve never been to before.

Practice yoga and meditation

Making attendance to a yoga class a regular occurrence will do wonders for reducing your stress levels, even if it’s just attending one class a week. By the end of the class your stress will have gone. You can also meditate every day for 10 minutes. Just focus on observing your breathing and allow your worries to arise and pass away.

Get proper sleep

Create a habit of getting to bed at a decent hour. The earlier you can the better. The more sleep you get, the better you’ll be able to function the following day. Get into a routine where you’re getting at least 7 hours of sleep every night.

Cut down on the coffee

Although a cup of coffee can be great to drink during a break from work, too much coffee will not help you in reducing stress. If anything the caffeine inside will only keep you awake later in the day when you really need to sleep. If you’re not sleeping properly already, then too much coffee will actually increase your stress.

Just focus on what you have to do, not on the outcome

One way your stress levels increase is when you’re too focused on achieving the outcome of a particular task you’re undertaking. Of course, you want to succeed in whatever you’re doing. However, by getting too emotionally involved in the outcome you want, you run the risk of basing your happiness, on getting the outcome. Rather than this, just focus on what you are doing, and allow the outcome to be whatever it will be.

Plan you day

You can reduce stress simply by planning your day better. If you’re working from the office or at home, make a plan of the main activities, prioritise them and give yourself time limits for their completion.  This will help you to spend maximum time on critical tasks and spend minimum time or any at all on those activities, which are not important.  Once you have completed an activity, check it off as being done. By doing this you will have a sense of achievement before you move onto the next task.

My friends, it’s over to you:

What other ways can you think of to reduce stress?
Please share your valuable views, thoughts and experiences in the comments box below.
Please also share this post on your favourite social networks.

Exploring ways to create more options over at Aha!NOW

Harleena Singh, a freelance writer and blogger, is a very good friend of mine. She is also the owner of the hugely popular Aha!NOW, which is a Self-Development, Life, and Family (SELF) help blogzine.

I’ve written a guest post over at Aha!NOW, entitled How to Create Life Options for Yourself. Please do check it out and join in, in the discussion over at Harleena’s fabulous blogzine.

 

Photo Credit: exfordy

How to create influence

In order to make progress in life, be it your professional or personal endeavours, you will need to get things done. In order to do this, you will need the help of other people. Some of these people will be very busy. Others may not know you that well. To get people to support you, you will need to influence them to take certain likes of action.

Below are tips are on how you can build influence:

Help others when they ask

Always have an attitude of being willing to help people. When people request help and you’re in a position to do so, help them. When you do something for someone or do them a favour, the other person will naturally feel like wanting to reciprocate.

When your time comes and you want to do something, you can call upon people you have helped previously to assist you, as they will be more willing to do so.

Be likable

When you’re friendly and cheerful, you’re happy. When you’re happy it helps spread happiness to people you’re interacting with. It rubs off on them. If people like you and enjoy being around you because of the positive vibes you give off, they will be more willing to help you when you need assistance.

Actively listen to people

We were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. However, we can forget this at times. Active listening means genuinely listening to other people when they talk with you. This means allowing them to finish first before speaking and asking them questions, which shows interest and concern in what they’re saying.

Compliment people when they have earned it

People like to hear good things about themselves. When people have done something you admire, give them a genuine compliment telling them so. What’s important is you also tell the person, what in particular you liked about what they did. This type of compliment will carry more meaning.

Build connections

The greater your network of contacts, the bigger your influence, as you have a wide number of people you can call upon. Once you begin to network, you need to work on developing these relationships, through making effort to get to know them, meeting up with them and helping them out.

Ask for help

A good way to create influence is to ask for help when you need it from those who are in authority and already have influence themselves. People in general like to help and by asking those in authority, it will help to reinforce their sense of their own authority and power while giving you what you need in the process.

Borrow influence of others

You can also partner yourself up with people who are already in influential positions. By doing this, your perceived influence in the eyes of others will increase and your leeway to carry out certain actions will increase.

Build trust

All the points previously in this post contribute to making you someone other people can trust, which is the most important factor when it comes to creating influence. If people trust you, then they will be more willing to help you.

My friends, it’s over to you:

What other tips can you share to help us build our influence?
What are your opinions on the area of influence?
Please share your valuable views, thoughts and experiences in the comments box below.
Please also share this post on your favourite social networks.

How to improve your business calls

If your work involves developing new business, making business calls such as cold calls might be something you have to do. Making calls to people you don’t know might be challenging for you. Below are some tips you can use to help you pick up the phone and start making calls.

Grab a quiet meeting room and make your calls

Cold calling is about confidence. A great way to increase your confidence is to make a list of companies you want to call, grab a quiet meeting room at the office and make your calls. This way you get to practice and you won’t be self-conscious about other colleagues sitting around you and listening to your calls. Doing this also helps you to develop your pitch and what you say to potential clients on the phone.

Observe an experienced colleague make business calls

One of the most effective ways of learning is through observing others. You can improve your ability to make cold calls by asking a more experienced colleague to sit with you for half an hour and watch him or her make some cold calls. You can then model your colleague when you sit down and make calls by yourself. If your colleague is especially good, you can even imagine you are your colleague when you make your own calls.

Have a good, confident introduction ready

What makes cold calls easier is having an assertive introduction ready to say as soon as the person you’re calling picks up the phone. This could be something, “good afternoon, my name is John Davies and I’m calling from an ABC Limited”. A confident introduction will put you in good shape for the rest of the call.

Have ready the reason why you’re calling

In order to continue with a confident business call, have ready the reason why you’re calling. If your company develops products for the sector of the company you’re calling, explain what your company does and ask whether the person you’re talking with wants to know more. If he or she says yes, then you can continue with your pitch.

End the call with an action

The purpose of a business call is to get an opportunity to talk further about what you can offer to the company you’re talking with. In order to do this, arrange a face to face meeting at the end of the call or a further longer call at a later date. At the very least agree to send further material about what your company can offer to the individual via e-mail.

Confirm the meeting with an e-mail

If you arranged a face to face meeting, right after the call, send an e-mail to the person you were talking with, thanking them for their time, confirming your meeting date and time. End your message by telling him or her you look forward to meeting them.

Continue learning from your calls

Cold calling gets easier and your competence increases through practice. After each call, reflect for a short period about how the call went, what you said and how the person you were talking with responded. Make a note of how you can adapt your style the next time you make a call, so that you are continuously learning from your experiences.

My friends, it’s over to you:

Do you make business calls such as cold calls or warm calls?

How do you approach such calls?

Can you think of any other tips we can add to help us with our business calls?

Please share your views, thoughts and experiences in the comments box below.

Please also share this post on your favourite social networks.

If you liked this post, check of the latest posts of the following awesome bloggers:

Jon Mertz

Jodi Aman

Dan Black

How Provocative Coaching Can Help You Achieve Success in Your Life

Today we give a warm welcome to husband and wife, Mohammed Rafi and Sareena Ikbal of Inspiringcitizen.com who have written this very special guest post.

You are good for nothing and that’s why you’re reading this article.

You are a willing learner and that’s why you’re reading this article, I believe.

And please excuse me if I provoked you with my first sentence.

It was just to give you a picture of the provocative style that was initiated by Frank Farrelly and carried over to the rest of the world by Sue Knight and Ashok Subramanian.

And are you wondering how it is going to help you? I will come to that in a bit.

Before that, my 2 cents advise to you. Please be patient and kindly avoid speed reading, if you want to get the full essence of this style and article.

I met Ashok Subramanian for the first time in Sep 2012 and I consider that meeting to be the biggest turning point of my life.

We spent 5 days at Atheeth Ashram, which is on the outskirts of Bangalore City for my NLP Practitioner Program. It was a truly enriching journey because of the ambiance, the people, the food, the nature, the weather and if you let me go then I will keep on going.

It’s for you to experience if you want to achieve success and lead a well-balanced life with full of joy and happiness.

For every question I asked, Ashok would give me a corresponding question which was provocative in nature. However, it was given with a coating of love and honesty to make myself realize the problems and find solutions. It has hugely benefited me in seeing the points that I have ignored in the past.

These days I provoke my colleagues, friends and family members to help them lead a happy life. They had the same feeling that I had with Ashok; they were able to see the point after I provoked them.

I kept on asking questions to Ashok right from the first day of our NLP program. He never gave me any answer that was convincing to me. On day 3, I asked him why he was not giving answers to my questions, to which he asked me to keep quiet for a while.

I got angry at him because of the way he responded to me. But after going to my room I did a deep introspection which gave me a compelling answer. I was talking too much and if I kept quiet and looked deep down in my heart, I would get answers to all my questions.

That was the time that I realized the value and understood the meaning of Ashok’s provocative coaching style which he learned from Frank Farrelly and Sue Knight.

I was a completely different man after the program was over. With those beautiful memories I boarded the bus to God’s own country, Kerala, the place where I and Sareena live our life.

Sareena (my wife) will tell you what happened after this and you will be surprised to see how a wife handled a supposedly mad husband..!

Rafi was for sure tired, but I could sense some difference in him.  Of course he has shed some weight, but I sensed a positive energy radiating from him. He is usually a calm person but I felt that he had become calmer.

He spoke much less and started saying sorry and thank you frequently, for whatever I did for him. This was shocking and I thought he was mad..!

I just asked him to stop all this nonsense and behave normally. However, he just smiled at me and said to keep quiet for some time and calm your mind.

I started thinking all sorts of negative things. I thought of calling Ashok and asking him “what have you done to my love? I want my Rafi as the same person.

Rafi, who is brilliant in reading my thoughts, hugged me, sat beside me and said “I am your same old loving husband dear, but now I have started loving you even more”. I was at sixes and sevens at his comment.

He then told me about the provocative NLP training, about the great human being Ashok and the transformation he had undergone. He told me that Ashok made him realise that his heart was becoming tougher and he provoked him to make it more loving and lighter.

This increased my curiosity and I decided to attend Ashok’s training along with my husband.

Ashok’s dress was not very impressive to me and I told him the same.

Now, you will see the first provocation that he posed at me.

“If you don’t like the way I dress up, then it’s your problem because you want me to dress up the way you want to”.

My first NLP learning and yes, for sure, now I was impressed by this man.

The only thing that I didn’t like about Ashok was that he never gave answers to our questions. When I asked him something, he just responded by asking a counter question and this was frustrating for me.

However, now I realise the benefit of those provocative questions. It led me to ask more questions to myself and find the answers.

Provocative love may seem frustrating, but effective. It will lead you to discover your true self.

Now, Rafi will tell you the 5 main benefits of Provocative Coaching and Provocative Love.

1. You will do a self-introspection

Let me ask you a question!

Why are you reading this article?

I guess you are looking for tips to achieve success.

Rubbish!!!

The beauty of provocative coaching is that it will prepare you to find answers from within, rather than searching in the dark.

Most people seek guidance from others for their problems. But if you provoke a person coated with love, then they will find their own solutions and they will thank you for this.

2. You will stop asking questions

When something good happens to you, do you ever ask – Why me?

Then why do you ask – Why me? when you are posed with a problem.

This method will teach you to seek answers rather than questioning everything. You will develop a new perspective about life and you will embark on a new journey, which is what I am doing now.

3. You will learn the art of receiving and giving feedback

When you empty your heart and brain from perceptions, you will start accepting feedback and people.

Receiving negative feedback with an open heart is the hallmark of great people. Provocative coaching will help you to take negative feedback with an open heart and make adjustments to achieve success in your life.

You will also learn how to give feedback to people and help them towards their journey of excellence.

4. Importance of giving attention to details

People are used to giving importance to the big stuff. But they neglect the minor ones.

Simple stuff like saying thank you and sorry can play a huge role in your life.

I also learned to express my love towards my wife, friends and family members. Before this I never used to express my love.

At times you need to let people know that you love them. You will understand the importance of helping your wife in cooking or cleaning the home.

5. Helps you realise that you are the best and the worst

This will teach you to hope for the best and prepare yourself for the worst.

Provocations can tell you that you are capable of achieving everything in life.

At the same time, it will tell you that you are just a negligible piece of atom that can disintegrate at any point of time. Basically, it will help you shed your ego and helps you realize that you need to be more human.

If you wan’t to know more about provocative style then you can connect with me at mohamedrafi19@gmail.com.

We sincerely thank Hiten for giving us the opportunity to write this article for you.

Over to You:

What do you think of the provocative style of coaching?

Have you ever used this type of communication to help other people?

Have you ever had anyone use this type of communication to help you?

Please share your valuable thoughts, views and experiences in the comments box below.

Please also share this post on your favourite social networks.

About the Authors:

Rafi and Sareena are born for you and for each other. If you want to lead a happy, healthy and wealthy life then we are here to help you. Like you and Hiten, we are ordinary human beings with an extraordinary heart. So you will find it easy and beautiful to connect with us. We can also help you explore the world of NLP, Fire-walking, Blogging, Social media marketing and more importantly how to lead a happy life, which is what you strive for. Please visit our website and read our article on dealing with difficult people.

Photo Credit: RDECOM

100 Words

My friend Corinne Rodrigues started a great little initiative over at her blog and invited others to participate. What one does is to write 100 words on a prompt, which Corinne releases on her 100 words post, every Saturday. The words you write can be in poem format, a story or a short essay.

Last Saturday, Corinne’s prompt was: BE CAREFUL.

So here I go…

Be Careful

Your thoughts are yours and use them wisely. When you’re not careful about your thinking, you let your imagination run wild and you feel bad about yourself. The world you live in seems like a difficult place. When you take care of your thoughts, not only do you change, but the world around you begins to look different. Observe what you think with vigilance. Be careful about what you let into your minds. When you do this with persistence and compassion, your efforts will be rewarded. For all the good things you imagine and dream of, might just come true.

 

Photo Credit: kirstyhall

How to Give a Great Presentation

“Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.”

~ Dale Carnegie

Most of us have to give a presentation at some point.

Presentations come in various different styles. You might have to give a presentation at college or university, in order to pass a particular module.

Perhaps you have to give presentations at work to give feedback on your progress. Maybe you have to give presentations to potential clients to make sales.

You might need to pitch your business idea to investors to attract investment.

Usually the content of what you will talk about will be dependent on what you are presenting and who you are presenting to.

However, there are a number of key principles that one needs to get right in any type of presentation. Below are some pointers to help you deliver a great presentation.

1. Know your material

Whatever material you are presenting, ensure you know what it is you’re talking about. By knowing the content you will be able to speak about it with confidence.

You can make a note of the key bullet points you want to talk about on a piece of paper and then write a few sentences under each bullet point, which will form the basis for your presentation.

2. Have a structure to your presentation

When you’re preparing your material remember to have a beginning, middle and an end. If you are giving a presentation using PowerPoint for instance, then as a beginning you could introduce to your audience what you will be presenting in your talk.

The middle would then be talking about the specific points you said you would in your introduction and you could finish off with summarising what you talked about.

3. Rehearse well

Once you’ve got your presentation down in note form, rehearse what you’re going to say 3-4 times or more if possible. Rehearsing will help increase your confidence in being able to deliver your material and will help you to remember the key points you want to get across during the actual presentation.

4. Use visuals where you can

These days the use of PowerPoint is usually the standard way to give presentations in the corporate world and also in other sectors such as the public services.

While you’re speaking you want to try and keep your audience engaged as much as possible. You can help to do this by using images and photos in your presentation slides.

This makes the whole experience of listening and watching your presentation more enjoyable for your audience.

5. Use your eyes properly

When you’re presenting, a great thing to aim for is to create as much rapport as you can with your audience, so that you maximise your chances of getting the message you want to get across, to as many people as possible.

You can do this by glancing at members of your audience when you’re speaking, so that everyone feels included in your presentation.

6. Use hand gestures

When you’re giving your presentation, where possible use your hands to support the arguments you are conveying.

However, there’s a fine balance to be achieved when using gestures. You want to use gestures only if they really do help emphasis what you’re saying. Otherwise, hand gestures can be distracting to the audience.

When you’re not using your hands, you can keep them comfortably at your side, or softly clasped together in front of you.

A good way to get hand gestures right is when you’re rehearsing as in point 3 above. This way you can see for yourself what your gestures look like, keep those which do help your presentation and discard those, which don’t.

7. Standing upright

If you are presenting while standing up, then it’s a good idea to keep yourself upright, with your back straight and stand in one position. This will help you to feel more grounded and balanced.

Some really confident presenters when they get into their presentations walk around a little as well to engage with their audience. If you’re confident enough to do this and have the space to do so, then this can also work out well.

8. Using your voice

A powerful tool you have at your disposal is your voice. By using your voice effectively you will become even more engaging to your audience who will enjoy listening to you.

You can do this by using proper diction when speaking out the words in your presentation, speaking slowly and then speeding up and then slowing down again.

You can use your voice effectively by injecting passion into your words. One thing I’ve found when I’m passionate about what I’m presenting is this passion rubs off onto members of the audience.

My friends it’s over to you:

What other tips can you share with us all, with regards to giving an effective presentation?
Have you given a presentation recently? How did it turn out?
Please share your valuable thoughts and experiences in the comments box below.
Please also share this post on your favourite social networks.

 

Photo Credit: ImagineCup

NLP Presuppositions Part 3

This post is part three of the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Presuppositions series of posts. Part one covered six empowering attitudes, principles and concepts to help improve our confidence, to change our perceptions and the way we interact with other people. Part two covered a further six.

Let’s get onto four more right here.

13. Resistance indicates lack of rapport

This presupposition is a great one to internalise, in order to improve our communication with others.

In life, whether personally or professionally, we need to interact with others. So often, when we want to get things done, we will need the help and support of others.

For example you might need support for a project at work from a colleague. However, when you discuss your idea, you don’t get the response you wanted.

Or perhaps you meet a person at a social gathering and you’re trying to make conversation with this individual. However, this person seems a little aloof and doesn’t want to open up much to you.

In such cases, it’s useful to remind yourself whether you have connected enough with this particular person. Have you created enough mutual trust with him or her? If not, you can consider creating some further rapport.

An excellent way to do this is to meet the person at his or her current view of the world, show that you understand their view, share similarities between the two of you and if appropriate, offer help or suggestions.

After doing this, you can go back to attempting to get support for your initiative or connecting with a person at a party, or whatever it was you initially wanted to do.

14. Behind every behaviour is a positive intention

This one for me had to be experienced to be believed. Once it has been experienced and you do so for yourself, its truth becomes so apparent.

What this presupposition means is that whatever behaviour we do and which others make, there is something positive we or another person is trying to do.

Let’s take interacting with women as an example. If you’re a guy and finding it difficult to approach a girl you like, you could be doing so to protect yourself.

For instance, the reason why you avoid doing so is because you want to protect yourself from possible rejection.

Why is it important to know this?

Well when we want to create changes in our lives for the better, by understanding that the behaviour we are doing (however undesirable) has a positive intention, we can learn to appreciate the value of the behaviour, preserve its good qualities and still do what we want in a life from a position of maturity.

15. Every subjective experience is made up of two parts. These are content and structure

Another way of looking at this principle is our life experiences. Let’s say you had an argument with a family member about something. The argument has already happened.

However, you now continue to remember that particular scenario. You remember exactly what you said to the family member and how he or she felt. You recollect exactly what he or she said to you and how it made you feel.

You even end up feeling like you did during the argument, now!

This is an example of content. However, this content from an NLP perspective also has a structure. This structure is made up of thoughts and beliefs you have around that argument.

Bringing this structure to the fore is powerful because one can actually change these structures to change how they feel for the better, about experiences that have already happened and experiences which may happen in the future.

16. People have the resources they need

I’m a firm believer that when we help people overcome a problem, all we are doing is encouraging that person to look within themselves for their own answers.

In the coaching world it can be called as facilitating a person to help him or her find their own solutions. Once a person takes responsibility for getting themselves into bad states, then equally that person has opened the doors, to taking responsibility for finding answers that will help them be resourceful and move through the world skilfully.

It’s amazing what lies dormant inside each of us. However, once our inner strength becomes activated and we channel it appropriately we can become unstoppable!

Over to you my friends

What did you think of the NLP presuppositions in this post?

Are there any which you liked in particular? Are there any which you’ve had challenges in implementing?

What other powerful attitudes, concepts and principles do you use to help you in life?

Please share your valuable thoughts, comments and experiences in the comments box below.

Please also share this post on your favourite social networks.

Please also check out the latest blog posts from the following brilliant bloggers:

Amit Sodha

Mohammed Rafi and Sareena Ikbal

Zeenat Merchant-Syal

 

Photo Credit: nicolasnova

How to Deal with Social Anxiety

This is a guest post by the brilliant Justin Ma zza of Mazzastick.com .

Social fears are often a result of an unconscious fear of rejection. In place of prudently making social connections with other people for either business or personal reasons, people with social fears often hold themselves back.

There may be a number of reasons for why someone holds back, but it usually equates to unconscious fears caused by limiting beliefs about meeting new people, starting conversations with strangers, and expressing your views and opinions.

Many of the self-imposed limiting beliefs about connecting with other people are associated with low self-esteem. Identifying and removing the negative beliefs about yourself is one way to correct the problem.

As for beliefs about other people, the primary issue there is an over-generalization about people. Everybody has different standards for when and who they choose to interact with. It usually has nothing to do with you.

From time to time people will feel social and would be more than happy to socialize with almost any person. At different times though, people turn inward and like more isolation in their lives.

One example I often see is the insinuating limiting belief that if you approach someone who does not wish to connect with you at the moment, and you get rejected, then you made a blunder and never should have initiated contact in the first place.

After all there isn’t actually any real danger in trying to start-up a conversation with another person, but that doesn’t make the hurt any less real. The fear may be based in false beliefs and inaccurate assumptions; however it still could control one’s conduct.

Most of you reading this have or have had difficulty approaching members of the opposite sex. When I was in grade school I was terribly shy with girls. Even though I had lots of girls express interest in me I was too scared to allow them into my lives.

On some level of my being I believed if they got to know the real me, they might reject me, which would equal a massive amount of pain in my mind. The limiting belief I had at the time was, “I’m not good enough.”

Where I got these beliefs from really didn’t matter, but removing them did matter to me, and I figured out what I needed to do. I had to face my fear.

Quick Story about facing my fear

Back when I was in the tenth grade my best friend Kevin and I were staying down Ocean City with his parents. Kevin was much more outgoing than I was, so one day he decided we should try to pick up girls on the boardwalk.

At first, I was a little hesitant about Kevin’s suggestion, but I decided to let Kevin take the lead with his idea.

So, we sat down on the bench at the boardwalk and waited for some attractive girls to walk by. Soon enough, two pretty girls walked by and Kevin approached them and started a conversation.

Feeling unsure at the moment, I stood idly by not really adding much to the conversation. After a few minutes of talking to the two pretty girls, Kevin ended the chat so he could do it again.

Next, a group of four pretty girls walked by and Kevin got their attention with his usual charm, but this time I did a lot more talking then I had before.

After doing this a few times I wanted to “pull up” some girls as we called it back then.

We sat back down on the bench and my eyes caught two more hot girls walking our way. I walked over to them and began talking. This time though, I was the one doing all the talking with the girls as Kevin just stood there and watched.

Kevin and I “pulled girls” at least a dozen more times that night, and it actually became almost effortless to do as my personal beliefs subsided.

For every one group of girls that we were rejected by that night, at least five or more groups of girls were more than happy to talk with us. Whether we were rejected or not didn’t matter, because the limiting belief of “not being good enough” was no longer present in my belief system, because I had actual “real life” examples to prove otherwise.

This exercise can be used in any area of your life. Just go out and do the thing you are afraid to do, and do it a lot.

Takeaway

Limiting beliefs are an obstacle to your goals that make it seem impossible to get to where you want to be. The experience is similar to being up against a brick wall that you just can’t seem to get over. This is why it appears so difficult to make the changes in yourself that you want to. Remember, the wall is not physical, it exists only in your mind as a thought you think is real.

As the old saying goes, “Change your beliefs and change your life.”

Over to you:

Have you experienced social anxiety?

What did you do to overcome this?

Please share your valuable thoughts, views and experiences in the comments box below.

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About the Author:

Justin Mazza writes for Mazzastick Personal Growth blog. Be sure to go to his blog and read the Secret of Deliberate Creation to learn how to manifest your reality. Justin is a husband, father, and blogger who has committed himself to being a life-long student and teacher of personal and spiritual growth. He began his personal development journey back in 1997 reading over 700 books about personal development, spiritual growth, psychology, health and nutrition and metaphysical studies.

 

Photo Credit: Diamond Farah