Let me be clear: I don’t believe in instant confidence as a permanent cure for confidence issues. I think what works in the long run is changing the thinking patterns and belief system which feed insecurities. And this cannot be done in an instant. It take times and persistent action.

I do however believe there are often situations when you don’t have the time to build confidence by addressing the roots and you need an instant boost for your confidence. There are strategies for this, which work a lot like a patch over a wound, with a temporary but also positive effect. This is why from my perspective, this discussion makes sense.

Do a simple search on this topic and you will actually find dozens of tips and tricks for instant confidence. Which always leads me to one simple question: which ones work the best and are truly worth applying?

Having tested a lot of them myself, as well as having seen even more of them at work in my activity as a coach, I’ve selected a couple of them, which I believe to be the most effective strategies for instant confidence. Here they are:

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You might think the reason I chose this title was to grab your attention but the truth is that several experiments* have been conducted on animals with the purpose of discovering how the brain works and how the results can be used to improve humans life – proving once more that animals are a lot more than just Man’s best friend.

Many animals have similar systems to the ones we have, and by applying the results of some of the experiments to  human beings have uncovered several methods of improving human life.

The monkeys that learned fear:

Monkeys that don’t fear snakes were introduced to some snakes while being forced to listen to loud, scary noises. Some monkeys learned to fear snakes as a result of this experiment but what’s more astonishing is that when monkeys that didn’t fear snakes were allowed to see the fear response of monkeys that fear snakes they learned how to fear snakes too!!!

Conclusion: We learn to fear things when we associate them with another event, for example a child might fear darkness after associating it with the noisy sound that happened when his mother slammed the door of a dark room.

Moreover, if a child watched an adult reacting with fear to a certain situation the child will develop fear too!!

The frog that died in the boiling water:

When a group of frogs were thrown in boiling water they jumped out of the pot very quickly and managed to survive. However, when the same frogs were put into cold water that was slowly heated, all of them perished when the water came to a boil, because they didn’t have time to react

Conclusion: We can feel sudden changes but when the change happens over time we don’t feel it until it is too late. People don’t develop bad habits over night nor do they experience severe behavior changes in a short period of time but everything happens bit by bit.

The Rats that failed to swim:

A researcher brought some wild rats, ones that are known to be able to swim for 80 hours continuously, then frightened them by making them believe that they were stuck before throwing them in water.

Many of the wild rats died after a few minutes of swimming! The rats didn’t drown due to lack of ability but at some point they just gave up swimming and died!!

When the rats felt in control they were able to swim for many hours but as soon as they felt that they were not in control they lost hope and drowned.

Conclusion: When we feel in control we can reach our maximum potential, while if we feel out of control we give up trying even if we have the required skills.

The dogs that learned to be helpless:

Few dogs were placed in room that has a switch that can either turn on electric current and shock the dogs or turn it off. When the dogs were first shocked they kept jumping around until one dog pushed the switch and discovered that the electric current stopped.

Later on whenever the electric shock was turned on the dogs rushed to turn it off using the switch. These dogs were split into two groups where the first group remained in the same room while the second one was placed in a similar one that had a faulty switch.

When the second group was shocked the dogs tried to push the switch but nothing happened. The second group of dogs were returned to the first room then were shocked again but this time they never tried to push the switch!!!

The dogs learned to become helpless as a result of feeling helpless after pushing the faulty switch!!

Conclusion: No one is born helpless but we learn how to become helpless when we face certain situations that we fail to deal with. Always try to do something about your problems because if you didn’t act you might develop learned helplessness!!

*this article is not in any way an endorsement of animal testing

Farouk Radwan is a Guest Blogger for PickTheBrain and the founder of 2KnowMyself.com – The ultimate source for self understanding  9,000,000 Million visits and counting…

Don’t Forget to Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

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I ran in a race over the weekend and re-learned a valuable lesson. During the middle of the run, I turned a corner and faced a long stretch — the kind that doesn’t seem to end. When I started the race, the thought of crossing the finish line motivated me. But when I was half-way through, out of breath and out of energy, visualizing the finish line didn’t provide me with any “umph.”

Instead of focusing on success and reaching my goal, I tried to forget all about the finish line and conquering the long stretch ahead. I dropped my head and looked about three steps in front of me. Every three steps became a new “finish line.”  Forget about everything else, I told myself over and over. Focus on just those next three steps. Before I knew it, I had run the long stretch and was turning another corner.

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Image courtesy of ThreadingWater

Silencing incessant mental chatter (or ‘mind chatter’ in short) is similar to the way we make darkness disappear in a dark room. We can dispel the darkness with light. Likewise, we can silence mental chatter with mindfulness and concentration. When we turn on the light, the darkness disappears. Similarly, when we turn on mindfulness (means being mindful) and concentrate our mind on a chosen object (for example, mental or physical experiences or an activity we wish to focus our attention on such as eating, walking, solving a problem), mental chatter loses its force and becomes silenced. In order to achieve that, our mindfulness should be sensitive enough to immediately notice when the mental chatter occurs (or is about to occur) and our concentration should be strong enough to hold our mind on the object without being distracted (and the force of our concentration should be stronger than the force of the mental chatter).

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Image courtesy of ComputerArt

Using part of your other 8 hours on social networking websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can build your human capital, but social networking has a dark side that can stifle creativity and foster narrow-mindedness if you’re not careful.

Once upon a time if you had different opinions, interests, or views from the norm, you were considered odd or maybe even weird.  Then the Internet came along and changed all that.  No matter how different you are, and no matter how strange your beliefs, you can find a million others just like you.

On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with this.  No matter what you think or what you like, there’s an online community just a few clicks away where everybody knows your name.  The internet is now one big high school cafeteria.  Jocks over here, nerds over there, brainiacs back there, stoners over . . . uh, stoners?

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“Never Wake Up” courtesy of Heiko Muller

I bet you’ve had days when you just want to stay under the duvet. Maybe you slept badly, or perhaps you just can’t face dragging yourself out of bed and facing your to-do list. Yet you know that if you could get up when you want to every day – rather than at the last minute possible – you’d be able to accomplish a lot more of your goals.

Here are nine ways to wake up ready to rock, roughly in order of when you’ll need to do them the day before. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments!

1.    Exercise During the Day

There are plenty of great reasons to exercise, and I won’t rehash them all here. Many people, though, find that exercising helps them to sleep well at night – yet another health-boosting benefit.

If you’re struggling to fit exercise into your day, try looking for ways to get active in your lunch hour or straight after work: if exercise forms a natural part of your routine, you’ll be much more likely to stick with it.

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Putting Power in Your Steps

To come from a place power, a clear understanding of past, present, and future is critical. In dwelling on the past, we are deterred from our dreams and dream objectives. By emotionally living in the past, we distract ourselves from discovering and giving voice to our deepest, most inspirational desires.

The Past Does Not Equal the Future

In thinking of the past, we stir up negative explanations as to why our dreams can’t come true because they haven’t come true in the past. It is a specific sort of blame game and subtracts from our power to take responsibility for what our life has become. Develop a habit of catching yourself in these thoughts and instantly correct them to shift your power by taking action in the present moment.

Our lives are a reflection of what we continuously focus on. Therefore, if we continue to focus on what happened in the past, we continue to repeat the past. History repeats itself, particularly for those who keep focusing on it!

“But how can I learn from my mistakes if I don’t look back?”  Although this question seems to make sense, there is weakness in this thinking. It makes the assumption that mistakes have been made. However, I believe that there is no such thing as failure, and that all seeming failure is an opportunity for adjustment. An adjustment is an improvement, rather than a correction of a mistake. When we think in terms of mistakes, this thinking comes from lack, or fear.

In thinking from power, faith, and responsibility, we simply make improvements. When we shift our thinking from fear of repeating mistakes to acceptance of a learning opportunity, the negative past loses its power over us.

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When you think of improving your health and happiness, what do you think about? Is it diet? Is it money? Or is it even having that dream house with a nice car? We all have different dreams, but the thing that connects us all is the fact that we believe these dreams will make us happy.

Happiness is something that has been studied for a long time. Itís something that we cannot fully grasp. We may see happy people walking past us, but we never know why theyíre so happy and what their secret is.

As the Buddhists say ìthe secret of happiness lies in the mindís release of worldly tiesî, but do we really need to do that? Iíve gathered five simple ways you can improve your health and happiness without giving up that which makes our lives interesting.

1. Yogic Breathing

One of the five principles of Yoga is Pranayama. It is a breathing exercise that promotes proper breathing. Pretty simple, right? Proper breathing in the Yogic sense is to bring more oxygen to your brain and blood, while also controlling the Prana (life force energy).

Yogic breathing can seem mystical at first, but once you learn and try it a few times itís just like regular breathing with a few modifications. About 4 years ago, I traveled to Valencia, Spain and attended a small seminar where I learned yogic breathing.

It felt awkward at first, but as I practiced I noticed a sense of calm and serenity come over me. It is believed that practicing the Asanas (yoga poses) with Pranayama (proper breathing) is the highest form of purification and self-discipline.

Yogic breathing has been proven to help improve your lungs and when combined with yoga can do wonders for your health.

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Image courtesy of Andy Warhol

My father is my hero.  The greatest man I know.  Honestly.  As I have matured through the years, I realize this more every day.  And I am more and more grateful for him every day.

He is a quiet and reserved man… a hard worker, and very successful in most facets of his life.  He spent his entire 45 year career at one company, starting out as an intern making 75 cents an hour to spending the last several years as CEO.  Surely he has weathered several economic recessions, witnessing and even overseeing his fair share of lay-offs, salary cuts and disgruntled employees.  He was fiercely dedicated to his work, and sacrificed a lot of time with his family to fulfill his responsibilities and accomplish his career goals.  He traveled often and spent endless hours at the office.  He was never a 9-5, 40 hours a week, employee.  More like 60-70 hours.

He raised four kids with my mom to whom he is still married, and surely bares a few grey hairs as souvenirs of our ongoing antics.  He has had his fair share of personal challenges as a father and a husband.  And although I am not a mind reader, as most people do, I assume he probably has a few regrets along the way.  Yet, everything he has ever done, he has done with his family’s best interest in mind.  He spoiled us… but not rotten.  He sent us all to college and grad school, and gave us every opportunity to better ourselves through education, travel, community service and family responsibility.  During the summers, he sent each one of us to work once we turned 16 because he felt it was important for us to learn the value of a dollar.  We learned a lot more than that from him.

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Image courtesy of Roy Lichtenstein

Life is wonderful! Life is a miracle! Life is awesome!

Life is in fact all of these things. Unfortunately, reality being what it is, life can, from time to time, suck beyond the telling of it. Every so often life comes along and metaphorically kicks you in the gut.

During these times it is perfectly normal to want to cry. There is nothing wrong with wallowing in brief bouts of self-pity.

That key is that those bouts be “brief.” Excessive self pity accomplishes nothing. When you are ready to move on, here are five things you can do to laugh when the world wants you to cry:

(Note: I’m not talking about real tragedy, like when a loved one passes away. I’m talking about the occasions when we throw a pity party for ourselves because we got dumped, or got laid off, or lost a promotion to Chuck, the office brown noser…)

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