how to be confident Archives - MaritaSteffe.com

There Is No Program That Will Do It For You

Are YOU like me and you tried many programs and seminars just to wonder why the hell nothing is working? The sad truth is that all the programs in the world will not help you achieve your life dreams, or whatever you expected from it. I am not saying that it is a waste of time, seminars and programs are still my favorite thing to do, but now I see it as kind of a vacation and a great place to get inspired and meet likeminded folks.

When I started to be interested in human potential and spirituality, I wanted to believe that if I just take one more program, I would get it, but I did not. For many years I went from one seminar to the next success seminar and expected that one day I would get the answer to my problems and my dream life would just appear in front me and I would live happily ever after. Well, unfortunately it did not work, can you relate?

Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun, met wonderful people and learned a lot of great material, but the big change did not happen this way.

So what can be done? I experienced that I need to do the work of exploring myself, recognizing the patterns that served me as a child, but not as an adult and practice new behavior. Success and transformation are an accumulation of things and if we are left to our own devices, most of us will miserably fail.

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Love Yourself The Way You are

Love Yourself The Way You Are

This is the trick to a fulfilled life. If YOU fully love and accept yourself , YOU will find happiness!

Do YOU believe it? If you don't you're not there yet. But don't worry this can be changed.

I will tell you what happened to me and at the end I posted some practical action steps for YOU 🙂

Somehow I did not like myself very much and it was very painful. I was arrogant, which was a way for me to make up for my missing self love and selfworth.

When I look back, I know now that I did not have much awareness for who I was or how I felt. My main concern was other people, especially my husband and my 2 kids.

The focus was on taking care of them and trying to control everything around me. That's what I learned when I grew up, to control, to be perfect and so forth. "To be a human doing not a human being". Boring story, I'm tired of it.

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How To Be More Confident

How To Be More Confident

Have you noticed how our attitude determines the quality of our lives? The more awareness we have to control our attitude and our thoughts, the happier and more creative we can be. Supportive friends can be a huge help to keep us on track. There is a multitde of support available in form of: books, audios, workshops, webinars, forums, facebook groups.

Another great place to find like minded people is at meetup groups.

Step one is to sign up,
Step two is to find a group in your field of interest
Step three is to connect, easy breathy…..

Sometimes it's hard to have one more thing to do, but it's essential to connect with people and to network….. Not only for our personal well being but it's great for business too.

"Remember, the thoughts that you think and the statements you make regarding yourself determine your mental attitude. If you have a worthwhile objective, find the one reason why you can achieve it rather than hundreds of reasons why you can't." Napoleon Hill

Support is essential, unfortunately our friends and family members do not always share our need to change and grow. The desire to follow our dreams, to break out of the mold scares the heck out of some people. But we need support in order to move forward. If we cannot find this within our circle of friends and family, we have to look in other places.

Where do we find people who are on a similar path?

I've been lucky to meet a lot of like minded people in personal development seminars. The network is international and I don't have to rely on my "local friends". Whenever I have a hard time to believe in myself or I lose faith that I can achieve my dreams and goals, I can contact someone who will help me through the challenges, back to being in a space of possibility. Feeling good and believing in ourselves is the key to success.

If you get discouraged……… your vision and your support system will keep you on track. Pay attention to how you feel and where you feel it in your body. It might be uncomfortable at the beginning, but you get used to it, just keep practicing to feel "uncomfortable," The feeling of fear and discomfort are part of the process, so just accept it and do what you need to do. Working with a coach is also very effective, if you have not tried it give it a chance and try a few sessions, it's one of the best support systems I know.

Pema Chodron, a buddhist nun, wrote a wonderful book, called. "Go to the places that scare you"

Every time we overcome our fear and do it anyway, we empower our life.

Where do you find support? Please leave a comment and share it with us.

Empower Yourself – Nourish Your Soul

Empower Yourself – Nourish Your Soul

Instead of making goals for your business or material needs, why not set some soul intentions for the well being of YOU, your spirit.
I read it somewhere and thought: "what a splendid idea". So what's the difference between soul intentions and other intentions, or life goals?
For example most intentions or resolutions are kind of competitive. We want to make more money, do more work, be better at something, look better for others, in short have more and be more.

Soul intentions are about our soul needs, which is: more love, more compassion, more forgiveness and more acceptance.
Below are my soul intentions and if you don’t know what yours are, please borrow some of mine…………………………soul needs are universal🙂

I will do things that make me happy
I will float in hot water as much as I can
I will get at least one massage per month
I will eat food that nourishes my body
I will walk and go to the gym
Sometimes I will allow myself a burger, bacon and eggs and a cookie
I will find a spiritual group and 12 step meetings in Germany
I will connect more with real people in life
I will be creative
I will accept and love my parents and kids just the way they are, even when they annoy me.
I will be aware of what I do and how I react
I do whatever I can to be kind and of service to others
I will do the things I need to do even when it scares the hell out of me.

Ok, I’m overdoing it, but this is what I need to do in order to be content. Most of the items are incorporated into my life already, so it does not feel like “oh my god I have to do all this”. No it’s how I love to live my life. My life is a spiritual practice and sometimes it’s all great and sometimes it’s the pits, but its ok.

Sometimes everything is easy and flows like a miracle and the next day nothing flows. I’m learning that if I don’t get so attached to the good days, it’s not so hard to not get attached to the "not so good days". It’s all just energy, good, bad, negative, positive vibration.

It is very important to not make important decisions when angry, tired or disconnected. Self care is improving your connection to your life force and the more you take care of your body mind and spirit needs, the better you will feel.
We live in a world where stress, workaholism and self abuse is awarded. So it’s time to undo the damage and incorporate play, fun and some serious "self indulgance" into life.

Some simple tips how you can do it:

Do some lovingkindness meditation
Create a vision board
Keep a journal and write down your soul intentions
Create a ceremony about giving your vows to your soul intentions

Place your vision board or a poster board with your written intentions, where you can see it. You will notice that the more you will take care of your needs, the happier you will be. This in turn will attract more of the same energy into your life. It’s a miracle, it truly is. Make a commitment to yourself!

A simple lovingkindness meditation for you from Jack Kornfield.

May I be filled with lovingkindness.
May I be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May I be well in body and mind.
May I be at ease and happy.
May you be filled with lovingkindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May you be well in body and mind.
May you be at ease and happy

What have you noticed when you take care of your needs and you nourish your soul? Please leave a comment 🙂

How To Make Decisions When You Don’t Know What To Do

How To Make Decisions When You Don’t Know What To Do

Do you sometimes have a feeling that nothing in your life works and you feel stuck, like a hamster on a wheel?
Well I did, actually I am happy to report that I just moved beyond it. There is nothing more empowering than making a decision and once you make it the energy starts to move.

For weeks maybe years I had this one big decision looming over me. I knew I would had to make it eventually, but did not know when. But I always felt slightly off track. Until one day I made the decision, coming from nowhere, I just knew what to do. Has this happened to you, that you wake up and just know

So what happened to lead to this event?

Several things happened that made everything even more difficult in my life, I had a very stressful, transaction at work, I had problems with my living situation and nothing made sense anymore. It was so weird that I had an intuitive reading and whatever I was told was another piece in the jig puzzle, that I needed to know.

I got a hint that something was telling me it’s time to do something, a hint that turned into a bill board, telling me: Marita it's time to do it and eventually I listened.

It felt like a "knowing", or certainty" that now is the right time to move into the next stage.
The next stage for me was making plans to move back to Germany as my parents are turning 80. I lived on another continent for 34 years. I had my kids, my businesses and all my belongings in California.

Nevertheless, I had a feeling it’s time to go back. It was 3 months ago, that the universe kept telling me it’s time to go. I organized everything, gave things away and put the most important stuff into storage. In order to avoid the last minute moving craziness I stayed with friends. Just the thought of staying with friends gave me anxiety attacks and I was a nervous wreck. Now looking back it was all wonderful, I had a chance to spend time with people I loved and connect at a deeper level.

The move was made, I 'm in Germany now and everything is falling into place, I will move into an apartment in the heart of the city. I will have everything in walking distance. I will have time to focus and develop the things I am passionate about. The more I think about it, the more I know it was the right decision.

Do you listen to your feeling when you make major decisions and how do you know?

Believe In Your Potential

Believe In Your Potential

I love this quote by Marianne Williamson

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of god. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make and manifest the glory of god that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson

So what exactly does this mean and how can you believe in your potential?

For the people who are familiar with the law of attraction and spirituality this is easy to understand. For all others it might not make any sense. So if it does not make sense to you, don't worry, it's hard to understand and it might take some time, it's ok.

Continue reading “Believe In Your Potential”

Simple Tips To Be More Confident

Simple Tips To Be More Confident

In order to be self- fulfilled, successful and empowered we need to be confident.

It is very interesting how we neglect being confident. It starts by forgetting our successes, even the big ones. How can that happen that we just remember the challenges and failures? It's self-sabotage, it's crazy, but we still do it, because it is unconscious. Can you relate to this?

As a life coach I notice this phenomenon all the time and I remind clients and friends whenever I can that they set simple reminders to celebrate successes.

Below are 7 simple tips to do this.

Buy yourself a notebook
Set daily reminders on your phone
Set a few minutes aside in the evening and write down what you accomplished
Celebrate and give yourself a little treat
Do this every day until it is a habit
Make a "confident you" vision board
write some cards with simple affirmations and say them out loud.

A universal rule is that everything you do for 21 days will turn into a habit. After 21 days it will be on "automatic pilot". Do you like the idea? Think about it! All the negative habits can be substituted by positive ones and after a while it will be automatic, how great is that!

Confidence is developed in childhood. If you had supportive people around, who always celebrated your little or big successes, you probably feel very confident, believe in yourself and trust that you can achieve your life dreams. Congratulations to you!

Unfortunately for most of us this is not the case, but the good news is that it can be learned and practiced by doing some very simple things.

be aware of your thoughts
be aware of your reactions
be aware of your feelings

Meditation for example is very helpful to improve awareness and it will give you the moment you need in order to choose. Do you want to react and how do you want to react to something.

Insight meditation is very easy to do, you pretty much just sit and watch your breath for a few minutes. No you do not have to sit for 30 minutes, even 5 to 10 minutes done every day will change your life, I promise!

In order to manifest and be successful, it is essential to be confident, so try to get into the habit of celebration. Keep a little notebook about your successes and establish a simple meditation practice. Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think, if you have additional ideas please share them. 🙂