Let battle commence

After my success with dealing with Darren, I was eager to continue with my progress.

It was now time to attempt to deal with the other issues in my life.

I had started to read various confidence type books and was learning a great deal. One such book gave me the inspiration and guidance to hopefully increase my overall self-esteem.

It suggested that I should look at each of the problems in my life and then ask the following question:

“Is this something I can change or is it something that is here to stay? If you are able to change it, then change it, if you are unable to change it, you need to learn to accept it.”

Firstly the bald patch. From what I am led to believe there is no real possibility of hair ever growing on this area of my scalp, I therefore have to accept the fact that this area will be bald for the rest of my life.

In reality is being partly bald such a big deal? I was now in my early twenties and it was time to become a little less paranoid about my appearance.

Having a bald patch does not physically hurt me in anyway therefore it was time to stop worrying about it. Instead of hiding it, why not show everybody as if I am proud of it?

Then there was my weight problem. This is something that I could change and therefore had to. Over the next twelve months I worked very hard, by reducing the amount I ate and by increasing the amount I exercised, to lose this excess weight.

Of course it was not exactly easy but at the end of the day it is all about discipline and about how much you want it.

The speech impediment was a bit different. I was unsure as to whether I could ever achieve fluency, but I was certainly not going to accept that I would have the stutter for the rest of my life until I had given it my best shot to eradicate it.
 
After working extremely hard I managed to overcome the stutter after around eleven months. I now help other people to achieve fluency.

My height was something that I would also have to learn to live with. It was unlikely that I was going to grow any taller due to the fact that I was now twenty-one.

Again being only five-foot-five does not hurt in any physical way and does not actually stop me from doing anything in life.

This was another example of where I had to think of the positives of being short, for example more leg room on an aeroplane!

Eliminating any negative influences

After reading yet another book about how to increase one’s self esteem, I decided to make another big change to my life.

The book had described about how it was important to remove any dead wood from your life.

What this basically means is that you need to surround yourself with happy, confident people, the type of people that make your life happy and fun.

At the same time any person who has a damaging affect on your overall happiness or who is always moody and negative, you need to stay away from.

I thought about this for quite a long time.

I was part of what I considered to be quite a large circle of friends, most of the group, including myself, had attended the same school.

When really sitting back and analysing it, how many of these people did I actually like? How many of them were having a positive influence on my life?

The answer was sadly only one or two. Even sadder was the fact that most of the group actually seemed to like annoying and laughing at me.

If I went out, I was sure to provide some entertainment, with my lack of confidence and in-ability to speak fluently.

To make big strides you need to make big decisions and this is exactly what I did.

I followed the guidance from this book and only kept in touch with the couple of friends who were having a positive affect on my life.

I am very happy that I made this life choice.

gain more confidence page 6