Blog posts for self improvement and personal development | Increase confidence and self esteem

I find it quite amusing that the day after I got the idea for a blog post about getting out of a funk, I wake up in a funk myself.

When I talk about being in a funk, I mean:

Feeling agitated or irritated
Feeling frustrated or overwhelmed
Struggling to make even the simplest decisions
Having a lack of direction or focus
Losing interest in anything and everything
Not knowing what to do with yourself

And the longer we’re in a funk, the harder it is to see a way out of it.

Here are my tips for getting yourself out of a funk, fast:

Business, Confidence, Imposter syndrome, Mindset work, Self care, Self worthRebecca HawkesJune 30, 2022Comment

9 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR CONFIDENCE IN LESS THAN 10 MINUTES

We could all do with a boost in confidence from time to time, couldn’t we?

In this blog post, I’m going to share with you 9 simple ways you can increase confidence and self esteem in less than 10 minutes. Because, let’s face it, we often neglect our mindset work because we feel like it’s going to take too long to see results or we have more important things we need to focus on.

But the thing is, when we work on increasing our confidence every day - even for just 5 minutes - we begin to build solid confidence foundations that we can rely on to help us be more productive, be visible online and go after our goals.

Affirmations, Confidence, Imposter syndrome, Journaling, Mindset work, Self belief, Self worthRebecca HawkesApril 14, 2022Comment

HOW TO FALL IN LOVE (WITH YOURSELF)

The journey to self love is ongoing.

There’s no follow this strategy, take this action, BAM, I love myself, the end.

(Oh wouldn’t that be easy)

It takes time, practice and persistence to fall in love with yourself.

But what does self love actually mean?

When I talk about being in love with yourself I mean:

Confidence, Mindset work, Self worth, Self careRebecca HawkesApril 7, 2022 Comments

HOW TO STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS

We can’t help ourselves, can we?

We open up our social apps (through boredom) and we’re met with feed after feed of shiny, successful, beautiful women smashing all their goals, raking in all the cash and achieving the success you’ve been dreaming of for years.

Part of us wants to feel inspired by their success - if they can do it, surely it’s possible for me too? - but the truth is, seeing other women soar as we’re stuck in struggle leaves us feeling like shit.

So we find ourselves in a pity party, wondering why we’re not good enough and feeling like a failure.

Comparing ourselves to other women creates self doubt and when we’re doubting ourselves, we can’t achieve what we want.

HOW TO USE AFFIRMATIONS TO CHANGE YOUR BELIEFS

Affirmations are all about changing the way you speak to yourself and reprogramming the beliefs you play on repeat.

Beliefs like “I can’t do that”, “I’m not confident enough” and “who would want to listen to me?”.

Instead of repeating these negative phrases - that have now become our beliefs - we swap them for positive phrases or positive affirmations.

For example:

I can’t becomes I can

I’m not confident enough becomes I am confident in everything I do

Who would want to listen to me becomes my audience need to hear what I have to say

But when we’ve created our affirmations, how do we then use them?

Confidence, Mindset work, Self belief, Self worth, Imposter syndrome, Comparing yourselfRebecca HawkesMarch 24, 2022Comment

HOW TO CREATE AFFIRMATIONS FOR CONFIDENCE

Affirmations are a powerful tool to help increase confidence, self esteem and even help you grow your business.

There are plenty of affirmations you can use depending on your goal but one of the most effective ways to use affirmations is by creating your own based on a new belief you want to form or by rewriting the limiting beliefs that are holding you back.

If you’re new to affirmations and what to understand what they are and why you should use them, read this post.

How to create affirmations

First of all, have a think about a new belief you would like to create for yourself.

It could be that you want more confidence in yourself or you want to make more money in your business. Be specific about what you want to achieve and start thinking of sentences that you feel connected to.

Affirmations, Confidence, Mindset work, Self belief, Self worthRebecca HawkesMarch 17, 2022Comment

WHAT ARE AFFIRMATIONS & WHY SHOULD YOU USE THEM?

The first time I heard about affirmations was in an episode of Sex and the City.

Charlotte and Carrie had gone to a seminar about finding love and Charlotte had stood up, shared that she was repeating her affirmations every day but Mr Right still hadn’t shown up.

The host had criticised her, saying she probably just wasn’t trying hard enough and Carrie stood up and said “Believe me, she is”.

I didn’t take much notice of affirmations then but when I became a business owner, I started to take mindset work more seriously. When I invested in a 1:1 coach to help me increase both my confidence and success in my business, one of the tools she mentioned was affirmations.

I realised then that I’d been using affirmations for years, I just didn’t know that’s what they were called.

Affirmations, Confidence, Mindset work, Self belief, Self worthRebecca HawkesMarch 10, 2022 Comments

31 POWERFUL AFFIRMATIONS FOR CONFIDENCE AND SELF ESTEEM

It took me a long time to understand how powerful affirmations can be.

I always felt like a bit of an idiot repeating ‘I am confident’ out loud to myself but as time went on, I began to see the impact those 3 words were having on my confidence.

Now, as part of my daily routine, I choose a new affirmation each morning and repeat it as many times as I can within 10 minutes.

Here are 31 of my favourite affirmations to help you increase your confidence:

Mindset work, Self worth, Affirmations, ConfidenceRebecca HawkesFebruary 24, 2022Comment

HOW JOURNALING HELPED ME INCREASE MY CONFIDENCE

The first time I heard about journaling, I was skeptical.

So you want me to write in a diary, like I used to when I was a kid?

Excellent.

But as with any mindset work, the more I practiced journaling, the more I began to notice shifts in my mental health.

“I’m not a confident person” was a story I’d told myself for years.

Confidence, Journaling, Mindset work, Self worthRebecca HawkesFebruary 17, 2022 Comments

4 THINGS YOU NEED TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

Goal setting has always been something I’m good at. I can set goals for days but the problem I always had was being able to put a big fat tick next to them.

For a long time, I couldn’t work out why I was failing so much and when I sat down to review my 2018 goals and realised I hadn’t achieved ANY of them, I knew I needed to work out where I was going wrong.

Business, Confidence, Finding clients, Mindset work, Social media managerRebecca HawkesJanuary 4, 2021Comment

WHAT IS CONFIDENCE & HOW YOU CAN EASILY CREATE MORE OF IT

I wasn't always this confident.

When I was younger, I believed you either had confidence or you didn't. I had no idea that confidence was something you could create.

A combination of anxiety, desperately wanting to fit in and spending far too much time worrying what people thought of me, meant my confidence levels, for the most part, were pretty low.

And when my phobia of sick began to get worse as I entered my teens, my low self esteem increased and I felt terrified of the world.

If someone spoke to me before I’d had time to rehearse a response in my mind, I’d panic and spend the entire conversation worrying that I’d said the wrong thing or convincing myself that they’d think I was a complete weirdo. Or worse, rude.

Affirmations, Confidence, Mindset work, Self belief, Self worthRebecca HawkesJuly 16, 2020Comment

WHO AM I TO BE SUCCESSFUL?: HOW TO OVERCOME THE LIMITING BELIEFS THAT HOLD US BACK FROM THE SUCCESS WE DESERVE

If you’re an entrepreneur, chances are this has happened to you.

You thought of an idea - either a new business or a new service/product within that business - got lost in a whirlwind of passion, excitement and enthusiasm for how you’d bring it to life.

You spent hours mapping things out, creating a task list for all the steps you needed to take and had an excitable conversation with someone you love (who still doesn’t really ‘get’ what you do) about this awesome thing.

You couldn’t sleep, you forgot to eat - you were so engrossed in making your dream come to life.

But then you stopped.

You woke up one morning feeling less excited, less passionate.

Doubts started to creep in.

What ifs started to show up.

Overwhelm hit you like a ten tonne truck.

TACKLE IMPOSTER SYNDROME IN 10 SIMPLE STEPS

Imposter syndrome is common amongst social media managers and can be a huge reason for why we’re not signing the clients we want, showing up online or charging our worth.

When I started my business as a social media manager in 2017, I’d never heard of imposter syndrome.

But I was experiencing a lot of self doubt, thoughts of ‘who am I to be doing this?’, worrying constantly that the (great) results I was getting for clients weren’t good enough and when I was finding things simple and easy to do, I felt like a fraud.

Imposter syndrome, Confidence, Business, Affirmations, Journaling, Mindset work, Self care, Self worth, Social media managerRebecca HawkesNovember 4, 2019Comment

5 BOOKS EVERY ENTREPRENEUR SHOULD READ

As entrepreneurs, it’s important we dedicate time to learning and growing as a person. One of my favourite ways to do this is by reading a book written by someone who’s been where I am and is now where I want to be.

Reading as little as a chapter a day can make such a difference to your mindset, to your motivation levels and can inspire you if you’re feeling stuck.

Mindset work, BusinessRebecca HawkesAugust 5, 2019 Comment

HOW TO MASTER YOUR MINDSET WITH AUDIBLE

As a Confidence Coach, I talk about the importance of working on your mindset a lot. Just like our bodies need a regular workout to stay healthy and full of energy, our minds do too.

Activities such as journaling, repeating positive affirmations and meditation are all great ways to increase your confidence and keep anxiety at bay but what can you do when you don’t have much time or you’re sat on a plane and accidently packed your journal in your suitcase?

Confidence, Mindset work, Self worthRebecca HawkesJuly 29, 2019Comment