Friday, August 22, 2008

OnTheBeach - Bitch Slapping vs Back Slapping

- A note from Donna -

Due to an exhilarating mix of work, procrastination, memory-loss and long lazy lunches, I am writing this on a Saturday night in the ad breaks between NCIS! It's fortunate that I have so much practice writing these newsletters quite quickly and that the ad breaks are so long! Not long enough for me to write an epic, so this week's a half cup. Enjoy!


- Bitch-Slapping Versus Back-Slapping -

So when was the last time you praised yourself? When did you last shout about your achievements? When did you last give yourself a big slap on the back for a job or a life well done? Seriously, when was the last time? And when was the last time you gave yourself grief for getting something wrong? When was the last time you put yourself down? When was the last time you were mean to yourself? Seriously, when was the last time? You don't even have to have done it out loud to someone else - inside your head counts too.

I'm guessing that you did the last one more recently than you did the first. Particularly in Britain, we are enormously good at self-deprecation. It's a skill! We hate to be seen as arrogant, so we go far too far the other way into the underworld of self-deprecation. Like most skills though, the self-deprecation skills can be transferred. What if you were to use those skills of observation, clarification, exaggeration and repetition to back-slap yourself rather than bitch-slap yourself?

What are you good at? What are you proud of? What did you do well? What are your best qualities? Instead of replaying the record which tells you what you're crap at, what you're ashamed of, what you did badly, your worst qualities, change the record and give yourself some credit for once. You're worth it!




- Something To Play With -

Big up yo'self this week - you don't have to become an arrogant arse, in fact, you don't have to tell anyone else at all. But I do want you to increase your self-belief by talking yourself up - just in your own head will work just fine. Stop hiding your light under the proverbial bushel, and start shining. Want to share your thoughts on this article? E-mail me. I love to hear from readers, and will respond to all e-mails.