Inspirational Book Review: Back to the Summit by Sen. Omer Rains

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I recently read a book that completely changed the way I view life and wanted to share my recommendation with My Life Motivation blog readers.

The book is Back to the Summit by Omer Rains, former State Senator in California.  It is an inspirational story of Omer’s life and his fight to recover from a stroke and brain aneurism.

This book gets my highest recommendation for anyone and everyone.  While there is a lot of talk about business and politics, every chapter of the book is thoroughly entertaining.  When I say it will change the way you look at your life, I truly mean it.

Back to the Summit is more than inspirational, it will make you think about your own situation and how you can rally yourself to solve even your greatest of challenges.  I highly recommend you give this book a read.

For more information, check out the Back to the Summit website.

5 Tips for Overcoming Shyness

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Overcome Shyness

Flickr photo by Fayez Closed Account

There was a time in my life when I would never be able to write a blog post like this. It’s not that I was in denial about my shyness, I just hated to talk about it. The word “shy” was like a curse word to me. I avoided using it like I would avoid wearing red in a bullpen.

But I was fortunate enough to overcome my shyness with a concerted effort. As soon as I stood up and decided to hold myself accountable for my actions and habits, my life changed forever.

This blog post is not a story about me, though, so I’ll just move on and give you five of my best tips for overcoming shyness.

Overcoming Shyness Tip #1: Focus on Your Strengths

It’s a natural instinct for most of us to focus on our weaknesses. We do that because we feel that our weaknesses are more noticeable to everyone else, and we feel that this will cause others to see us in a negative light.

When you focus on your strengths, though, you focus on the things that make you special. This focus is what will earn you some respect. It’s what will allow you to be yourself, and be your best self.

If you want others to see you in a positive light, try to find more ways to bring out your strengths. Don’t look for ways to fake your confidence in your weaknesses; find ways to bring out more situations in which you can be naturally confident.

Tip #2: Practice Seeing the World

This is a bit of an unusual tip that I never hear people talking about, but I know that when I was shy I never really got to see the world. I always felt like other people were watching me so that’s all I ever saw. I saw other people looking at me and pointing fingers.

This is no way to look at the world. Open your eyes and see what is going on around you. When you talk to someone, see that person. Don’t think about how they are looking at you, actually see the person. Look into their eyes and see them!

When you walk around, look at the world. Look at the things going on around you. Don’t use your eyes to hide from the world; see it! It’s really not as scary as you’re making it out to be in your mind.

Tip #3: Project Yourself

This is another thing to practice. Get together with a couple friends and work on letting yourself be seen as you really are. As you act, act in a way that is projected outward. Do not look within yourself as you are talking and acting.

This is a big one. It’s not easy. Shy people have a tendency to always look within themselves when in the public eye. This is similar to what was discussed in tip #2. When you see yourself as you feel the world sees you, you have a tendency to hold back your true self.

This makes you hesitate in your actions and allows doubt to build in your mind. This doubt leads to more inaction and causes a level of self-consciousness that builds the power in your shyness. As a result, you’re power to overcome this shyness is weakened.

Practice projected yourself outward, rather than constantly looking inward.

Tip #4: Allow Yourself to Have Fun

This sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, not so much, actually.

Back in my shy days, I was often in positions where most people would have a lot of fun but I could not really enjoy myself.

Why?

Because I was still thinking about how others saw me. I tried to act in a way that made it seem like I was having fun by acting in a way that would look like a normal person would look in that situation.

In other words, I tried to act the way I felt other people would want me to act.

As a result, I never acted as myself and never allowed myself to have fun. When I started to turn off all my external eyeballs and just allowed myself to have fun, my life did a complete 180.

Do yourself a huge favor and allow yourself to have some fun.

Tip #5: Don’t Get Frustrated, Take Small Steps

You’ve built up many shyness habits over the years. Be it eye contact, social awkwardness, inability to carry a conversation, etc., you cannot expect all that to go away overnight.

It takes a lot of time to get rid of bad habits, and more time to replace them with good ones.

But don’t worry. You can still enjoy your life as you are making these changes. Take pride in the baby steps. Be proud of the fact that you are doing something about your shyness and moving forward with your life.

Be happy that each day you have the opportunity to build your life and yourself. And be happy that each day you get to live more and more like your true self.

Start incorporating these tips in your life, and make progress at your own pace. Don’t forget to take pride in each an every accomplishment along your journey.

And remember that the journey is not a means to get to your life; the journey IS your life!

Tell me your story and experiences with shyness by leaving a comment below.

3 Awesome Mottos for Self Confidence

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Self Confidence

From dbking (Flickr)

Self confidence is the most important aspect of personal development and self improvement.  Without it, you can never live your life near its full potential.  You must always strive to live each day more and more like your true self, and to do so you need a strong level of confidence in yourself.

Here are three great mottos for building and maintaining this strong level of self confidence.  As always, don’t just see these mottos as words; strive to make them a part of who you are and how you live.

 

Self Confidence Motto #1:

“You are the only person who can use your talents and abilities; therefore, you have the opportunity to create what no one else can.”

Each person on this planet is unique, and I don’t just mean our fingerprints.  We all have a unique set of talents and abilities.  We all see the world differently.  We all think differently.

Because of this, we all have the opportunity to add something special to the world.  That’s what makes life so amazing and exciting.  Each person has the ability to add something new to the world that no one else can.

This includes you.

You have something special within you that no one else has.  I don’t know what it is, and I can’t tell you exactly how to find it, but I know it’s there.

But the important thing is that you must know it’s there.  You must realize that you have a unique set of skills and abilities.  You have a unique way of thinking and seeing things in the world around you.

Once you start doing your own thinking, and finding creative ways to use your unique set of abilities, you will begin to excel in life.  The world needs you to be yourself.  The world needs your unique abilities in order to grow.

More importantly, you need you to be yourself.  You need to use your unique abilities to create something special in your own life.

The ability is there, you just must look within yourself to find it.

 

Self Confidence Motto #2:

“When there is chaos and turmoil around you, take comfort in the fact that you will always be able to turn to yourself in times of trouble.”

It’s a scary world, at times, no doubt.  Things happen quickly and the world can turn on it’s head in a flash.

Stuff happens.  Life is tough.  Things do not always go smoothly.  But this is the case for everyone’s life.  The difference between people who are able to overcome adversity and those who aren’t is actually quite simple.

Those who are able to overcome adversity do so by looking within themselves.  When bad things are happening in their lives, they see it as a test to find the strength within themselves to overcome it.

The strong-minded people actually take great pride in their ability to overcome adversity.  They do so because they know they can.  They know they can always turn to themselves to solve their own problems.

At the end of adversity, there is new life.  Everyone faces adversity, but those who see the new life at the end of the darkness are the ones who can build their lives up from adversity, rather than get knocked down.

You have the power within you to overcome any adversity that comes your way.  All you have to do is tell yourself that you will continue to move forward with your life and not let any challenge stop you from being the person you are.

 

Self Confidence Motto #3:

“Trust yourself.”

This is the simplest and most powerful self confidence motto.  Trust yourself.  That’s all self confidence really is; a trust in one’s self.

If you can trust that you will be able to eventually solve all the problems that come your way, you will have the ultimate in self confidence.

If you can trust that no matter what happens around you, you will be able to act as yourself; you will have the ultimate in self confidence.

If you can trust that every challenge you face in life, no matter how big, will only serve to build yourself as a person; you will have the ultimate in self confidence.

And then you will be able to live your ultimate life.

Think about these mottos, especially this last one and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.  How can you begin implementing these mottos to bring out your true self, full of confidence?