What To Clean If You Only Have 15 Minutes

OK – Panic time. The fill-in-the-blank called and they will be knocking on your front door in 15 minutes.  You fix your hair, get the kids to wipe the chocolate off their faces and send them to straighten their rooms. 


Then, you turn around to survey the damage in the rest of the house. Yikes! Like your momma always says, it looks like a tornado tore a path through your home.  You’ve got approximately 14 minutes left. What do you attack first to get the most bang for your cleaning buck?


1. Pick stuff off the floor. It always makes such a difference to actually “see” the carpet. If you are lucky enough to have a dedicated playroom for the kids’ toys, close the door. Easy. If not, keep an extra laundry basket handy and just fill it up. Don’t bother sorting, just scoop up all the toys and “stuff” and move on. If your vacuum is easy to use, run it quickly. If it is a pain to find it and deal with the cord, forget about it. 


2. Head into the kitchen. If you have piles of dirty dishes everywhere, you have two choices. You could try to load the dishwasher. It might, however, be easier to rinse everything quickly, fill the sink with soapy water and pile it all in. Don’t worry about actually washing them. Let your company think they interrupted you. Give the counters a once over with the sponge or a wipe so nothing sticky is left for your guests to discover. Done. 


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3. Times ticking down. Run over to the bathroom. Nothing is more embarrassing than having someone ask to use your bathroom when you just know it is gross. Toss all the toys in the tub and close the curtain. Get everything off the counter and into a drawer. Grab a bleach wipe and wipe down the counter, the faucet, the sink and the toilet. Grab a wipe made just for mirrors and get that toothpaste spray that you have been purposely ignoring off the mirror. If you can, clean the toilet bowl as well. Be sure there is toilet paper. 


4. Just a minute or two left. Straighten the cushions on the sofa. Toss the throws the way the magazine stylists do instead of having piling them up like a pillow. Corral all the stuff in the shoe pile and hang up the coats.


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That’s it. 


That’s all you’ve got time for but this little list should make everything more presentable. Whether you are a neat freak or on the messy side, we all have days where we get caught off-guard. It happens. The point to remember is that you only need to give the “illusion” of clean. No one is going to open your closets or drawers. No one is going to peak behind closed doors. At least, I hope not. 


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How to Improve Your Self-image

Could your self esteem have fallen on the wayside just like the leaves from the trees or gone into hibernation with the bears? Without wasting more time, start making preparation for your lost esteem. Regardless whether your self confidence is fading, growing stronger or have already disappeared; it makes a lot of sense for us to nurture it. Your self appreciation powers you up to withstand unpleasant and tough times without even flinching. We get bliss and happiness when living is easy. 

The following are effective means that can be applied to improve your self confidence through enhancing your self image.

Outline all your positive qualities:

Focus on your strengths. List all assets and strengths that make you better such as experiences, skills, social and physical resources and talents among other things that make you feel great about yourself. Include all the compliments that you have been given by others. Letting yourself remember all your valuable assets is a sure way to keep you motivated to face each new day with greater self-esteem.

Accept yourself:

When you realize that you are a one desirable package as opposed to being a single individual item, your self image is greatly enhanced. Admit that you are not above reproach but the few shortcomings should not undermine your entire intricate, multifaceted and desirable package. Consider taking your photograph where you are broadly smiling and paste it in a suitable place such as a bathroom mirror. Each time you look at the smile, the image should help you to think of the positive characteristics that make you.

Trust in your competence:

Make a list of the challenges that you have successfully overcome. This increases your self appreciation since you get confidence that if you tacked other problems in the past successfully, at least you have knowledge, ingenuity and skills that can help you to combat the new challenge. Your past success is very essential in enhancing your courage. If you doubt your capability, just take note of al the challenges you have successfully accomplished irrespective of how small they might have been. Ensure to congratulate yourself if the challenge required greater effort and pat yourself on the back.

Believe in your worth:

This is improvement of your self image. You need to recognize that you are important and sometimes you will have to disappoint others to accomplish your goals. Just think of essential things that you would like to do and get them done. Demand for what you want and create a room for saying no for the things that are not very good for you. When you accept that you also deserve respect, you will have the self confidence to do what you desire whether others are approving it or not. 

Flash back:

Just try to think about some recent misfortunes you had and things went amiss. Compel yourself to name at least 5 things that you successfully combated even after some things having gone amiss. This is a sure way of enhancing your self image and self worth too.  

Overcoming Poor Behavioral Pattern

It is true that everyone needs positive and high self esteem in order for them to live a desirable life. However, your self confidence might be eroded by poor behavioral pattern. If you have too much esteem you are likely to become a social snob and difficult character to deal with. Establishing the difference between healthy and unhealthy self esteem can sometimes be hard to distinguish. Luckily, here is all the information you need to learn about unhealthy behavioral patterns that would in turn boost your self-esteem.

Being too full of ourselves:

If you cannot appreciate correction when you make mistakes, this is unhealthy behavior. You are so confident in yourself that you don’t think you can make a mistake or require advice from other people. There is no one with all skills and ability to accomplish all tasks perfectly. It is crucial to believe and value your personal decisions but if it goes to the extent where you cannot accept positive correction or advice from others, you are overconfident and this is likely to do you more harm than good to your self worth when you will make mistakes that you cannot fix by your own.

Arrogance:

This is a feeling of superiority. Extreme self confidence is a major cause of this condition.  The esteem easily leads the patient to get engaged in risky activities such as criminal activities. Over trusting in your skills and talents may hinder you from progressing. It is essential to share ideas and learn from others what you don’t know.

Egocentric:

Characteristics of unhealthy self love and vanity are other common self appreciation characteristics that show you have unhealthy self esteem. You believe that only what you have done surpass standard quality or are worthy. Healthy esteem does allow a chance of listening to opinion and advice from other people.

Overbearing:

Overconfident persons tend to take heavier burdens than they can manage instead of allowing others to help them. Healthy self esteem would not drive you to taking excess burdens that are guaranteed to make your life difficult.  

Over assertive:

This is extreme self confidence that your decision is always right. You may have the skills and ability in your field of profession but sometimes you might need assistance in doing some things. This can interfere with your social status since you feel no significance to associate with others. The final results end up you having extremely low performance.

Lack of humility:

Unhealthy self-esteem can make you a really hard character to deal with. Some people become bullies or criminals. The reason for becoming harsh is pushed by the desire for gaining the extra attention and recognition that you feel is not yet recognized. Healthy self esteem comes with humility since there is no unearned recognition to be sought.

Holding grudges:

Unhealthy esteem make people feel that they should not be corrected or advised. Correcting them positively can make them hold hard feelings against you for a long time. They will never forgive and may raise the subject occasionally later.

Perfectionism:

You tend to develop a sense of excellence. You develop an attitude that your work is supposed to be flawless. This can be a great setback since if you make great mistake, you will get devastated and discouraged instead of learning from the mistakes and making improvement in the future. 

How To Develop Positive Self Esteem (Getting Rid of Fear)

Perhaps you have just realized that you really need to boost your self esteem and overcome your fear but you have no idea about how to go about it. Actually, building self-esteem is a challenging task that can be more easily said than done. Nevertheless, with unwavering determination it is possible to accomplish your goal. The following are some suitable strategies for breaking your fear to rebuild confidence.

Identify your weaknesses.

Know the things that drain your self confidence and solve them.  Take a paper and outline. The reasons could be anything from regrets, acne, negative or post traumatic experiences to friends at school. Everything that makes you feel unworthy, inferior or ashamed about your personality should be included in this paper. Then tear it into small pieces and discard it. This helps you to relive the burden.

Negative thoughts are another great weakness to overcome. Ensure to remain positive even when you are not really feeling the same way. Self-pity and sympathy for others are destructive habits that you should avoid by all means. You should also avoid letting others make you feel inferior. A person can only belittle you if you give them a chance. Only speak positively about yourself regarding your future and personal things. When you are congratulated about something, accept the compliment positively. A smile would also fit in the picture.

Inform your loved ones and friends.

A problem shared is half solved. Discuss your fears with loved ones and friends willing to listen to you. You will be surprised to learn that you are not the only one affected by such issue. Your friends might also have had similar experience hence may recommend suitable solution that helped them to recover such as contacts of a counselor.

Learn from your mistakes.

Perfectionism is out of question in this world. You will always make mistakes once in a while. However, learn to accept your miscalculations instead of sulking over your weakness. Every time you feel you lack something in your life, seek immediate solution to the fears instead of ignoring and assuming you have no ability to fight back. Develop methods of encouraging yourself. Look at your face in the mirror and smile. Research shows that your psychological and emotional responses are affected by the person you see in the mirror.  You should also behave as if you have extra ordinary courage even when you have none.

Know your success.

Everyone is good in specific areas.  Since low self esteem is a mental condition that creates inferiority complex, look for the field that you excel most and express yourself through the avenue. This will help to develop positive attitude that would in turn expel your fear.  Find a talent you can use to express yourself perfectly such as writing, art, music, etc.  Following your passion enables you to feel unique and accomplished; a condition with high fear therapeutic effect.

Be grateful.

Low self esteem is founded on lack of certain things. Accepting thing you have a suitable way of suppressing insecurity and low confidence emanating from not having enough of things such as money, emotional validation, good luck, etc.  This step helps you to acquire inner peace with yourself which does wonders to you. 

Low self esteem causes and symptoms

There are many factors that can lead to development of low self-esteem such as social status, physical appearance and peer pressure. For instance, when you are unemployed and have little cash you might end up developing low self esteem since you incapable of making visible impact in the community that you live in. Keep reading for more factors that can lead to development of the undesirable element of low self worth.

Peer pressure is another common cause of low self esteem. Regardless whether it is a friend, coworker or classmate, their attitude towards your weight, external appearance or intelligence level can degrade your self worth if it is negative. Many overweight people tend to have low self esteem caused by bullying and verbal abuse.

Victims of child abuse often tend to suffer from low self worth later in life. Both emotional and physical abuse may lead to the low self worth. The abuse leads to brainwashing of the patients’ mind that they are `a certain way’ or `they are incapable of specific things’. The memory haunts the patients up to adulthood. If someone was constantly molested and told they are useless, small discouragements that they can easily overcome may hold them back. 

Setting extremely high standards for one may later lead to lowered self esteem. Some people have been bombarded by the feelings that they are invincible and can acquire extremely high goals in life. In case they later find out that it was not all that easy to reach the set limits, low self esteem and lack of self worth may start creeping in. The patient feels they are weak and useless if they cannot work to reach the set standard of their category.

There are some common signs that would help you to recognize that a person is suffering from low self esteem. They include:

§ Intensive self-criticism: tending to exhibit self dissatisfaction      with yourself.

§ Criticism hypersensitivity: makes one vulnerable to attack and obstinate resentment from critics.

§ Extensive indecisiveness: you are unable to make decisions despite your vast knowledge since you fear making mistakes.

§ Extreme eagerness to impress others: you are not ready to say no in fear that you will fail to please others.

§ Sense of perfection: you try to accomplish everything you attempt to do perfectly. This leads to frustration and low self esteem when the perfection is tainted by blunders and mistakes.

§ Neurotic guilt: when one is corrected about some mistakes they may have done some times in the past, not specifically in a bad perspective, they keep complaining about the correction unreasonably. Failing to reach full forgiveness after positive correction is a common sign that you are suffering from low self esteem.

§ Floating hostility: low esteem can make you edgy to the extent that you always close to the point of exploding with fury irrespective of how minor the problem is. You develop a bad attitude and characteristics of a person with negative attitude of a disappointed person, feels bad about everything and unsatisfied with everything.

§ Resentful emotion: you develop jealousy whenever you see higher quality or success of other   persons.

Understanding Low Self-Esteem.

Low self-esteem is generally a mental condition that makes you have a low self-worth. You often feel that you are incapable of accomplishing challenging things. The condition is attributed with several mental conditions. They feed each other in vicious circle that leaves more anxious and depressed. Your opinion and you ability also keeps going down because you start losing confidence.  This leads to gradual development of an attitude to evade activities that can help in building esteem and countering anxiety of depression. Keep reading for more tips regarding low self-self esteem.

Low self-esteem cannot be blamed on an individual being bad. If you are suffering from real low self-esteem, confidence and self image you are likely to have had contact in the past with criminals, bullies, child abusers and narcissists. There is a misconception that people with low self esteem are the ones who mistreat others. On the contrary, people with high self esteem are not abusers or bullies. Low self esteem persons are unique kind of persons who treats themselves badly and not others. They only lack self worth for their life.

Some people assume that low self esteem do cause criminality. On the contrary, over self-esteem creates extreme confidence in people making them behave weirdly.  A lot of research has been done that has shown that countless criminals and bullies suffer from excess self confidence that in turn makes them to exaggerate the unrealistic sense of entitlement. They expect too much from several situations.

There are some general characteristics that are attributed to people suffering from low self esteem. Among them include: social withdrawal, emotional and anxiety turmoil, less social conformity, lack of self confidence and social skills, depression and bouts of sadness, inability to accept gratitude, eating disorders, complementing the negative, incapability to view yourself in a positive aspect, self neglect, overstated concern regarding what you think other take you for, neglecting yourself, treating yourself badly (but not other people), dragging your feet to combat challenges, excessive concern whether you have treated other people well, expecting minimal returns from your life and inability to trust yourself.

Victims of child abuse, either physically or emotionally, have high chances of succumbing to low self esteem when they grow up. The constant criticism and comment that they look or are a certain way haunts them in their entire life. Sexual abuse, unfavorable comparison to others and being given extremely high standard are other things that can lead to development of low self esteem. The post traumatic stress disorder from past mistreatment requires being deal with so that the patient can develop self esteem once more.

Bombarding a person suffering from low self esteem with positive encouragement does not work.  The positive statement actually becomes more destructive if you are trying to make them feel capable of accomplishing certain things in life. For instance, telling you that you are lovely and wonderful when you already have poor image about yourself will simply not yield any positive results. Being `too good’ to patients suffering from low esteem can also push them away. The best way to help them improve is letting them `face real life’. The victory they will get will help them to develop the high esteem. 

Positive Self-esteem and its importance.

The positive self-esteem is the power that pushes you to reach the limits that you may desire to reach.  When you have adequate self esteem, you feel powerful and capable to transform the obstacles that have been holding back several people into stepping stones that can help you to reach the excellence that you have always desired. The fearless experience keeps you motivated to conquer even the impossible.

Positive self-esteem plays a significant life in the life of an individual through helping ne recognize that it is not what they are that holds them back from combating challenges, but what they think they are not. Self esteem powers the rest of your principles. It can either be negative or positive. Whichever option you have, others cannot what you think about yourself by looking at your general characters and the ways you think about yourself.

High level of self esteem is among the most essential things that you need to achieve vital principles in your life for having, being or doing more of what you desire to accomplish. It supplies you with agility and stamina even to overcome the negative forces and hurdles that may try to convince you that you are weak and incapable.

Self esteem is the base that your entire personality, thoughts, actions, beliefs and emotions are founded upon in relation to yourself. It determines the manner in which we respond and react to others.  It also determines your perception as you create and experience different events, make attractions, conditions and circumstances everyone experiences in life.

Each of the chosen ways of `being’ determines without fail the quality and nature of your experiences you face in life. In a nutshell, our presumed level of self esteem determines and literally affects the quality of all the aspects in your life including financial, physical, spiritual, relation and emotion.

In order for you to have a good life, self esteem is required in great demand. According to research that has been conducted worldwide by a wide range of experts, they have unanimously revealed that about 85% of the world population is affected by diminished self esteem.

Once you clasp and clearly fathom that everything in your entire life is acquired from and founded on your personally chosen level of consciousness and quality, high self esteem without doubt becomes an indispensable component that you should look for by all means. It is crucial since it helps in consciously and time after time attracting, as well as, delivering happiness and abundance. This is made realistic and logical when the financial, physical, spiritual aspects, relational and emotional of life become harmonious.

Positive self-esteem leads to development of attractive, harmonious, material abundance, radiant health and fully rewarding relationships. It also offers peace of mind and abundant fulfillment in life.

Despite the high significance attributed to positive self-esteem in helping you to achieve what you want, many people are still not aware of its significance. More importantly, others are also not aware of how they should make the transformation should they discover they lack in the desired level of self esteem.  

What Is Self Esteem?

Self esteem is generally the value you have placed on yourself.  This is generally a mental condition that controls how you perceive yourself to the world and how you think the world thinks about you. This mental condition affects your trust to others, work and eve relationships. It influences every aspect of your life. People with positive self esteem have the courage and versatility to take charge of their lives and grow from the mistakes they had made in the past without fearing that they will be rejected.

Although self esteem is simply a mental condition, there are some signs that would show that you have high esteem. Among them include: self-direction, confidence, a recognition of personal strengths, non-blaming behavior, ability to accept mistakes from others, ability to learn fro the mistakes you had made in the past, ability to solve difficulties, optimism, feeling comfortable despite a wide range of emotions, an autonomous and cooperative attitude, a good sense of personal limitations, ability to trust others, capability of saying no and good self-care just to mention a few.

When you have low self esteem, you develop a debilitating condition that keeps you away from realizing your full potential. The condition makes you feel useless, incompetent and incapable. In fact, since low self esteem makes you feel bad about yourself; your life is entangled by the following feelings: perfectionist attitude, pessimistic view of life, lack of trust even to those that are affectionate to you, fear of taking risks, blame shifting on others, fearing being ridiculed, developing of feelings that you are not loved or cannot be loved and depending on others to make decisions for you.

                                                                   

 Raising self esteem can be a difficult process. It involves letting go of ingrained feelings that may have been built over a lifetime. This sounds easy but it might take a long time, hard work and professional intervention to overcome it. Patients are trained to develop thinking attitudes. These thinking techniques are called affirmations and are crucial for helping patients shed off the old shell that could be making them stay aloof with others.   

Application of affirmations is an effective way that many people use to negative self-talk. These are simply positive messages that you tell yourself every day until they become part of your beliefs and feelings. They work best when you are relaxed. People are often upset when they are painting a negative image of themselves. These feelings should be countered with positive affirmations. For instance, instead of saying: `I made serious blunder. I’m really stupid and no good in this stuff.’ substitute it with, ` I made a really serious mistake but now I have learnt from it and will have capability to deliver perfection.’

The following are some positive affirmations that can work wonders in improving your self esteem: I am likable and lovable; I have respect for myself and others; I am creating healthy and loving relationship, I care about myself, I accept myself just like I am, life is nice, and I am fond of being part of it, etc.