self-confidence Archives - You can't stop the journey

Posted on November 1, 2024 by Max Herrera

The Path of Self-Esteem

Believing in oneself, in our capabilities, loving ourselves, that’s self-esteem. It does not depend on what other people think about us; it only depends on how (and what) we think about ourselves. People who suffer from low self-esteem (and low self-esteem is a real illness, a disease) are constantly seeking for approval of other people, there in the outside world. Of course everyone wants to be approved, loved and even admired by those around us. But we have to start by loving ourselves, and respecting each other internally.

Be strong. If we always try to impress by pretending what we are not, if we desperately seek applause or consent, if we need approbation of others, all the time, because otherwise we get depressed and let ourselves down, is because we lack sufficient self-esteem. We must not use appearances to hide our weakness and our lack of faith. It is as if beneath the tinsel we secretly know that our underwear is old, dirty and worn. That will also be perceived by our peers, and an x-ray machine is not needed to find it out. The feeling of worthlessness is transmitted. Because if you do not love yourself, no one will love you, and if you think you are worthless, other people will think it too.

Low self-esteem is a new concept in psychology, and its use has become commonplace, everyday, is the talk of the world. It might lead to real painful, dramatic suffering. An internal emptiness produces low self-esteem, inner loneliness, feeling nothing. To compensate for this deficiency some people try to link up with people they consider important and cool. Others flaunt their economic power, or knowledge, or of the trips they’ve made, or their acquired properties. No matter the mask, low self-esteem cannot be hidden. Think about all that people who seemingly had it all and ended painfully… they lacked the main thing: self-esteem, and they’ll need to follow the path of self-esteem.

Posted on May 5, 2024May 5, 2024 by Max Herrera

On Anxiety

Anxiety is a state of restlessness, and most of the time such state cannot be justified. It is not fear of something concrete at the outside but expresses our inner emotional conflicts. The person feels threatened by something of unreal nature, and is unable to handle such emotions. The anxious person may have been conditioned very early and may continue to be anxious in adulthood. It then becomes a characteristic of his nature that pervades all their actions and which turns the person in a candidate to suffer stress. Anxious people are fast, are always in a hurry, can not afford the time for all the activities they want to develop and are used to work on two or three things at once. When eating, anxious people swallow whole foods -tasteless- and consequently often suffer from dyspepsia, indigestion, bloating, irritable bowel, etc.

Posted on April 30, 2024April 30, 2024 by Max Herrera

10 Tips for Loving Yourself

You’re a wondrous being, a miracle called life. You’re unique. You’ve followed a path, a path which has turned you into what you’re now: energy, dreams, smiles, a lovely human being. Maybe you want more things, maybe you wish for more… that’s OK. Don’t blame the past for anything, as such past has allowed you to be here. And that past is offering you the opportunity to be better. The Beatles said it: All you need is love. And for loving, we have to start by loving ourselves. We have to love ourselves, we have to accept ourselves as we are right now: with our fears, our limitations, our physical image, our weaknesses, and our beliefs. If you do not love yourself, how may you be able to really love others? If you don’t accept yourself, if you don’t love yourself, you’ll probably end up looking in other people for such traits and features you don’t have and would like to have for being happy… but you will likely end up being hurt if that people go away. Love yourself, right now:

Accept your weaknesses. They’re are part of you.
Forgive yourself. All those things that you “perceive” you have done wrong… they’re past. You don’t live in the past anymore. You can only control the present time. Past & Future are just images, not reality.
Express your feelings with total freedom.
Don’t worry about things you cannot have control over. Instead, focus on the only things you can really control: your decisions right now.
Trust your inner values and your personal resources. Don’t be afraid of losing, go ahead!
Believe in your positive experiences, believe there’s an abundance in health and life for you.
Don’t fight your negative thoughts or your fears… when you’re feeling negative or scared, thank your mind and your body for such thoughts and emotions, and leave them behind, you’re very positive and brilliant and have a lot of wonderful things to do.
Do this exercise: write a little and happy song about those things that you fear the most. And sing it occasionally 🙂
Do this other exercise: close your eyes and visualize yourself as a small child. Imagine this child laughing and running through some beautiful scenery, full of colors, full of life. Hug this child close to you. Tell him or her how much they are loved, and how special he or she is.
Enjoy your body and care of it through nutrition and exercise (both physical and mental).

Life is beautiful. Enjoy it 🙂

Posted on April 14, 2024April 14, 2024 by Max Herrera

Chiaroscuro

Self-confidence may stagger when we face up to our flaws severely and frequently. If we follow this approach in our lives, our flaws and failures will become our main source of concerns, leading to stress. We may become very good at spotting defects… so good that we may spend most of our time detecting flaws, focused into the bad things rather than the good ones. Such obsessive attention to the wrong things (flaws, manipulating or using other people, hurting other people, lying, and generally, those facts or actions that we think bad) may become the center of our lives.

Posted on March 22, 2024March 22, 2024 by Max Herrera

Innovation: A Path to Personal Growth

Herman Melville said: “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation“. I totally agree. Let’s try. Let’s pursue innovation and originality. Most of time, our inner fears lie in failure… the fear to fail. In itself, fear is not that bad. It reminds us of dangers and the possibility of losses, and motivates us to think our actions carefully. But fear should be controlled. Fear should not paralyze us. I’ll try that idea in which I believe. I believe in myself, in my ideas, and thereby, I’ll pursue my goals, my projects. The process of trying is, already, our first reward. Let’s enjoy it.

At the core of innovation lies the courage to challenge the status quo, to question established norms, and to push the boundaries of what is deemed possible. It is a mindset that embraces experimentation, embraces risk-taking, and embraces the unknown, recognizing that true progress is often born out of stepping beyond the confines of familiarity. When individuals embrace innovation in their lives, they open themselves up to a world of endless possibilities, where creativity flourishes and new horizons beckon.

One of the greatest obstacles to innovation is the fear of failure. Our inner fears often manifest as doubts and hesitations, whispering cautionary tales of potential setbacks and disappointments. However, it is essential to understand that failure is not the end but rather a stepping stone on the path to success. Embracing failure as a natural part of the innovation process allows individuals to learn, adapt, and grow, gaining valuable insights that pave the way for future breakthroughs.

Posted on January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 by Max Herrera

Colors of Life

After publishing my friend’s message and commenting on her intentions to take a vacations trip, I somehow wished to take a little vacation too. As I have no ties to prevent it, I adhered to my wish. I took a few days trip, totally disconnected from the Internet and the current rush of technology. Over there, I met up with a longtime friend and her family… It had been ages since I saw them last, so it was good to finally catch up, and we all had a good time and a lot of stories to tell. Thank God, they’re OK, in general. All of her kids have grown up nicely, already graduated, and have married. Except for the eldest daughter, who has a health problem. A few years ago, she was diagnosed with diabetes, and that fact did lead to many drastic changes in her lifestyle. Of course, now she follows healthier food and exercise habits, which is totally recommendable (and mandatory!). However, there are some changes which are too excessive and harmful, in my opinion. Despite her disease is medically controlled, and shes does not feel any physical problem (on the contrary, she externally reveals a spectacular health condition), her courage and joy have fallen considerably. She used to be a playful and lively girl, but now she decided to give up parties, to go shopping with her friends, love… and everything joyful, simply because she is afraid of suffering a sudden, unexpected diabetic complication or coma, amidst the happiness of the reunion. She would become a disturbance… others would see her weak and in panic, prey to fear. And she does not want to go through that. She is concerned about what might happen, and what her friends could say. In a sense, she fears rejection.

Posted on December 22, 2023 by Max Herrera

A Reader’s Happiness

Yesterday, a reader from Miami, USA, sent me a very positive and lovely feedback about my article Looking for True Happiness. She loved the succinct discussion involving economy’s views, a theme she feels is often neglected from essays on happiness. Thanks. I’d like to share with the other readers of You can’t stop the journey a very personal approach to happiness, courtesy of Mrs. Paula Marcenaro. In her email, she refers that life was really harsh for her after her parents’ death, when she was 14… that was some years ago, as she is now a shining and exquisite 60+ woman 😉 She had to work very hard in order to achieve her teaching degree and to bring up her six daughters. But now, she is very, very happy. All of her six girls are professionals, holders of high academic degrees. Nevertheless, she always kept her self-confidence. Self-confidence and an unbreakable faith in a better tomorrow allowed her to improve and achieve her goals. Self-confidence allowed her to endure others’ unkind critics, envy, and general problems.

Posted on November 23, 2023November 23, 2023 by Max Herrera

Meditation Gems: Appearances

Let’s continue with our condensed Meditation Gems series. Today we’ll discuss appearances, an ancient concern. As far back as Aesop‘s fable, The Ant and the Chrysalis, the moral “Appearances are deceptive” is present. We have to acknowledge that self-confidence relies greatly on how we see ourselves. Whether this inner perception represents the stairway to a broader and successful vision of life, or is the path to ruin, depends solely upon ourselves. The things we think about and the things we do define our true identity. People afraid of failures skip from one idea to another almost endlessly, and thereby rarely get hold of success. Facing the hard circumstances of the real world, our fears would recommend to step back in order to avoid (possible) injuries. Self-confidence provides the fuel to fight these fears. The world belongs to brave people. Nevertheless, being brave does not mean to live recklessly, as self-confidence also allows us to realize our limits as imperfect human beings. The key word is balance. For self-confidence, bravery must join forces with humility. Being afraid of failure opens the door to appearances, but being unaware of failure leads to frustration. When the required balance is disrupted, desperate for filling up the void, we tend to recur to a harmful resource: appearances. With appearances we try to fill up the gap in our souls, related to our need for faking our limitations and guising them as “intentional” patterns in our life.

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Max Herrera

On Good Sense

Even to cut a flower requires good sense. Good sense, prudence, sound practical judgment. There is nothing in the world which deprives us of enjoying this quality. Good sense allows us to be excellent managers, professionals, friends, husbands/wives, and especially, it opens the doorway to the most precious gift of human beings: self-confidence. Self-confidence is one of those virtues we frequently don’t know how to handle, or that simply we mistreat.

Good sense is the primary and the conditio sine qua non of a better and longer life. Thanks to it we are able to avoid wars, conflicts, hunger, and getting into troubles in general. It is only a matter of just applying it. The converse, i.e. a bad sense of life balance, turns us into fragile souls, easy preys for evil, envy, and lies. A lack of good sense provides a fake sensation of power… power which indeed is only a cheap mask for selfishness. A lack of good sense separates us from our family, our friends and from the entire world. Moreover, that fake power may lead to an hyperactivity which ultimately will burn us.

Posted on October 20, 2023October 20, 2023 by Max Herrera

A Thing that Truly Hurts Self-confidence

A look behind the scenes of work’s misdirections

What do we achieve by thinking of ourselves as “supermen” or “wonder women”? Too little, indeed. Trying to act (and even feel) like fiction heroes, in a frantic rush to enjoy something that really is too tiresome to be enjoyed. There is little reward in demanding ourselves the compliment of being perfect, effective, productive, attractive and winsome people who have no real problems at work or at home, and who always ignite the life of the party. Needless to say, there is no reward in working frenetically until our minds and bodies cannot handle it anymore: we would weaken and become sick. But we already know that time is unstoppable: other people would carry on our duties, and someday, we would be simply forgotten. In other words, no matter how much effort and blood we devote to our jobs, we are always dispensable for the furious wheel of businesses.