What Is Your Abandonment Issue?

The earliest childhood memory I have is waking up one morning and not knowing where my mother was. I was only three years old. My mother wasn’t far away at all, but far enough to leave a wound in my soul, a wound that can only be described as abandonment.

Generally, everyone experiences a degree of abandonment. The level and the interpretation of the abandonment will determine the behaviors, which ensue as adults. The behaviors that are expressed will be different from person to person, from men and women, but the underlining fear for all will be abandonment.

Nobody likes to feel like they are abandoned, if they do the behaviors expressed will likely be determined based on the degree of abandonment they experienced as a child. The more severe the abandonment, the worse the behaviors expressed shall be.

Men that experience abandonment seek someone that will make them feel wanted, secure, safe, and loved. Someone that will do things for him, tell him how much they love him. They give him what he needs – security - for a little while, at least! But, the moment he feels he is about to be abandoned, which in many cases is not true, he begins to test the person to see if they would leave him. What always turns up is exactly what he wants to see, that he is just about to be abandoned again. This leads him to end relationships, fight with family members and close friends, while he develops strong beliefs and opinions, which become difficult to disprove later in life. As one relationship ends another begins in hopes that the next person will be the one.

Women on the other hand turn to people, or will want to travel or buy a new handbag. She will seek instant gratification. Someone that will validate her, make her feel needed, and show her how much she is appreciated. This is her measure of self-worth. The more she does for others the less likely they will leave her. But, the moment she feels something is missing, a vacation or a new handbag temporarily buys her happiness. What she fails to realize at the end of each episode is that she feels the same way. She internalizes everything and slowly isolates herself from every one.

So you see, to some degree everybody has abandonment issues. How you express your issue will vary largely on the degree of your abandonment and gender.

What is your earliest childhood memory and how does it affect your behavior as an adult?

What Is Your Abandonment Issue?

Face Your Fear: The Road To Confidence

When was the last time you tried something new? Something you feared or perhaps something that made you nervous? Last year, April of 2008, I was asked to speak and motivate approximately 800 students. - it was the peace by peace festival. That was my very first public speaking engagement. How exciting, or should I say, how nerve wrecking. I arrived at the venue a few hours before I was scheduled to speak so I could get a feel for the environment and to meet some of the students.

The moment of truth finally arrived after lunch. "Here to motivate you today is Bruno LoGreco. Bruno is a Life Coach and his job is to motivate people." I start my walk towards the stage, my nerves took over and I started to shake. I shook like a leaf in front of 800 students and teachers from across Toronto.

"I have a secret I want to share with you, do you want to know what my secret is?” All I heard was “YES”. I start off by saying, “I'm really nervous right now, but I know if I tell you the truth about how I feel my nerves will go away - See, I feel better already." I told 800 students and teachers the truth about how I felt that day.

Larry King, host of Larry King Live on CNN published his memoir recently. Larry is on his book tour giving interviews about his career. Did you know Larry King has interviewed over 40,000 people throughout his career? Wow! Anyhow, during his interview on the morning show yesterday, a reporter asked Larry King how he got his first break as a journalist and if he was nervous. Larry told a story about the first time he went on the air and how nervous he was. Larry told the reporter, on his first day as a radio announcer nothing came out of his mouth. He switch his MIC on and Off before his boss stormed into the studio and told him radio is about communication and he better start communicating. So Larry King went on the air and said, "Hi my name is Larry King, I'm new to radio and I'm nervous, please bare with me."

You are probably afraid to try new things for fear of failure, rejection, or you just simply do not have the confidence to try something new. Ask yourself, what am I afraid of? Now take your answer and challenge what you believe by exposing your fear to others. If you try this you will learn what you believe - your fear, is not true and you will slowly begin to build the confidence you need to try new things.

Don't let your fear stop you from enjoying life and living your dream. Nobody will be perfect from the start, not me, not Larry King, nobody. Face your fear and learn from it, because with mistakes come learning lessons, which build confidence.

Learn How To Build Confidence And You Will Start Living Your Dream. 

Face Your Fear: The Road To Confidence

You Lack Self Esteem And Seek External Fulfillment

Do you wonder how confident you appear to others? Do you have a strong personality that demands attention from your audience, and do you seek their approval? Do you have a strong overwhelming presence? Are you over compensating for something? 

What are you insecure about, what do you believe about who you are?

Confidence is to be certain that a prediction or outcome to a chosen course of action is correct. You will develop self-confidence throughout life, through encouragement, trial and error, and most importantly from experience.

If your willing to put yourself out there, you will likely be more confident, not only in meeting new people but in other aspects of life too. Confidence is to try new things you have not tried before. You will develop confidence when you accept new challenges, which sometime will seem impossible. Confidence is acknowledging your capabilities - arrogance is awareness to a weakness but still behave with certainty.

However, you can still be successful without confidence but only if you attempt to achieve something greater than nothing. With confidence you can achieve anything even without a natural ability or gift. When you do succeed at achieving something you once thought was impossible, you will feel proud, and you will be more confident for the future.

Confidence is many things including a miracle if one individual is 100% confident in every aspect of life.

Your self-esteem is made up from your beliefs, behaviors and emotions. What you believe about yourself - your capabilities, if you are a good person or not, if you have genuine qualities like: honest, kind, etc., these will all play a role into how you behave and how you express your emotions within an environment or a given situation. You will feel proud for succeeding at an impossible challenge, but you will also feel ashamed because of an insecurity you have to a particular thing. Both will determine your level of self-esteem.

Self-esteem comes from two areas: External - the need for validation, acceptance, and respect; and inner self-esteem, self-validation, self-respect. Maslow wrote, "Without the fulfillment of the self-esteem need, individuals will be driven to seek it and unable to grow and obtain self-actualization." External fulfillment is not reliable because it relies on another person to fill your need that often time will leave you with a feeling of disappointment. When you feel disappointed it will be likely to experience low self-esteem and could drive you to seek more and more external fulfillment.

Self-esteem, self-worth, and self-love are almost all the same - an expression of which you are, and it is different from self-confidence that is a belief about your ability to predict outcomes based on correct chosen actions.

Are you a confident individual with high self-esteem or are you someone who lacks confidence and is typically low in self-esteem? Visit How to build confidence  at http://www.how-to-build-confidence.com or BrunoLoGreco.com Life Coach & Mentor to register to read my new e-book on How To Build Self Confidence, coming in June 2009.  To give you a taste of what you can expect in June, I wrote a mini 9 page e-book you can download today. 

It's not perfect, but neither am I. 

 

You Lack Self Esteem And Seek External Fulfillment

5 Amazing Tips On How To Screw-Up And Build Self Confidence

I'm back into the swing of things. I'd lost my way there for a while, but now I'm back, stronger than ever, inspired by the potential and motivated to succeed at my new goal, which will lead me to the next stage of my journey - my ultimate goal.

Many people I encounter, clients, friends, and acquaintances look at me and believe that I am a confident individual. In many aspects of life I am quite confident, however I have yet to meet an individual that is 100% confident in every thing they do, and that includes me. Rest assured, each time I embark on a new challenge where I have no experience, I often wonder if I will succeed, but I also know that if I don't try I definitely won't. So I acknowledge the challenge, give myself permission to screw-up and set course towards success.

5 Amazing tips on how to succeed at challenges with no experience:

1. Give yourself permission to screw-up. Lets face it, not many people get it right from the start. So why are you any different. Michael Jordan was kicked off the school team before he became a professional basketball player. Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because he lacked imagination and didn't have any original ideas, and Abraham Lincoln failed in business twice and defeated in 8 elections. So let’s face it you’re going to screw-up sooner or later.


2. Follow experts, they leave a trail. Experts socialize among like-minded people, often sharing techniques. Search forums, social groups, and networks that are specific to your challenge. Learn what the experts are saying and follow their trail. One of them might just inspire you.


3. Put your knowledge to the test. Experiment with the knowledge you gather. Create a test pilot and plug in the pieces that fit and continue researching the pieces that don't. Ask a close friend or family member to critique your findings and learn from what they say. Remember, you don't have to implement everything they say, you're listening for new inspiration to enhance what you already have.


4. Complete the challenge. Now put all the pieces you gathered together and present it to the audience. Listen to the feedback and learn from it. No matter what happens, or what the feedback is, at this stage of the game you already gained a wealth of knowledge that nobody can ever take away from you.


5. Celebrate the victories. Celebrate successes even if they less than perfect. You learned something new that you would not have learned otherwise. Be proud and pat yourself on the back for starting and finishing a challenge. By recognizing and celebrating even the smallest of victories you will be more likely to accept bigger challenges in the future. This will build self confidence and boost your self esteem too.
   

Here is another way to build self confidence. Visit How To Build Confidence by Master Life Coach & Mentor Bruno LoGreco

5 Amazing Tips On How To Screw-Up And Build Self Confidence

Is Your Goal To Be On Oprah?

It doesn’t matter how many times you hear or read, the most successful people in the world write their goals and refer back to them from time-to-time. The truth is you can achieve any goal you put your mind towards so long as you do something – take some level of action. The only difference between people who make it in life and the people who don’t is the action they take to achieve their goals. Both groups have equal resources available to them, but only one group makes use of them.

Are you aware that you already set and achieve goals daily? It’s what keeps you moving forward day-by-day. You accomplish a ton of goals without thought and with much success each time. Those small goals bring you a level of satisfaction and are top of mind making the goal that much more achievable. You even succeed at achieving complex goals that require conscious thought like getting a drivers license.

Choosing to get your drivers license is setting a goal. You have to execute a bunch of little tasks, like registering with a driver education, scheduling in-car lessons, and registering for your final road test. When you pass the final road test is when you achieved your goal and now have your license.

So it’s not like you don’t know how to set a goal, you just simply forgot and got comfortable with life. Heck, you can even be on Oprah if that is your goal. All you have to do is write a book that is worth sharing. Will you be on Oprah? I don’t know but you will at least have a chance if you write the book first.

The reason you are stuck is because you forgot to set another goal to replace the last one after it was achieved. No goal means you have no direction, and no direction means you have a life consumed in loud noise in search of something. The key is to start learning again, just like you did when you chose to be a licensed driver.

Choose to set a new goal and learn something new. You won’t be sorry.

Bruno LoGreco Master Life Coach & Mentor

Is Your Goal To Be On Oprah?

The Natural Flow Of Energy

I had an extremely productive week. Between client visits I strategize and executed task after task, working towards achieving my next goal. It just goes to show you that when you sit in the driver seat of your life and drive in whichever direction makes you feel the best, the natural flow of energy without resistance, things just work out in your favor. Whatever challenge you face, you succeed effortlessly. The tools and the teachers appear at exactly the moment when you need them - No sooner, no later.

Back in December I rambled about a new website for the new business I was starting. January, February, March, and April, and still no business website. Four full months and no website to promote the new business I started in December. Something tells me I was working against the natural flow of energy.

It was a good challenge and I’m glad I took myself up on the challenge because the answer is: Yes, you can start a business with no money and start generating revenue within 30 days. If you are willing to put the time and effort into starting a business, you certainly can generate revenue within 30 days. Feel free to contact me if you would like to know how.

The biggest lesson I learned through this experience is to stay true to myself and to my purpose. Everyone has his or her own unique gift - miracles happen when you tap into this energy. Starting a new business that doesn't improve nor enhance my creative expression will only move me away from that energy.

Get a glimpse into what I've been working on in the past two weeks. It’s not perfect, but neither Am I. How To Build Confidence

The Natural Flow Of Energy

Goals Are The knowledge You Need To Experience The Life You Dream

At the end of last year I remember writing a few times that 2008 was the year for learning. Now that I look back at my journey, I see what I meant when I said 2008 was the year for learning. Although I am first to say, "When you stop learning you are either dead or stuck", unconsciously I heard, “You know enough, stop learning.” Ego comes to mind. It’s funny how things just happen even to the people that believe they are self-aware. I learned many things over the past 4 months, but I also stopped learning about the most important thing and that is 'me'. I don't have to write what happened, I'm sure you can guess that I got lost. Luckily, I found my way back several weeks ago.

What I lacked yesterday was knowledge, the knowledge that comes with experience. Only after I experienced certain events did I gain the knowledge I need for my next goal. Today I understand more than ever before why it is so important to write your goals and to continue learning throughout life. Goals ensure you gain the knowledge you need to experience the life you dream. However, there’s a caveat, not every experience will gain the knowledge you need to experience your dream, ego driven experiences create the illusion of a dream.

When the student is ready the teacher will appear. For me to succeed at my next goal I will have to learn a new skill. The new skill compliments my natural talent and together they will enhance my performance and take me to a new level. Unlike the last time I learned a new skill that complimented my natural talent, this time I know my new skill is not for me to start another new business, It's for me to grow and to move forward into the next phase of my journey.

Goals Are The knowledge You Need To Experience The Life You Dream

Stop Being A Passenger In Another Life

Life will take you anywhere you would like to go. When you sit in the driver seat of your life you have the opportunity to experience anything you desire. Everybody, you included, has the power to drive life towards whichever experience you wish to fulfill, and to live whichever dream you dare to dream. Anyone can live their dreams, but only if you sit in the driver seat of your life and drive towards whatever it is you desire. 

When you are not the driver in your life you are a passenger in another life. You will experience the highs and lows as you forget that you are only a passenger in another life. It will become easy for you to get caught up in the noise that surrounds you only because you will have more time to participate, analyze, state your opinion, and even try to control the direction you are moving towards, and you will fail to remember that you’re not the driver as you try to control the direction. 

The challenge you will face is recognizing that you are not sitting in the driver seat of your life. When you accept that you have become the passenger in another life by your own omission, only then will you regain control of the driver seat. But, if you believe you regained control of the driver seat and are blaming someone else for losing control, you’re still sitting in the passenger seat. Your entire life will change once you are seated in the driver seat. 

Bruno LoGreco

Stop Being A Passenger In Another Life