Most of my friends had always admired me one way or another, and thought I had my life so together – a corporate job, good pay, opportunities to travel, multilingual and all.

On the face of it, I was pretty accomplished and happy. Yet, I’ve always felt inadequate regardless of how others envied me.

I have never really had much confidence in myself despite the portrayal of a strong image in front of others. I always felt like I should be doing more or working faster, until a friend asked me one day, “Noch, why do you always have to compare with others?”

When I was in primary school, I wanted to be the student with top grades and so I checked my friends’ grades and was unhappy when mine were lower.

In high school, I benchmarked my basketball skills with other teammates and got very jealous when I wasn’t chosen as captain, thus jeopardizing a friendship as a result.

In university, I compared myself with everyone else who had more awards or scholarships. At work, I asked around other similar level executives to see who had a better performance rating.

Even as I was sick and in the course of recovery, with writing as my therapy, I started to wonder why no one read my blog, and why other sites had more traffic and subscribers, and I became gloomy, thinking that my blog was worthless.

My friend was right. I was always comparing myself with others, and as a consequence, I shattered my own confidence.

Everything I had or achieved, I’d find a way to discount the results and focus on the people who had more. Therefore, I stressed myself out in my quest of over achieving, for only by achievements was I able to assure myself that I was worth something, and I’d feel less miserable. Yet, such reassurance is only ephemeral.

I lost sight of what I did have, and what I had achieved. I jeopardized my own self-confidence.

I became jealous and bitter, and disregarded my own accomplishments.

Indeed, how constructive can comparisons possibly be? It is one thing to have a benchmark and motivate ourselves to improve, but another to be obsessed about everybody else.

So this needs to stop, for it is inhibiting my self-confidence. Here’s how I’ve approached this bad habit:

1. Realizing and admitting I’m jealous

I was in denial for quite some time, and finally recognizing to myself that there is an ugly side to my character was crucial to any changes I make. Realizing that something needs to change is the start.

2. Reviewing what I have every day

Literally, every other day now, if not everyday, I write in my journal things that I possess and milestones I have achieved, however insignificant I hitherto thought them to be.

3. Giving myself a pat on my back

Tthere is no need to beat myself up for not reaching a goal I had set for myself as quickly as I wanted to, the simple fact I had reached it should be cause for celebration; it is important to give ourselves a break too and be proud of ourselves for who we are.

4. Chanting to reassure myself

I devised a little phrase for myself, that whenever I feel myself judging others, calculating what I haven’t done as well as others have with a creeping sensation of resentment, I chant: “I’m me, and that’s enough… breathe…”

This will bring my jealous sensations to my awareness, and for me to catch myself and try to stop the feeling. Also, it gives me a renewed sense of confidence in myself that what I want to do will happen in time.

Perhaps you can find your own chant that works for you and share with us?

5. Being happy for others

Unfortunately sometimes still my initial reaction to an achievement someone has is “oh, I wish that was me.” Nevertheless, I will it into my consciousness, that every time I feel like this, I say to myself:
“Even though I wish that was me, I am still very happy for so-and-so for accomplishing this, and I wish so-and-so the best of luck.” Gradually this mentality seeps into my head and take a stronger grounding than my jealous comparative thoughts.

Sometimes, you just need to look within and give yourself a chance to be satisfied with yourself.

Do you have ways which to remind us how to stop comparing ourselves, and be confident with yourself and who you are?

Biography
Noch Noch worked in banking as an international executive for the last 7 years and had to quit her job last year due to major depression and severe migraines, and now reflecting on different recovery methods and how to be true to herself at “Be Me. Be Natural.” NochNoch.

Note from Diggy: I want to thank Enoch for this contribution about self confidence and I want to remind all of you about my guide to guaranteed higher confidence in 30 days flat: The Confidence Black Book

Please leave a comment through the link below :) Unwinding Jealous Comparisons for Self-Confidence

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Your mind consists of two parts: the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is what you cannot directly control. It is responsible for all the thoughts that involuntarily flash through your mind every moment that you’re awake. It’s responsible for the ideas that pop into your head and it’s responsible for the intuitive choices that you make.

The subconscious mind is programmed through the conscious mind. In other words, the active thoughts that you think and the thoughts that you repeat to yourself in your head is what the subconscious mind interprets as truth or reality. The subconscious mind cannot think for itself, it is only capable of only feeding you what it’s been programmed with through your conscious thoughts.

Can you see how “you” (your subconscious mind) can become your own worst enemy? If you consciously think nothing but negative thoughts, your subconscious mind will only be able to give you negative thoughts, criticisms and feedback.

When others are negative towards you, stand in your way or hold you back from achieving success, it’s possible to avoid them or cut them out of your life. However, when you stand in the way of your own success, it’s not possible to avoid yourself because your subconscious mind is part of you and it’s always with you.

How To Recognize Being Your Own Worst Enemy

With a little bit of self-reflection it’s not difficult to recognize whether you are your own worst enemy.

An enemy is someone who is abusive and negative towards you. An enemy wants you to suffer and wants you to fail. Thus, if you (consciously or subconsciously) act in these ways towards yourself, then you are your own worst enemy.

Limiting Beliefs

You’ve probably heard me mention limiting beliefs so many times that you’re starting to get sick of it. That’s how important I think it is to your happiness and success that you learn to identify and overcome them.

Limiting beliefs hold you back from following your dreams and reaching your full potential.

Don’t allow yourself to repeat limiting beliefs in your mind. Don’t tell yourself that you can’t do something. Don’t tell yourself that something isn’t meant for you. If you want something, take action and do whatever it takes to get it.

Stop being your own worst enemy by stopping to repeat and confirm your limiting beliefs to yourself.

Negative Self-Talk

As I mentioned, your enemies are negative and abusive towards you. If you mentally beat yourself up on a constant basis or you just tear yourself down in your head, you need to stop doing that.

Don’t curse at yourself. Don’t call yourself names. Don’t attack your own strengths or weaknesses. Doing any of these things will only serve to bring down your self-esteem and your confidence. By doing these things you hold yourself back from achieving any dreams and goals you set for yourself.

It’s good to analyze your actions to see if you can improve or to determine why something went wrong. You can be critical of yourself, but be critical in such a way that it critiques your actions or behaviour, not you as a person.

For example:
When I was learning about internet marketing, I spent weeks building a website that would promote a product in a certain niche. I spent so much time working on this site every single day but it never resulted in any profit.

If I were to criticize myself by telling myself that I’m an idiot who can’t build a website or I’m a loser because I failed, that would not be very beneficial for my self-esteem and confidence. I’d be my own worst enemy. And yet, this is the way that most people criticize themselves automatically.

Instead of attacking myself as a person, I need to criticize my actions to see if there is room for improvement.

Why did the website not work? Was the niche wrong? Is the method I used wrong? Did I invest way too much time before moving on?

These are the kind of questions I should be asking myself and I should not even think of criticizing myself as a person.

The Fight Against Yourself

For many people (myself included), negative self-talk and limiting beliefs are automatic. Through years of conditioning and repetition, your mind seems to just produce negative thoughts and limiting beliefs. You have no conscious control of that.

With practice and patience you can learn to reprogram your subconscious to get it to stop producing those negative thoughts. You do this by consciously stopping any negative thought that comes into your mind and replacing it with a positive thought.

Although it’s not too difficult to stay positive and have positive thoughts when things go well, it can be a different story when things go against you. If you’re having problems with your job or your relationships or your health then it’s easy to fall back into a negative mindset.

No matter how difficult your situation becomes, you have to consciously fight off that negativity. Don’t allow it to take over because when you allow the negativity to get too big in your life, it can be difficult to break away from and result in some sort of depression.

I wish I could tell you that you’ll be able to stop thinking negatively once and for all but unfortunately it’s a constant fight against yourself, a fight that you have to continue with if you want to attract happiness and success into your life. If you fill yourself with negativity then there is simply no space for positivity. That is why it’s so important to not allow negativity to take over.

This is especially challenging to do when you find yourself with a lot of free time. If you have a lot of free time where you don’t have the possibility to take action towards your goals and you’re vulnerable to doubts and negativity from your subconscious mind.

For example if you’ve prepared a speech for a very important meeting and you have to wait 4 hours to deliver it, in that time it’s very easy for doubts to start creeping in. Very often your subconscious just comes up with all sorts of suggestions that can cause you to doubt the quality of your work, the approach you’re taking, the level of success you expect and so forth.

You’re not immune from these self-doubting thoughts, even if you are usually a confident person or if you have high self-esteem. You are however in control of how you react to these self-doubting thoughts. If you allow them to grow strong and take over then your confidence in yourself and in your work will disappear very quickly. Once again you have to consciously stop any negative thoughts and think positively.

I’ve found that in many situations where you have too much free time that allows self-doubting suggestions, it’s best to just stop thinking about the future. If you are prepared as best as you can with your work or your plans, then let go of the future. Forget about the outcome and just have faith that your desire, your plans and your determination will allow everything to work out as you want it to.

Parting Words

The most important thing to take away from this article is to stop being your own enemy. Stop beating yourself up, stop tearing yourself down and stop being negative towards yourself. As soon as you start doing this you’ll notice a huge difference in your overall happiness and success.

Please leave a comment through the link below :) Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

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Fear is something that we all have, yet we don’t like to talk about it as much as we should. I say this because so many people live their lives in a way that makes them unhappy, unsatisfied and far from their true potential, yet we can all help each other overcome our fears if only we shared our fear with others close to us.

Examples of fear in everyday life:

• People work jobs they hate because they fear taking initiative to find a job they want.
• People stay in relationships they don’t want because they fear being alone.
• People don’t approach an attractive stranger because they fear rejection.
• People don’t act on their ideas because they fear failure.

Fear is intended as a survival mechanism. Fear of the unknown and of the dangerous keeps us out of harm’s way and increases the chance of survival and the ability to preserve the human race.

However, modern society is quite different from the days where we had to hunt our food with spears and dressed in loin cloths. Back then fear would keep us alive but now, fear holds us back. Most modern fears are irrational fears that give us no benefit, like the fear of rejection or the fear of failure.

Overcoming Fear: Define Your Fears

Before you can begin to work through your fears to achieve your full potential, you need to define your fears first.

The best way I know to do this is to make a list and ask yourself questions like:

• What am I scared of?
• What have I avoided lately because I was scared?
• What have I wanted to do most of my life but never take action towards?

Just like you, I also have numerous fears. I fear failure, I fear numerous animals and insects, I fear drowning or burning, I fear missing opportunities, I fear disappointing others and I fear not living my life to the fullest.

Now that I know what my fears are, I can begin to work through them by analyzing each fear, determining the worst-case scenario and also determining whether a fear is beneficial in any way.

Overcoming Fear: The Worst Case Scenario

Determining the worst case scenario has really helped me work through many of my fears, like when I decided to do the highest bridge bungee jump in the world. Sometimes I fear heights, and like any sane person I also fear diving head first off a bridge into a 300m ravine with only an elastic cord attached to my ankles that will keep me from decorating the ground below with my insides.

Before I decided on doing the jump (which I really wanted to do), I asked myself what the worst was that could happen. I concluded that the worst would be that the elastic snaps and I fall to my death. Not that the thought was particularly desirable, it was still comforting to know what the worst case scenario would be and it helped me make the decision to jump. My reasoning also was that everyone dies someday and if it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be. The jump was a crazy experience and I’m very happy that I did it.

This method of determining the worst case scenario for your fears is really helpful to work through those fears. After determining the worst case, also look at the best case scenario.

If you fear asking that attractive stranger out on a date, what’s the worst that can happen? They can say no, they can verbally abuse you or you can be humiliated. Is that really so bad, especially when it’s very possible that you actually get the date?

If you fear starting your own business or following your ideas because you don’t want to fail, what’s the worst that can happen if you do start your own business? You can lose money, you can lose time and you can make yourself look like an idiot but at least you’ll never wonder what if and you’ll stand the chance to succeed.

Overcoming Fear: Focus On The Positive

Now that you’ve defined your fears and that you’ve determined the worst case scenario, it’s time for the final step of the recipe to overcoming fear: focusing on the desired outcome.

In the same step where you determined the worst case scenario, you should also have determined the best case scenario. Your mind is a very powerful thing and the outcome you choose to focus on is often the outcome that materializes. If you allow yourself and your actions to be ruled by fear then you are focusing on the negative and worst case scenario, which is exactly what you don’t want to happen. You don’t want to program your subconscious mind with the idea of the worst case scenario happening. That is why it’s necessary to comfort your mind by determining what the worst is that can happen and then deciding to focus on what the best is that can happen. Focus your thoughts on the desired outcome.

This is not a recipe for guaranteed success because unfortunately sometimes bad things happen to good people and worst case scenarios come true. However, such is life and this is a very good recipe for overcoming fear and it greatly increases your chances of achieving success with whatever you’re doing.

Overcoming Fear: Ask The Readers

I’ve outlined the method that I personally use to overcome fear and I’ve shared my experiences in dealing with my fears. Now it’s your turn!

• What are your fears?
• How have your fears held you back?
• What is your method for overcoming fear?

Please leave your answers in a comment below or send me an email at diggy@upgradereality.com

Please leave a comment through the link below :) Ask The Readers: Overcoming Fear

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The past few months I’ve been working on a very special guide *just* for you. It’s called the Confidence Black Book and it’s here to help you become more confident in all areas of your life.

Confidence is the key to success and happiness. Typical benefits that I’ve personally enjoyed from being confident and having high self-esteem are:

• An amazing circle of friends
• The ability to make new friends anywhere in the world
• An endless supply of interactions, dates and girlfriends
• The courage to build your own successful business
• To motivation and determination to succeed in achieving the goals you set for yourself.
• And many more…

In the Confidence Black Book I’m going to take you by the hand and show you step-by-step how you can become more confident over a period of 30 days flat. I’ve also created a series of 100% FREE videos with tips and insights to becoming more confident and below is video 1 because I really want to make a difference to your life. I hope you enjoy it!

(Click here if you cannot see the video in your email interface)

Please leave a comment through the link below :) [Video] New Confidence Trick?

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In fact, for the biggest part of my life (up until I was around 19 years old) I was really shy, had little confidence and had even less belief in myself. I had a few reasonably good friends, I got good grades in school and I was pretty good at a range of activities ranging from sports to music to making things from wood or metal. However, I wasn’t invited to many parties, I hardly had any interactions with girls and I was super shy and nervous to do anything that involved getting up in front of people and talking about my ideas or presenting my work. Even if I knew the answer to something or if I had a great idea, I’d keep quiet because I’d be scared of being judged by others.

I’ve been thinking about the reason why I was shy and had low self-esteem for so many years and I think most of it stems from my early experiences and how I was raised by my parents. Every baby starts with a clean slate and even though different people are prone to adopting different characteristics, everyone’s personality is shaped by their early experiences in life and by the way in which they are brought up.

My parents were always rather protective over me and pretty strict. This conditioned me to follow the rules and guidelines that they (and any “parental figure” like teachers) set because if I broke those rules there would be unpleasant consequences. I think that this programmed me to follow rules and stick to them without really thinking for myself, even though I’m sure that this wasn’t entirely the intention.

I am happy with the way I was raised and I don’t have anything bad to say about it because I can imagine it must be really difficult to raise a child in a perfect way, but it took me a while to realize that I didn’t have to blindly follow rules set by others. It was by pure chance that when I was on holiday (at around 19 years old), I started reading a book about picking up girls. The book was called “The Game” and it documented the story of how a few total nerds who were really shy and horrible with women taught themselves to gets girls by the dozens every time they went out. I could relate to this very much and it spiraled me into a journey of research about picking up girls. As a consequence, I started learning about everything else related to the personal development field since being able to get girls ties into all aspects of life like confidence, knowing what you want from life, your career, your fitness etc.

I literally spent about 4 years reading and applying pretty much every popular personal development guide, book and course available. Although initially my main goal was just to be able to get girls and dates whenever I wanted, that goal expanded over time to wanting to be able to achieve success in all areas of my life (happiness, financial success etc.) and is in fact the main reason why I started UpgradeReality.com. I wanted to share my experiences of my personal growth journey to help others achieve the same success that I did (without having to go through all the trial and error).

Jumping back to the story of how I overcame my life-long shyness, lack of confidence and low self-esteem…

My main issues were:

• I was terrified of what others would think of me when I approached them
• I didn’t know how to start conversations with strangers, let alone did I know how to keep conversations going.
• My mind was full of limiting beliefs that I wasn’t cool, interesting or worthy of hanging out with other “cool or high value” people.

The first few guides that I read about picking up girls all focused on using a set method with certain lines or routines to use for every step of the interaction, so that’s exactly what I did. I memorized some of these lines and I started going out to bars and clubs multiple times a week to practice on random girls. For the first year that I did this, I was incredibly nervous but I still pushed myself to approach at least a few girls every time I went out. I didn’t really have any friends or mentors who could help me in this journey, so all I could do was read books and go out to try what I had read. This resulted in a very long journey of trial and error and probably annoying hundreds of girls who were my guinea pigs.

I’m not going to go too much into detail about my whole journey of learning to get better with girls because that’s not really the main topic of this article. To cut a long story short, I spent 4 years reading, learning and putting into practice what I had learned and the end result was that I became pretty good with girls, WITHOUT using pickup lines, routines or any sneaky tricks. I became a lot more confident because I had gotten so much better in getting dates with girls wherever I went, but… this confidence was still ego-driven and based on the results I would get. In other words, if I went out and didn’t get any girls, I’d still doubt myself and still have low self-esteem but if I got results and met a girl I would feel confident.

In the next two years after I had achieved this milestone, the real growth towards high confidence started. I was no longer only interested in getting girls but I wanted to become the best version of myself in all areas of life. I wanted success in business, I wanted the freedom to travel, I wanted to increase my skills with girls even more and I also wanted to increase my social skills to create opportunities for business and friendships through all interactions I had with new people.

This desire for success in all areas of my life drove me to read and learn even more about personal development. I started learning about various aspects of psychology and probably the most important thing that I learned was the fact that the way in which you think determines the path you take in life. Negative thinking manifests itself into bad situations and lack of success in your life, while positive thinking and a attitude towards achieving success will manifest itself into success and happiness in all areas of your life.

It took me many months of paying constant attention to my thoughts and attitude to notice when I was doing something wrong that I needed to change. I had a tendency to be very narcissistic and spend much of my time focusing on the things that I couldn’t do and that I didn’t want to have in my life instead of focusing on what I wanted from life. Basically my attitude and way of thinking was the main contributor to my unhappiness and lack of success. As soon as I changed my attitude towards seeing the positive side of things and as soon as I started focusing my attention towards getting the things I wanted, I noticed an immediate increase in my happiness.

I don’t want you to get the idea that just by thinking positively that your life is magically going to get better. Thinking positively allows you to become happier and it frees you from the chains of negativity and from the limiting beliefs that hold you back from achieving your dreams and goals. Once you have this increased happiness and freedom, you have much more energy to channel towards taking action to achieve those goals and dreams. You’ll have to work hard at achieving your dreams and goals just like any successful person has done in the past and will do in the future, but with a positive attitude towards this hard work, it’ll become a fun adventure instead of a painful torture.

I’ve thought about it carefully and I actually think that my entire journey of wanting to become my best self (becoming more confident, getting better with girls, making friends, gaining financial freedom etc.) is all based on the desire to become the man who will be perfect for the girl I dream of ending up with. Even though today’s crazy world is filled with cheating and divorce, I truly believe that there’s a girl who I’ll fall in love with at first sight, who I’ll marry and who I’ll have kids with, and who I’ll stay with for the rest of my life. That’s why I want to be the best version of me that I can be and overcome all my personal obstacles, so that when the time comes I can handle everything that’s thrown my way. Call me a hopeless romantic if you want.

The reason why I shared my personal story with you today is because I wanted to show you that it is possible to overcome any obstacles holding you back from achieving happiness and success. All you need to do is start reading and learning as much as you can about how to overcome your obstacles, and you need to take consistent action on a daily basis towards making a difference to your situation. What’s even more important is to change your mindset and attitude towards life from negative to positive. Focus your thoughts and energy on what you want to achieve, not on the bad things that “keep happening to you”.

In the last 7 years I’ve really learned a lot about myself and about building the kind of life that I want to live. I’ve especially learned a lot about overcoming shyness and becoming confident even when faced with a string of setbacks and failures. As I’ve mentioned in my last few articles, I’ve spent the last 2 months to create a workbook guide (based on the very best of my own experience) to teach you how you can build unshakeable confidence in a period of just 30 days through short daily chapters and simple tasks. The workbook guide is almost complete and it’s coming before the end of October… just letting you know

I’d love it if you share your own personal experience with shyness, lack of confidence or low self-esteem (and how it affects your happiness and success) in the comments below. As always, I’ll respond to every comment personally.

Please leave a comment through the link below :) Overcoming Shyness And Low Self-Esteem – My Personal Story

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