Fact: Thousands wallow in depression because of insecurity.

When you ignore the positive feelings tied with accomplishment, it’s easy to slide back into negative self-talk and sabotage your success. In this insecured state, you may find it tough to focus on or permit yourself to enjoy feelings of accomplishment as feelings of self-judgment then emerge. Talking to yourself in a dark way reinforces habitual, unhealthy behavior. A sentiment such as, “Why forge ahead if I never get anywhere?” reflects a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. The self-chastisement involved in focusing on past failures, rather than past triumphs, keeps you in the shadows of uncertainty where there’s no opportunity for flying high.

When your self-confidence and sense of security are deficient, you may impose a retreat on yourself to escape taking challenges or risks. When a highly successful event does happen, you may conceive that it’s sheer luck. Self-talk and beliefs such as “My effort has no effect on the outcome,” may stem from previously programmed ideas that you received from deprecating others.
Feelings of insecurity and a lack of self-confidence can persuade you to try to control external events, including others. When you’re busy attempting to control external events, you may not be in command of yourself. For example, trying to control the way someone feels toward you tan be very overwhelming. You can’t command the feelings of others, but you can be in command of the way you respond and behave toward them.

Endeavoring to impact everything or everyone around you, rather than managing your own feelings and behaviors, undermines your self-growth and awareness. It fosters more insecurity. The point is not to focus on halting others on their road to triumph, but to focus on your own personal growth and accomplishment. Work at understanding and appreciating your competencies (e.g. integrity, perseverance, sound judgment, forthrightness) that are always on tap within you. Focus on developing your strengths to become enthusiastic and enervated. When you empower your mind and body to develop your personal strengths and resources, you enliven and consolidate your commitment to fly high.

Insecurity is self-destruction. Why stab yourself, or anyone else? Criticizing yourself unjustly undermines your growth and accomplishment Blaming and judging yourself because you’re not able to lead other people’s thoughts and feelings is self-sabotaging. Undermining the success of others erects barriers to warm relations, making it more difficult to appreciate situations that offer positive growth and opportunity. The feelings of triumph generated between two or more people far outweigh the sentiments created by insecurity and judging yourself.

Stop undermining yourself or others. Focus on your own road to success. Devote your time and energy to developing healthy thoughts and emotions. Take responsibility for your actions and move confidently toward your new opportunities. Fling insecurity out the window!

Anti-insecurity Tip 1: Be grateful for what you have.

Anti-insecurity Tip 2: Word everything in the positive. If I said “Don’t be negative, I’m weakening myself”

Anti-insecurity Tip 3: With every rising, ask yourself “What great things can I do today. Do the same every hour on the hour!

God speed!

The term baggage is definitely an overused pop psychology term in our culture. We use it to describe the excesses and useless junk we carry around with us from our worst childhood memories to when our romantic relationships went bad to all manner of past problems we can’t seem to shake or get rid of.

It’s as if we’ve packed away tightly all of these sorrows and frustrations and grief and resentments into metaphorical suitcases which we continue to carry around with us and which continue to define us and impact our belief systems through the lens of what we believe about the world.

That sucks, right? I mean, what a huge bummer. FORTUNATELY for you, you have come to the right place and this baggage can be checked and/or unpacked and the useless items we have carried along for so long can be discarded. It’s easier to repair than it might seem on the surface.

My first suggestion is to use try some tapping. If you’ve never heard me speak about this, stay tuned for an upcoming article on the subject.

Additionally, try this: Have an exploratory conversation with yourself, maybe on paper, maybe in your head, and focus on the following questions. What is your belief about persuasion? What are your beliefs about selling and sales and prospecting? What do you believe about closing the deal?

These questions are designed to help you set up the frame of how you view persuasion. It is so important that you start this analytic process because only by defining it will you be able to change it (if necessary).

‘The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.’ -Frank Lloyd Wright.

As a persuader, what do you believe? When you respond to the questions I recommend you start your statements in the following way: ‘A persuader is someone who. . . A sales person is someone who. .. A prospector is someone who. . .’ and write them all out explaining in detail your response to each question. It’s not as easy as it seems and at times you might need to wrestle with it.

If your answers are negative, you are impacting your clients with your own baggage attached to persuasion and sales. This is something that, as a sales person, you need to get clear on. There is not a whole lot you can do about it until you get clear. You will consistently be sending people negative intentions and therefore blocking sales and productivity.

When we have our beliefs about what we are, what we are aiming to accomplish, what our desired outcomes are, etc., we’re clear and open to the process of persuasion.

Anton Chekhov wrote, ‘Man is what he believes.’ Do you believe that persuasion is manipulation? Do you believe that sales people are high pressure?

If that is the other than conscious frame you have in place, you are doomed to fail.

Start to reframe this immediately.

Remember this: You are what you believe.

Dulling the Pain

I have heard people say that they abuse alcohol and drugs to “dull the pain.” In fact, many of these same individuals state that almost everyone they know has a need to “dull the pain” somehow. Question: doesn’t life present all of us with pain? At the risk of sounding superficial, we need to stop our “paralysis by analysis,” stop searching for “the secret to life,” admit that we are all in some sort of pain, and start developing healthy, fulfilling, and productive actions, beliefs, and habits.

Life’s Setbacks and Frustrations

There are many disappointments and frustrations in life. Some people deal with these dissatisfactions by gravitating toward the quick fix, the easy way out, and toward the course of least resistance while others face their challenges by refusing to give in, focusing on positive and creative goals, and by rolling up their sleeves and getting to work doing something productive and fulfilling.

Habits, good and bad, and addictions seem to have an inertia or a life of their own. This being the case, if a positive momentum is to be realized, people need to involve themselves in healthy and beneficial habits rather than searching for shortcuts and giving in to harmful addictions.

Harmful vs. Healthy Activities

The vast majority of people are smart enough to know what is harmful and what is beneficial in their lives. People need to surround themselves with good things (healthy eating habits, proper sleep, contact with positive friends and relatives, doing helpful things for others, expressing thankfulness for the things they have) and start eliminating actions and behaviors that they know are negative (staying out until 2 or 3AM on work nights, spending money to finance their alcoholism or drug abuse, surrounding themselves with people of questionable character, eating mainly junk food, focusing on partying rather than on self-improvement, etc).

Positive Inertia and Meaning

A healthy or positive habit starts with one action. People need to take this first step so that they can understand how positive behaviors and thoughts feed on one another. It is therefore important for people to quiet their thoughts and honestly ask themselves what they can do to make their lives more fulfilling and more joyful. Once the positives are identified, it then becomes necessary to develop a plan of action, implement it, and stick to it. Setbacks and difficulties will happen. When they do, however, people need to face and overcome their problems rather than making excuses and giving in to their weaknesses and shortcomings.

In many instances, a person who is willing to get motivated and do something positive for someone or for himself is all it takes to cut into and change a negative cycle. Indeed, giving of oneself and helping others often helps a person take his mind off of his own problems and commonly results in a different, more positive perspective. Not only this, but helping others frequently enables a person to discover more healthy and good things about himself than he ever gave himself credit for. Once this happens, a person should not be surprised if he finds more significance and joy in his life than he ever experienced before.

Conclusion

Herein lies the moral of the story: happiness and meaning do not result from addictions and weakness but rather from overcoming one’s shortcomings and bad habits and replacing them with healthy, life-affirming actions, beliefs, and habits.

Copyright 2007 – Denny Soinski. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, and give the author credit.