Self confidence is a vicious circle. The more you lack self confidence the more difficult it is to succeed. A low success rate will further lower your self confidence… That’s what makes gaining self confidence a very difficult task, since you have to push yourself to break the low self confidence habit.

I want to be realistic… It’s very hard to increase your self confidence. It is not something that you will get overnight. You have to try hard and more than once. Gaining self confidence is a challenging exercise for everyone at first. But if you put enough effort, you will manage to increase your self confidence.

Several tips are suggested to gain self confidence all of which help you in different ways to break the chains of the low self confidence vicious circle. But the tip I find most useful is the following.

Identify something that you feel you are good at. It can be playing an instrument, practicing a sport or maybe you have excellent writing skills. After you find what you are good at, start a conversation with a close friend of yours or maybe a family member (someone you feel very comfortable with) about what you are good at and mention your abilities. Make sure that you explicitly mention that you are good at doing that particular thing, giving evidence by showing a sample of your work, for example.

The fact that you managed to discuss something about you, something that you are good at is a very positive achievement. After doing the above exercise you will feel more confident of your abilities, since you feel the backup of those who have agreed with you (in this case, family members or close friends).

The next step is to get out of the comfort zone of your family members or close friends and go out and talk about your abilities with someone else, maybe a colleague or a friend. Use the experience that you have obtained from previous similar discussions by focusing on the statements that were the most convincing. It will work for sure as it has worked when you have addressed your close friends and family members.

As you can see, gaining self confidence is an exercise that you should repeat frequently. Each time you should push yourself further. The more you talk with other people, the more people will appreciate your skills and value your knowledge.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by a friend from FruitfulTime - a software company behind the todo list software “FruitfulTime TaskManager”.
FruitfulTime has a blog focusing on personal productivity, you may like to visit FruitfulTime Blog or subscribe to feed.

(Photo by floato)

I’m Not Good With Money — How Should I Handle a Windfall? - I came across this blog “Get Rich Slowly” and this very interesting advice column post. Someone actually wrote in and ask how he should handle a windfall. I have heard stories of those who got a windfall and still ended up broke because they didn’t know how to handle their finances. I think this is a really, really important question to ask. Look at this to see if there’s something you can learn about handling money.

Seek and Destroy Your Stress - the irony of modern age living is that we have increased quality of life, and yet the stress level are increasing as well. Here’s some tips to help you combat stress and feel better.

How to Quit Your Job with Bridges Intact - You’ve probably heard this before, “don’t burn your bridges”. I did. But all too often, I still see many who burnt their bridges when they leave their current job. This article has a good coverage on what to look out for when switching jobs, so that you leave your bridges intact. It’s really systematic and takes the art out of the equation to a graceful job switch.

7 Tips for Morning Alertness Without the Caffeine - A friend of mine is trying to kick the caffeine habit. Although I don’t really see the need to kick this habit, I know of many who want to do so. As such, I like to share this article with you.

137 Ways to Increase Your Productivity - This is a giant list of 137 articles about productivity. I have been reading up on productivity lately and trying to relate how productivity contributes to living a balance life. Interestingly, I discovered that productivity actually helps a lot towards a balanced life. By improving our productivity, and getting things done, we actually relieve our mind to focus on people, family and friends. So take a look at this list to get productive.

In my recent post “Discover Your Passion - Life Is Too Short For The Wrong Job“, I mentioned that activities that we enjoy, and being in the “zone” are clues to our passion. In response to these points, Dave asked a very interesting and valid question:

Lawrence, I have another query that you might be able to comment on.

What advice do you have for those of us whose passions all fall outside the world of work? For example, I am in the “zone” when playing PC games, watching cricket, hiking in the mountains, playing with my son, traveling overseas etc. None of which sounds very useful when it comes to guiding my career choice. Perhaps, as I am beginning to suspect, my calling is towards multiple divergent careers.

To answer Dave’s question, there are two points that I like to address:

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Yesterday, I was reading the book ‘Never Eat Alone‘, by Keith Ferrazzi. In this book, there is a lesson about adapting our goals that I like to share.

Keith is a marketer at heart; He became the youngest ever CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of Starwood Hotels and Resort (a Fortune 500 company). A few year later, he became CEO of YaYa Media.

He believed that marketing can and should direct all operational activities. Yet, throughout his career, he faced resistances from top management to let marketing play a bigger role in the running of the organization.

During his CMO tenur at Starwood Hotels and Resorts, he hit a low point in his career; his goal to restructure marketing globally was not supported by the new President then. He knew he wouldn’t be able to reach his goals at Starwood.

Keith knew he had to leave.

He decided the best way to make his dream come true is to become the CEO and run the company the way he believes it should be run. He reevaluated his dreams and wrote a 12-page mission statement comprising his key strengths and weaknesses. He wanted to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. However, the reality check turned out that Keith lack the qualifications to be CEO of any Fortune 500.

He consulted with his friends and advisors. One of them told Keith “you have to get over the prestige of working for a Fortune 500 company. If you want to be CEO, you have to find a company that you can grow with.”

That was exactly the advice that Keith needed. With that in mind, Keith adjusted his goals, and set out an action plan to network with the relevant people in the industry - people not from Fortune 500. Of the connections he made, it included people from YaYa Media. Months later, an opportunity in YaYa Media opened up for the CEO position and he took it - realizing his dream of bringing his marketing experience into the CEO position.

PERSIST ON YOUR DREAMS, BUT DON’T GET STUCK IN TRAFFIC JAMS

I often talk about setting goals and living your passion. I have to admit that this is not an easy thing to do. More often than not, life does not turn out as we plan it to.

However, Keith’s story is a good lesson for us - even as we strive towards our dream in a persistent manner, we must be flexible to adapt our action plans to changing times and prevailing forces.

When we set goals, we do not concern ourselves with ‘how’ to make it happen. Along the way, when actions are taken, we get feedbacks and see actual progress. It’s times like these that we need to reevaluate our approach to our dreams. It’s not the same as giving up, it’s about adapting. I know, it’s a fine line to draw - it’s subtle but very important.

To illustrate my point, I like to share an analogy: Let’s say you are going out on a car trip to a park. When you set off from your house, you planned on taking the shortest route you know. But during the journey, you heard over the radio that there’s a traffic jam up ahead. At this moment, you can choose to stubbornly stick to your planned route or you can switch to another longer route without traffic jam. Chances are, it makes more sense to change your route, and you still get to your destination (the park). The traffic jam is something that you don’t control, and there’s no telling how long it is going to take.

It’s all about adapting to prevailing circumstances. There’s no point in fighting against circumstances that you don’t control. You’ll only end up in self-defeat and more disappointment.

Do you think Keith would have succeeded as quickly if he had stubbornly stuck to his dream to become CEO of a Fortune 500 company?

(Photo by voltage)

I’ve gotten quite a bit of feedback from the last article on discovering your passion . One common feedback sounds like this “Hey, Lawrence, it’s all great, this passion thing. But you know, I need a job; I have mouths to feed.”

This is a valid concern. As such, in this part of the series, I like to suggest 3 strategies that you can consider to monetize your passion.

CREATE VALUE WITH YOUR PASSION

The key to monetizing your passion is to create value with it. In doing so, we can address the practicality dimension.

Naturally, the next question is, “What is value?” In the context of this discussion, value is anything that someone is willing to pay money for:

• As an employee, your value is the job that you do. Your employer is willing to pay for your time to get things done.
• If you are self-employed, your value is the products or services that you provide/sell.

Becoming a Career Lover is actually no rocket science. It’s based on a surprisingly simple principle “do what you are passionate and good at, and have people pay you for it. “

Depending on your circumstances, this simple principle may or may not be easy to apply in reality. In the rest of this article, I will describe each strategy and highlight the pros and cons for each. Depending on your specific circumstance, passion and talents, you may find one strategy more applicable than the others.

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Hi there, here’s three recommendations of great articles I’ve for this week:

• A Touch Of Greatness And Success: A Different Definition - Albert shares his thoughts about greatness. Do you know why success is so difficult to achieve? It’s because we only see the benefits of being successful and we start to pursue success as an end to itself. The irony of life is that when you do that, then success will more likely elude your grasp. Successful people become successful for chasing a purpose greater than themselves. Very insightful article. Highly recommended.
• Everything You Want To know About The Millionaire Mommy Next Door - And What She Can Teach You - In this article, Millionaire Mommy Next Door shares with us details about herself and her journey to become a millionaire. She set the goal to be a millionaire when she was 30 and achieved the goal at 40. There isn’t any magical trick she pulled to achieve this goal. All she did was do things that I have said about money here on A Long Long Road - setting a financial goal, being prudent in spending, save and invest wisely. It’s a proven path to financial freedom. Take a look.
• Relationship Deal Breakers - Non Negotiable Boundaries - Do you know your spouse’s non-negotiable boundary? What are the mistakes that your spouse will never forgive you with? A healthy relationship needs mutual understanding and it should include knowing this boundary - a sensitive area that one should not thread lightly on.

I mentioned two weeks back that I will be starting an advice column for readers to contribute questions and I will attempt to provide my two cents worth. I have received some questions and I will be starting the first of this feature with a question about self-doubt from Sam.

Sam first wrote to me and requested for an article about self-deception. I was curious about the request. As such, I’d probed a little and he wrote back:

I am interested in self-deception because it is related to me. I’ve been experiencing it from quite some time and I don’t know what to do about it. My prime concern, to ask you about self-deception is basically in context with one’s misconceptions on various things. For example: everyday I plan out certain tasks for myself particularly related to my studies but at the end of the day those objectives are not accomplished by me. Maybe the prime problem would be in setting a realistic or achievable goal for myself everyday. Or maybe I’m deceiving myself by believing that my planned goal is a realistic one and thus I can achieve it. But ultimately, in reality, it does not happened.

I am actually a student so a psychological overview will be appreciated. Each day, I think I am deceiving myself which is ultimately causing me lots of problems. Particularly in organizing myself for my studies and meeting various planned deadlines.

Reading Sam’s questions reminds me of those days before I learned about goals setting. Like Sam, I’d used to question myself if my goals are realistic, or am I just kidding myself when I say I can achieve certain goals. Big goals looked so impossible and I couldn’t see how I could achieve those goals. It’s like this treasure box, far, far away, and I don’t see any road to reach it.

I like to address Sam’s question in 2 parts: Goal setting techniques and handling self-doubt.

Goal Setting Techniques

1. Goals are better measured over the longer terms of months than in a single day. There are too many possible interruptions within a day that it’s not a good duration for measuring your progress with goals. I practice weekly and monthly reviews of my goals for short-term and long-term tracking.
2. It’s important to understand why are these your goals in the first place? How will achieving these goals make you feel? Are you setting them as goals simply because someone else say so? If that’s the case, you don’t own the goals in the first place. If your goal is about studying a certain subject, do you enjoy that subject in the first place?
3. Don’t beat yourself up for not achieving your goals. Life won’t run like a clockwork as you have planned it. Things will happen, mostly beyond your control, to disrupt your goals. I’ve learned that I achieved some of my goals and that I don’t achieve some. You see, the most important thing about setting goals is not about achieving them. It’s about having a direction in life. You don’t have to achieve all 100% of your goals. Even if you achieve only 50% of your goals, you have made some progress in your life. This is far, far more progress than someone without a single goal (there are many such people around us… just ask around).
4. As for the rest of the 50% that you didn’t achieve, you will learn over time if they are really that important to you. Maybe they’re not so important to you after all (see point 2). To be honest with you, I don’t achieve all my goals. Sometimes, I drop some goals because I realize they’re not important.

Handling Self Doubt

Self doubt has a lot to do with uncertainty. Worthy goals are often big challenges with no guaranteed way of knowing if you will achieve it. In fact, when I set big goals, I don’t even know ‘how’ I’m going to achieve them. One fine example is my goal for this blog - to have 3000 readers by end of this year. Do I really know for sure that I will achieve it? Of course not.

However, understanding and accepting that uncertainty is part and parcel of goals helps me feel better about it. Like my favorite phrase from Forest Gump,

life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’ll gonna get…

There’s no way we’re going to know how things will turn out. The best we can do for ourselves is to act in our best efforts in the direction of our goals and life will manifest itself over time.

I always like to ask myself, “what do I lose by trying?” Most of the time, there’s really nothing much to lose. This is a very powerful question for everyone, really. What do you actually lose? Once you put things into perspective, it’s so much easier to take actions, and take confident strides forward.

I also wrote a guest post in reply to Sam’s request: How To Conquer Self-doubt in 2008.

What you do think? If there is any advice you like to offer to Sam, or opinions to share, please comment!

Which Way? is a free advice column, provided by A Long Long Road to its readers to share questions and opinions on life’s challenges.

The Career Lover Series is inspired by people going through the motions at their work. They have no fire, no passion. They just show up, put in their time, and go home.

More than half of our lifetime is spent at work. It’s such a shame. What a waste of life…

We pursue a job for various reasons. More often than not, money is one primary consideration; likewise for me. I’ll be kidding if I say just go out there and pursue a job that you love, regardless of how little it pays… no, that doesn’t work.

So fine, money is important, I understand.

But still, I want to argue that money is not the sole consideration. Each day, I continue to hear stories of people whose are not happy because they see their job as that - simply a job. As such, I continue to advocate that we should pursue our passions.

JUST WHAT THE HELL DO I LOVE?

Having said that, I know that it’s not easy to find your passion. Although I preach about this all the time, my passion hasn’t always been that clear to me. When I was younger, I thought that I understood myself very well. It’s logical, isn’t it? If I don’t know myself, who will? Yet, over the years, I’ve learned that it’s really not easy to understand oneself:

• When I signed up for computer studies, I thought that I loved computing. Wrong. Turned out that I love continuous learning.
• After school, I joined the Army, I thought I loved to be a soldier. Wrong again. I actually love leadership.
• Tired of the Army, I left and joined the corporate world. I thought that I wanted to be a business leader. Yet, I’m wrong again. I simply wanted more freedom to manage my time.

On hindsight, I didn’t understand what I really love.

As such, I can really understand when some people give me a puzzled look when I tell them to do what they love. They probably don’t have a clue what it is they truly love! It’s not easy to know what you want - the things that you REALLY want in a job.

If you don’t know what it is that you truly love, don’t fret. You’re not alone, and definitely not the minority. It takes a little trial and error, a little fine-tuning to nail down that dream job.

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Today is the 10th day into 2008. How is New Year for you so far? If you have not started on your New Year Resolutions, this is a gentle reminder to get started.

To do that, for this week’s Recommended Reads, I like to share with you some articles I have written on resolutions and starting the New Year. They apply to any goal-setting initiatives as well:

• Starting a New Year with Death - This is my favorite. It’s a reminder to ourselves to do the truly important things in the New Year . How? By using death. Read on…
• 7 Common Reasons People Fail To Achieve New Year Resolutions - If you have your resolutions in place, then note these 7 common pitfalls to increase your chances of success in 2008.
• How to Conquer Self-Doubt in 2008 - Fear and self-doubt are two common emotions that beat us up before we even take the first step towards our goals. It’s alright and normal to feel self-doubt about the future; just learn to overcome them.
• 6 Guilt-Free Steps To Review Your New Year Resolutions - Reviewing resolutions and goals can be a painful affair for some people. It doesn’t have to be so, if you learn to view these reviews in a constructive light.