BUILD YOUR SELF ESTEEM, A STARTER GUIDE TO SELF IMPROVEMENT

So how do you stay calm, composed and maintain self esteem in a tough environment? Here are some tips you may to consider as a starter guide to self improvement.

Imagine yourself as a Dart Board. Everything and everyone else around you may become Dart Pins, at one point or another. These dart pins will destroy your self esteem and pull you down in ways you won’t even remember. Don’t let them destroy you, or get the best of you.  So which dart pins should you avoid?

Dart Pin #1 : Negative Work Environment
Beware of “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. Most of the time you get to work too much without getting help from people concerned.  Stay out of this, it will ruin your self esteem. Competition is at stake anywhere. Be healthy enough to compete, but in a healthy competition that is.

Dart Pin #2: Other People’s Behavior
Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipmongers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, people walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers… all these kinds of people will pose bad vibes for your self esteem, as well as to your self improvement scheme.

Dart Pin #3: Changing Environment
You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. It tests our flexibility, adaptability and alters the way we think. Changes will make life difficult for awhile, it may cause stress but it will help us find ways to improve our selves. Change will be there forever, we must be susceptible to it.

While taking a martial arts class recently, and trying to get the class to focus on putting a real effort into their training and not just cruise along saving their energy for later. I noticed a lot of people were struggling through the basics, panting out of breath. Even those who I felt were actually fitter than myself (yes something I need to work on!!!).

Then I realised they did not understand why we teach certain forms of breathing exercises, and the first one and most basic Nagore San Ichi (I need to check the spelling, my Japanese spelling is not the best), which is basically deep slow controlled breaths, ensuring the whole of the lungs is utilised on the inhale and all of the air is exhaled.

When you have been working hard and your body is screaming for oxygen, if you sit there and pant rapidly your recover time will be extended, but if you control your breathing and utilise all of your lung capacity for getting oxygen into the body and Carbon Dioxide out, the recovery period will be must shorter. Your lungs will scream at you wanting you to pant rapidly and shallow, but this is mostly caused by the carbon dioxide in your lungs, if you discipline yourself to take only deep breaths and use ALL of your lungs the burning feeling will diminish much faster as you are getting more CO2 out of your lungs quicker.