I wanted to share with you something which helped me along the path of self-love. Although I am still 'in-progress' with this life lesson, as Fatboy Slim would say: "I've come a long way, baby." :-) I'm so proud of myself on how far i've come and how hard I've worked to get up to this point!!
Hopefully by sharing this experience, it might give you some ideas to help you grow in confidence and give yourself the love you truly deserve!
Hopefully by sharing this experience, it might give you some ideas to help you grow in confidence and give yourself the love you truly deserve!
Toastmasters:
One day, my mum recommended that I take the Toastmaster's 'Speechcrafters' course, after a rather un-happy experience at Uni where I was completely flustered at having to do a very simple speech which would have usually been a breeze for me at school. My mum said it would restore my faith in myself as a good communicator, which she has always looked at me as being. I had always been good at speeches at school - although I was always nervous, something in me knew I could do this easily and that I could shine - and so I did. To me, it was a way to show people that this quiet girl had a lot more up her sleeves! ;-)
However, I had begun to lose confidence in my self-expression after joining the left-brained, introverted world of engineering. I had to give less and less presentations during my degree, and my self-doubt started to run riot again and I flipped. I finished that speech feeling so disappointed in myself - I knew inside that I could have done a great speech, if I only believed in myself half as much as the others did! Doing the Toastmasters course helped me to "re-affirm" to myself that I could indeed "do it", that I hadn't "lost it", nor would I ever, as it has always been a totally natural thing for me to communicate effectively through my heart to others, when I didn't care about what they thought of me! I did my first big speech at Toastmasters on 'music addiction' - a topic thats very close to my heart! ;-) I spent ages on my writing to make sure it was a perfect representation of what I wanted to say - choc-a-bloc full of witty familial anecdotes, attention-grabbing, and spoke straight from my heart, to theirs. Naturally, they loved it! Even more importantly to me, they saw my heart in it and loved what they saw!! It showed me that people understood, resonated and celebrated with me when I spoke honestly from my heart and didnt try to fulfill their expectations of me, or cared about what they thought.
My final speech was a persuasive on genetic engineering and human cloning (I was studying biomedical engineering at the time, so it was topical subject for me.) Because of exams, I couldnt do the final presentation with the rest of the workshop group, so I had to do it at an official Toastmasters meeting. Boy was I scared! A little 18 year old with the seasoned pros! But again, I finished my last word to a huge applause, huge smiles and even a standing ovation! It finally proved to me that I could indeed do this, contrary to what some people believed. A similar experience happened to me just recently, when I had to do a presentation to my management group on my graduate experience in my first year of work. Again, they were astounded that I could do such a presentation - they thought I would be meek, timid and not be able to articulate myself properly. My boss at the time actually called me 'meek' once before. I thought to myself: this was my chance to shine again, to show them who the hell I was. Well, lets just say I proved them wrong and then some. And it felt goood. ;-)
What experiences, either consciously created or otherwise, helped you to develop self-love and increase your confidence?
<3
One day, my mum recommended that I take the Toastmaster's 'Speechcrafters' course, after a rather un-happy experience at Uni where I was completely flustered at having to do a very simple speech which would have usually been a breeze for me at school. My mum said it would restore my faith in myself as a good communicator, which she has always looked at me as being. I had always been good at speeches at school - although I was always nervous, something in me knew I could do this easily and that I could shine - and so I did. To me, it was a way to show people that this quiet girl had a lot more up her sleeves! ;-)
However, I had begun to lose confidence in my self-expression after joining the left-brained, introverted world of engineering. I had to give less and less presentations during my degree, and my self-doubt started to run riot again and I flipped. I finished that speech feeling so disappointed in myself - I knew inside that I could have done a great speech, if I only believed in myself half as much as the others did! Doing the Toastmasters course helped me to "re-affirm" to myself that I could indeed "do it", that I hadn't "lost it", nor would I ever, as it has always been a totally natural thing for me to communicate effectively through my heart to others, when I didn't care about what they thought of me! I did my first big speech at Toastmasters on 'music addiction' - a topic thats very close to my heart! ;-) I spent ages on my writing to make sure it was a perfect representation of what I wanted to say - choc-a-bloc full of witty familial anecdotes, attention-grabbing, and spoke straight from my heart, to theirs. Naturally, they loved it! Even more importantly to me, they saw my heart in it and loved what they saw!! It showed me that people understood, resonated and celebrated with me when I spoke honestly from my heart and didnt try to fulfill their expectations of me, or cared about what they thought.
My final speech was a persuasive on genetic engineering and human cloning (I was studying biomedical engineering at the time, so it was topical subject for me.) Because of exams, I couldnt do the final presentation with the rest of the workshop group, so I had to do it at an official Toastmasters meeting. Boy was I scared! A little 18 year old with the seasoned pros! But again, I finished my last word to a huge applause, huge smiles and even a standing ovation! It finally proved to me that I could indeed do this, contrary to what some people believed. A similar experience happened to me just recently, when I had to do a presentation to my management group on my graduate experience in my first year of work. Again, they were astounded that I could do such a presentation - they thought I would be meek, timid and not be able to articulate myself properly. My boss at the time actually called me 'meek' once before. I thought to myself: this was my chance to shine again, to show them who the hell I was. Well, lets just say I proved them wrong and then some. And it felt goood. ;-)
What experiences, either consciously created or otherwise, helped you to develop self-love and increase your confidence?
<3