confidence

The Gifts of Unconditional Love and Belief

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Parents! Teachers! Mentors! If you have young people in your life—young people you believe in—this is crucial information for you!

Have you ever had someone believe in you more than you believed in yourself?  How did that make you feel?  It probably made you feel like you could take on the world, or tackle whatever situation you faced at the time. That’s the power of unbridled belief from others.

The famous artist Pablo Picasso claimed, “My mother always told me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general; if you become a monk, you’ll end up as the pope.’ Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.” Many other successful people also point to their parents’ belief in them as the driving force behind their success. They believe that if their parents hadn’t been confident in them from the get-go, they wouldn’t be in the same place today.

I am precisely one of those people, and I will be forever grateful for my parents’ unconditional love and belief in me (even if I may not have always deserved it!). It helped more times than I can count.

Do your children (or other young people in your life) know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you love them unconditionally and believe in them unequivocally? Do they know that you see them as talented, worthy, and brimming with potential? Make certain they do. It is a tremendous asset for teens to be surrounded by adults who believe in them—who can affirm their uniqueness and value. That belief is an inner voice, encouraging them to dream big and persevere through life’s challenges.

Your child, mentee, or student will make his or her share of mistakes along the way (I know I sure did!).  But having the benefit of unconditional acceptance and belief from you will soften those blows and provide a safety net they can always count on.

Not so sure how to let them know you’re their biggest fan? Here are some ideas:

-Be upfront. Whether it’s at a meal, during a tutoring session, or after a class, be willing to open up. Tell them that you believe in them (and why) and that you’re bullish about their future. Call out some of their greatest assets and character traits.

-Write them a letter or note. Stick a note in their lunchbox, or if you’re a teacher, consider putting a sticky note on one of their assignments. Knowing you went to the effort to do that will speak volumes to them!

-Be generous with your time. What says “I believe in you” more than carving out time in your busy schedule?

-Speak from experience. Share your own downfalls, your mistakes, and your past life experiences. A little perspective from a “pro” can boost their confidence and build trust!

We can be the cheering squad that calls out the strengths and affirms the dreams and potential of the young people in our lives. It’ll let them know that if they were a stock, you’d be a buyer! And, the best part of all? Your belief will breed their belief.

Who could benefit from your gift of affirmation and belief today?

4 Tips to Help You Learn from Your Defeats

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In recent years I’ve had the great privilege of visiting an alternative high school that serves the neediest and most challenged of students. One particular encounter with a high school  principal—a man who had given his life to reach and impact disadvantaged youth—left me inspired and encouraged. His stories of the ups and downs of working with that student population reminded me of the unforgettable introduction to “ABC’s Wide World of Sports,” when the narrator would dramatically announce, “…the thrill of VICTORY and the agony of DEFEAT.” Seeing a homeless student with a violent gang background graduate from high school—victory! Seeing another go back to the streets—defeat.

No matter where our life path takes us, we’ll experience victories and defeats. Whether it’s sports, contests, career, dating, education, or business ventures, you win some and you lose some. Most of us don’t have too much difficulty with the winning part.

But sometimes, we don’t win. But does this mean that we’ve technically lost? No!  Many of our “losses” prepare us for our victories later on. They can be a major stepping stone—that is, if we choose to learn from our defeats.

Vince Lombardi of Green Bay Packer fame used to say that winning “is the only thing.” Famed basketball coach John Wooden, on the other hand, simply asked his players to play their best, and that was good enough for him. Although he set a very high bar for his players, he was more process driven than outcome driven.

I’m probably more in John Wooden’s camp (despite growing up 20 miles from Green Bay!). Winning may be an important goal, but I don’t believe we’re losers if we don’t finish in first. The key is to learn from a defeat and use it as input for the next practice and for future strategy.  Want a couple tips for making this happen, just in case? Try these:

  1. Don’t see a defeat as an “end all.” In most cases, it’s not the end of the road. Always be on the lookout for new opportunities, new relationships, etc. Something better may be around the corner! Consider if it’s a teachable moment and a catalyst for personal growth. As Helen Keller said, “A bend in the road is not the end of the road…unless you fail to make the turn.”
  2. Be willing to step out of your comfort zone. Change is not always a bad thing.
  3. Accept that you are not always right and you won’t always have the best strategy. Seek out advice and perspective from others.
  4. Approach situations with the mindset that you’re going to give it your all. You can’t be dissatisfied when you’ve done your very best!

It pays to humbly celebrate your victories and gain and grow from your defeats. You’ll be positioned you to do better the next time (perhaps with a better outcome!), and it will take some of the sting out of your losses! Helen Keller had a great perspective.

How have you handled your victories and losses? Do you view a short-term loss as a learning experience?? Are you satisfied with the outcome if you did your best?

6 Steps to Help You Become a Masterful Decision Maker

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Decisions, decisions, decisions. Some days (like maybe during this month!) your biggest decision is no larger than what gift to choose for that hard-to-buy-for person on your Christmas list. Other days, it seems the weight of the world is bearing down on your shoulders and the impact of YOUR decision could be life changing—for you or for others.

Often, people make important decisions impulsively and based on emotion rather than on a thorough and objective evaluation. However, you needn’t be this way. Making tough decisions is never easy, but if you practice the following six decision steps, your odds of making the right one will be significantly greater:

Step 1: Get the facts.
Gather all of the facts you can, along with any accompanying assumptions. In some cases, you’ll have to use your best guess.

Step 2: Determine your key decision criteria.
Identify the key factors in making your decision, prioritizing your criteria from most to least important.  
 
Step 3: Identify all of your alternatives.
Consider all realistic options without prejudging. No choice is a “bad choice” at this stage.

Step 4: Engage wise counsel.
Solicit the views of experienced and insightful people who know you well and understand the decision at hand. (If you’re a person of faith, this is a good time to pray!)

Step 5: Conduct an objective pro/con analysis for each option.
Record the advantages and disadvantages and weigh them by importance. This is a particularly valuable step for visual learners since the right decision often emerges when the pros significantly outweigh the cons.

Step 6: Consider your “gut instinct” or intuition.
Chances are, by the time you’ve completed the fifth step, your best choice will have emerged. However, the final test is what your intuition is telling you. If, after completing steps 1-5, you have a nagging feeling that your preliminary choice isn’t right, sleep on it.

If you’re still uncertain the following day, have a heart to heart talk with yourself and your most trusted advisors. This will either reinforce your preliminary decision (which will provide the needed conviction) or it will compel you to more seriously consider your other alternatives.

When I look back on my own life, I can honestly say that I’ve never made a major decision that was personally wrong for me. I think this is one reason that I have very few regrets—and that’s something I’m forever thankful for!

How have you approached major life decisions up to this point: Are you diligent and methodical or are you more casual in your approach? How might the six-step approach identified here help you make wise decisions? Share your responses below; we’d love to hear from you!

Studying for Success: Part Three

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Now you’re ready to roll. You’ve prepared well for your exam (using what you learned about my winning study method in parts one and two)  and are supremely confident in your ability to perform. But wait—there are still a few other pointers that will help during your exams! Often, you’ll have essay tests instead of (or in addition to) multiple choice or short-answer exams. Here are my four tips to helping you efficiently and effectively take essay-style tests:

  1. If you are given the potential questions ahead of time, keep them in mind while you review. On the night before the exam, identify which questions you’re most comfortable with and develop a list of key words. I often used acronyms of these terms to help me remember the main points.
  2. This next step is key, and happens when you actually receive your exam. Peruse the essay questions. Answer the easiest one first and the hardest last. Many students answer the questions in the same sequence provided by the professor but panic when the first question is difficult. By answering the easiest questions first, you’ll be able to contemplate the more difficult questions in the meantime. It’s multi-tasking at its best! By the time you answer the most difficult question, you’ll have had ample preparation while you wrote your answers to the other questions.
  3. When answering essay questions, be aware that professors look for key words or phrases when they grade. I always made it a point to include as many key words/concepts as I could in a given essay. If the test asks for you to list five key aspects, I’d give them at least eight. This gives you an extra cushion in case your terms don’t exactly correspond to your professor’s.
  4. After your exam, you’ll want to analyze your performance and make mid-course corrections for next time. Study your incorrect/weaker answers to see what you could have done differently in your preparation. Then, modify your methods accordingly.

Be sure to ask your professor for help when necessary. If I struggled with exams or concepts, I made a beeline to his/her office. Remember, you and your parents are paying big bucks to attend college. You’re perfectly entitled to take your professors’ time! This is especially important in cumulative subjects like math. Otherwise, you’ll be digging a deeper and deeper ditch.

College academics are tougher than those in high school, but they’re not impossible. Perhaps the biggest adjustment is the need for better organization and discipline. Whether or not you adopt this study method, the basic principles do work. Good luck!

Are you disciplined and organized when it comes to your study method?  What works for you? In what areas do you need to improve? Share your ideas and questions with us; we’d love to hear from you!

Studying for Success: Part Two

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Hopefully you read last week’s post describing four tips for successful exam preparation. (The four pointers were: 1- Know your audience, 2- Take detailed notes, 3- Highlight while you read, and 4- Complete all assigned reading several days before the test date.) If you missed, it, here’s the LINK. Today, I’ll share my last two pointers for becoming a supremely confident test-taker:

  1. Develop your study schedule. This requires estimating how many study hours are needed to achieve an excellent result. Determining the amount of hours is an inexact science, but the bottom line is you’re better off overestimating than underestimating. Take into consideration the extent of your study material, the size and type of the test, etc.
    Once you’ve estimated your required study time, assign review hours into your daily schedule. Generally speaking, for midterms and finals, you should plan on studying over a four-day period for each exam. In building my schedule, I would work backwards from the exam date. My objective was always to complete my review by the night before the exam. For example, if my test was on Friday, I would start my review on Monday. That would give me the four days of review I required. Then, it was simply a matter of assigning my study hours to those days, taking into account my class schedule, activities, and the like.
  2. Review your study material (textbook and notebook) using the “rainbow highlighter method.” Here’s how it works: Let’s assume your exam covers five chapters of material. Start your review with the first chapter, rereading the yellow highlighted portion from your initial reading. Because this will be your second reading of that material, your ability to understand and recall it will be twice as good (remember, recall is all about reps!). However, there may still be detail or concepts you’re not totally confident about and where another review would help. Simply take a different color highlighter (e.g., lime green) and highlight those sentences you’ll want to review again tomorrow.
    Repeat this process again the next day using yet a different color (e.g., orange), but only reread the yellow-green section. You’re now reading this information for the fourth time, highlighting in orange any sentences you want to read again tomorrow. This will be yet a further reduction in the amount you need to reread.

You can see how your confidence grows and grows as the amount of material you highlight shrinks and shrinks. At the end of your review period, you’ve used several different highlighted colors and seen the most difficult material four to five times. This degree of repetition has a powerful impact on your ability to recall the material—not to mention your confidence as you enter the exam!

So there you have it: my six best tips for achieving your ultimate performance and, with effort, hopefully your best grades ever. This method is excellent at instilling confidence, which is a necessity in achieving under pressure. It completely transformed my academic performance and I hope it will for you, too.

If you’re a teacher, parent, or have a young person in your life who is currently in college or high school, I encourage you to share this with them! Becoming an efficient studier is an important skill to master throughout life.

How do prepare for an exam? If you’re a teacher, do you have your own tips that you share with your students? Do you currently practice any of the above tips? As always, feel free to share your own thoughts, ideas, or experiences.

Speak Don’t Freak: Improve Your Public Speaking Skills Pt. 2

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This is part two in a series on helping young adults improve their public speaking skills. Check out last week’s blog post for part one. 
 
Just as a golfer battles nerves on the first tee, most of us have butterflies when we present. The good news is they usually don’t last long, and unless it’s a really bad case, the audience won’t notice. That was my biggest takeaway when I watched a video of myself at a presentation workshop. Whew!
 
Young adults are already in a season of rampant self-consciousness and insecurity. Public speaking may seem to exacerbate the problem, but actually the opposite is true. Honing presentation skills is one of the best ways to help teens grow in confidence and self-esteem.
 
Here are some helpful tips to help your children or students handle nerves and believe in themselves when preparing to speak in public:
 
 

  1. Remember, the better prepared you are, the more confident you’ll be.
  2. Cut yourself some slack. You don’t have to be a perfect orator to win over your audience! Some nervousness is to be expected.
  3. Remember, you (usually) know more about the subject than your audience, and only you know exactly what you plan to say. If you miss something, they won’t even notice.
  4. Try to ask your audience a question as early as possible. You’d be surprised by how much this relaxes you. And, it creates a bond from the start.
  5. In most cases, the audience is on your side and they want you to succeed.
  6. If it’s a really bad case of the nerves, cough once before you enter the room. It’s a great stress reliever! No kidding!

 
Building effective communication skills in young adults should be one of our most important training priorities. It’s an essential ingredient to a successful career and plays a huge role in all of our relationships. Here’s how you can help them grow in this area:
 

  1. Encourage them to take speech classes, debate, and club assignments with speaking and leadership opportunities.
  2. Have them practice their speeches/presentations in front of you and offer positive feedback and gentle suggestions.
  3. Observe and evaluate speakers (e.g., political candidates) together to help them see the difference.
  4. Teach them etiquette and manners at every opportunity.
  5. Help them learn to read body language. Show them the difference between someone engaged and someone bored. This will serve them in social situations as well!

 
Then, watch how they conduct themselves when speaking with others (especially adults) in any situation. Praise them accordingly when you catch them doing it well. Confidence in general communications breeds confidence in presentations.
 

One day, they’ll thank you for it! (Okay, maybe.)
 


How have you trained the young people in your life or classroom to grow in confidence with their communication skills?  We’d love to hear your ideas and suggestions; please share them by posting your comments below. And then pass this post on to a friend who may benefit. We are always growing the circle!
 
 

Speak Don’t Freak: Improve Your Public Speaking Skills Pt. 1

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Ask anyone, young or old, about their greatest fear and you’ll likely hear, “Speaking in public!” That’s right…most of us suffer from glossophobia…I know I did. I had two lines in my first school play and promptly spaced on the second. My wedding vows, practiced about 857 times, didn’t go so well either. (Thankfully, it didn’t affect the outcome!)
 
Thankfully, glossophobia can be overcome through training and experience. As parents and mentors, we can help build confident, skillful communicators at a surprisingly early age.
 
Every presentation situation is unique and requires good planning in order to succeed. Here are some key skills to teach young people that can help him or her win over an audience:
 

  1. Effective planning and preparation—knowing the purpose and goals, audience, venue and layout, time allotment, technology and logistics, and formality.
  2. Recognizing it’s about them (the audience) and fulfilling their needs and expectations—not about you. Arrogance kills!
  3. Engaging the audience through questions and stories—and avoiding excessive detail and jargon.
  4. Being enthusiastic and expressive and paying close attention to their body language to gauge their interest. Be friendly and natural and don’t forget to smile!
  5. Always saving room for questions and not running over your allotted time.
  6. Making good eye contact with each audience member (where possible)
  7. Not including more than half the number of slides as minutes you have to present or more than five bullet points on a slide.
  8. If possible, knowing the personalities of your key audience members and adapting accordingly. Busy executives like compelling and succinct comments. Analytical people like facts and detail.

 
Perhaps the best advice we can give young speakers (or take to heart ourselves) is to think “share with” rather than “lecture to.” No one is nervous when sharing with friends, right? That’s the key mindset to have. Make it as conversational as you can, and, by all means, have fun!
 
Have you developed some good advice or strategies for improving your own speaking skills that you can share with young people? Please post your ideas and questions below; we’d love to hear from you! And pass this blog on to a friend, encouraging them to sign up for our e-mail newsletter. There is always room for more in our online community!
 

Control What You Can, Accept What You Can’t

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Let’s face it. Most of us like to be in control. Control gives us freedom, power, and confidence that we can steer our course.
 
As kids head off to college, they’re about to be in the driver’s seat for the rest of their life. Ah, the sweet feeling of “control.” They can’t wait! But is it really that easy?  The answer, of course, is “No.”      
 
Soon college students and those heading out into the work force will be free from their parents’ oversight, but much will remain outside of their control.  Are they prepared for it? Consider these potential real world examples:
 

  • Their roommate is a disaster
  • They just bombed their calculus final—so much for majoring in math!
  • Just when they’re about to graduate and search for employment, the economy tanks
  • They don’t land the job they desperately wanted
  • They don’t care for their new supervisor
  • It rains on their wedding day
  • A boyfriend or girlfriend announces he or she wants to date other people
  • Someone they love is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness

 
Control? Yeah, right! Although young adults are increasingly becoming more independent, they’ll quickly learn that not even they have control over their lives. Unexpected road bumps and potholes are the norm. When they occur, we all have to deal with each unique situation the best we can. Incidentally, most of the above happened to me!
 
Basically, we all have two choices. A common approach is to stew about the circumstances and be consumed with self-pity. The other approach is to accept the things you can’t control and make the best out of the situation. You may not like the circumstances, but you work the problem and focus on what you can control. For those who believe in God, it’s also a time of prayer, trust, and faith that things will work out okay. PERSEVERE!
 
It’s important for young people—for all of us, really—to understand that we have a choice in how to deal with matters beyond our control. For your own sake and for those around you, adopt the second approach. It’s not always easy but it’s far better than the alternative!
 
How do you handle things when life doesn’t go your way? Do you dwell on the things you can’t control, or can you let them go? How have you taught healthy strategies to the young people in your life … please share your ideas and comments below!