Boost Your Self-Confidence – 12 Assuring Ways

Self-confidence is about accepting yourself as what you are and a healthy assessment of your self-worth. As you are in control of your actions and thoughts, you can transform yourself from low self-esteem to self-assured. Here are 12 tips to develop your self-confidence:


1. Dress smartly and appropriately: When you dress appropriately for the occasion and you look smart, you instantly project an image of self-confidence. Not only that, others will perceive you as a person of self-assurance.

2. Smile: Always wear a smile especially when you meet people. You send a signal to others that you are OK and on top of things.

3. Be active physically: Physical exercise such as jogging is not only good for your body but it is equally good for your mind. You will feel calm and collected after an exercise. You will feel good and your self-confidence is elevated.

4. Love yourself: No one is perfect. Accept your strengths and weaknesses. Don’t worry about what others are thinking about you. Be your usual self and act normally.

5. A good posture: Sit and stand upright. Look into the eyes of the person who is talking to you. Be attentive. People will appreciate and respect your undivided attention. It is good for your image and your self-confidence in dealing with others.

6. Think of your success: There is no better way to boost your confidence than to think about your achievements. Appreciate yourself for the things that you have done well and are able to do better than others. These positive thoughts will bring your self-confidence to the next level.

7. Positive mental attitude: Positive thinking is a positive emotion. You send positive thoughts to your mind that you think you can do it. This in turn will boost your self-confidence.

8. Random acts of kindness: Helping others means you can look after not only yourself but others. It impacts your self-image and your self-confidence positively.

9. Be happy: Like positive mental attitude, happiness is another positive emotion. It is a state of the mind. When you feel happy you will feel confident about yourself.

10. Read uplifting material: On a regular basis feed your mind with positive thoughts by reading articles, books and magazines that boost your self-esteem, your self-confidence and your self-worth. Knowledge enriches your mind and your soul

11. Associate with winners: Join people who are confident of themselves. Observe the way they behave and talk, and inadvertently you will imitate them to act and talk confidently.

12. Be prepared: As an example, you have self-confidence when you have fully prepared for an examination.


Self-confidence is a positive emotion. One positive emotion leads to other positive emotions. With self-confidence you will believe in yourself and you will see a positive image of yourself. You will feel satisfied and happy about yourself.

10 Ways to Get Extra Cash

Extra Cash

Where do you get extra cash when you have exhausted your emergency fund?

Look into your own sources of the fund before you get outside help:

1. Children’s savings accounts: Here is a good source of funds that you can tap into quickly with no hassle.

2. Your fixed deposit: Here is yet another source of quick cash but you have to sacrifice your interest income for premature withdrawal.

3. Cash value of your insurance policies: You don't have to surrender a policy, but you just get a loan against the cash value. You can get your cash in just a few days. You can also redeem your investment-linked insurance policy just like you liquidate your unit trust. There is no need to make repayment

4. Sell your investment: Dispose of part of your shares or your unit trust holding to meet your cash requirements

5. Pawn your valuables: Another quick way to get cash is to pawn your gold rings, gold chains, gold coins, or other valuables but don't let your friends or relatives spot you at the pawnshop.

6. Cash advance from your company: You can get your salary advance without interest easily from the place where you work.

7. Credit card advance: You will definitely incur substantial interest but it is a quick source of cash and is better than getting the money from Ah Long or a loan shark

8. Borrow from your friends and relatives: You have to be thick-skinned and it may not look good for you financially but what to do when you need the cash. Perhaps you can be kind enough to repay the loan with an extra amount to make your lenders happy.

9. Personal loan or a secured loan from the bank: It may not be as fast as you think but it is a way to secure the needed sum. You may not require collateral for a personal loan but you can secure an overdraft facility with your own house.

10. Loan shark: This is the last resort. If you can, avoid it. If you must borrow, make very sure that you pay back promptly or the debt will be snowballed into a sum beyond your means to settle and that is the beginning of your nightmare.

One good thing about getting a loan from financial institutions is that you can establish your creditworthiness by making timely repayments. You are better than someone with no credit history

20 Useful Tips to Keep Your Job

How do you look after yourself when what you often hear nowadays are financial crisis, retrenchment, pay-cut, and bankruptcy? Check out the following tips to hold your position in the company:


1. Self-confidence: You know your self-worth, your expertise, and your contributions to the company. You are aware that you can do things better than others and people respect you for that.

2. Consider other people’s points of view: When you offer a suggestion think about the repercussions for others. Your ideas will always be acceptable when you take into consideration others.

3. Keep your promises: Always under promised and over delivered. Be a trusted person and always deliver on time.

4. You have a bright idea: Write it down and carry it out. Just do it. An idea is useless without acting on it

5. Lifelong learning: Keep yourself up-to-date by continuous learning. The extra knowledge could be a competitive edge over other staff.

6. Accept the challenge: When you are given a new assignment, accept it, and do your best. Your boss is observing you. If you can make it you will be promoted

7. Do more: Surprise your boss such as giving him the extra valuable information in your routine reports.

8. Be an expert in your own field: It does not matter what position you hold in the company, be the best in your area of expertise.

9. Keep improving yourself: Do not be complacent. Adopt a learning attitude, be curious, and be alert to new ideas.

10. Manage your boss well: Able to understand his needs, his worries, and his expectations and offer him some bright ideas. Be proactive and don’t just be an order taker.

11. Be a solution provider: When there is a problem do not throw it at your boss. Play an active role and come up with a solution to the problem. Your initiative will be valued by the boss.

12. Building better people skills: Respect others and keep your promises. Go to other staff and speak to them. Be humble and be friendly.

13. Improve working efficiency: Efficiency at the workplace means getting things done in less time and able to do more. Always think of ways to do things with less cost and create higher value.

14. Smile: Always wear a smile. When you smile at the people you meet, you are giving a positive impression to them and they feel good about it.

15. A balanced life: Don’t bring your work home. Look after the family just like you look after your job. A happy home life means you will go to work with a peaceful mind. and 100% undivided attention

16. Active networking: Always be in touch with your colleagues after working hours. You never know when you will need their help. Don’t call them only after you get retrenched. Be in the good book of those people who are capable of deciding your future in the company.

17. Play your part to look after the company: Help to achieve the company’s goals. You may be just a supervisor but you can play your role and contribute towards the aims of the company. Think of ways to improve the image of the company, cut down expenses, or boost sales. When you look after the company you look after yourself.

18. Maintain your health and fitness: Your energy and your youthfulness are derived from your daily exercise. Physical activities such as jogging and swimming give calmness to your mind and you are able to concentrate better at work

19. Your personal brand: Project an image to others that you care a lot about yourself and you have a positive image of yourself by dressing smartly and appropriately.

20. Respond positively: When there is a pay-cut, accept it gracefully. Do not complain about it. Do your work as usual. Your positive attitude will be noticed and appreciated by your boss. Continue to contribute. The company survives and you also survive.


A successful career is a continuous process of improving and upgrading oneself. Do not slack off and the chances are that you will be more than capable of keeping your job.

10 Office Efficiency Tips

Working efficiently in the office means getting things done in less time and boosting productivity. I would like to share some tips with you so that you can be a more efficient worker.

1. To-do list: This list should be prepared on the evening of the previous day. The plus point is that you can go to bed with ease of mind because you have already taken care of the things to be done the following day. The other good point is that the next day you can go straight to work without wasting any time

2. To-do file or follow-up file: It is a file similar in nature to your daily to-do list. The things to be done in the file are mostly recurring at fixed dates. It has two sections. One section is divided into 31 slots to cover 31 days of each month. The other section has twelve slots for twelve months in a year. At the end of a month, say, December, you transfer and file items relating to January into their respective dates. Upon completion of the to-do list for the day it is, again, filed in the January folder and ready to be used next year. This file complements your daily to-do list. You don’t have to remember the things you have to do but you will get things done by checking the file every day.

3. Keep your desk neat and tidy: A cluttered desk gives an impression to others that you are not organized. You work better with only items relating to the task at hand. A clean desk gives you a feeling of calmness. A desk full of files and documents makes you feel stressful

4. Effective filing system: Proper filing means you are able to retrieve a document easily and quickly when needed. A thick file with related documents is better than keeping related papers in many individual files

5. Handle a document only once: Go through the in-tray quickly means going through the documents only once. By looking at each document decide at once to file, to reply or to act on it in due course.

6. A time frame to complete a task: According to Parkinson’s Law, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” It is prudent to set a deadline to complete a task. You avoid procrastination and you get things done in less time.

7. Do the most important task in the morning: By looking at the to-do list for the day, tackle the most important task in the morning. As your mind is fresh and your energy is at its peak, it is sensible and efficient to do the most difficult task first.

8. Keep fit and be healthy: When you are fit and healthy it gives you the energy and the vitality to work efficiently in the office. Not only that, you are calm and able to concentrate better at work

9. Handle interruption immediately: If it is something that can be done right away, do it immediately. Things like faxing a confidential document or making a copy of a letter. It can be forgotten when you decide to do it later.

10. Delegate: When you delegate you have more time to attend to other important issues. Not only that, the person who is given the task is also motivated because he feels that the boss has the trust in him to do the job. It is a win-win situation

Your effectiveness in the office will be noticed by your boss because you always deliver a completed assignment in a timely fashion. Over time, you will be trusted by your boss to get more important things done.

11 Habits to Avoid at Work

Habits to Avoid at Work

“Make each day your masterpiece.” —John Wooden

Building a meaningful career is not a one-off thing. It is a long-term affair. Take note and avoid the following bad habits at work: 

 1. Without a clear career path: He is not certain of what he wants in life. He has landed on a job and he just goes to work without mapping out his future career path 

 2. Just work alone: He makes no effort to connect with people at the workplace. He comes and he works and then he goes home. 

 3. Doing personal things at work: He makes personal telephone calls and he surfs the net and visits social networking sites to exchange messages. Things could be worse if he had visited porn sites. 

 4. Do not do self-development: As he is not aware of his future direction, he takes no initiative or interest to develop himself for his career advancement. 

 5. Try to cover up blunders: When a mistake is made he tries to hide it. He does not understand that honesty is the best policy and he should own it up and fix it as soon as possible. 

 . Pay no attention to detail: He does not check carefully and often submits a report in haste. It is later discovered that some important items in the report are missing and he has circulated the report to those who should not be receiving it. 

 7. Irregular attendance; He may be late or he may knock off earlier. His lunch break can be extended to more than an hour. He is at the workplace but you are unable to locate him. Often he takes off without advance notice. 

 8. Unable to keep promises: He is always over-promised and under-delivered because he is not able to do a proper estimation of the time required to complete a task. 

 9. Missing in action: He is sent out to do work but he takes longer than usual and you are unable to contact or locate him. 

 10. Gossiping: He is fond of talking behind people's back and the peaceful atmosphere in the office is disturbed. 

 11. Ineffective working habits: He is unable to prioritize his work. Often an important assignment gets done at the last minute in a panicky situation causing unnecessary errors and further delay to complete a job. 

 Avoid these bad habits and cultivate effective working methods to grow your career.

Affiliate Programs and My Blog

Affiliate Marketing

According to Wikipedia affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. It is using one website to drive traffic to another. In this case, I am putting banners, supplied by the advertiser, on my blog to attract readers to click the link to the advertiser’s home page. When a sale is concluded, I receive a commission. It is a form of passive income. 

 The first affiliate program that I joined was Amazom.com. I selected Amazon because I love to read books. After a while, I removed all the banners from my blog because it was a fruitless attempt. Recently

 I was invited by Jay Marsh, Assistance Affiliate Manager at Hexpress Ltd to join their affiliate network. I gladly accepted the offer. I like the program because its products are about online health care which is in line with my niche. Moreover, when you join your account is credited with 25 pounds upfront. Like AdSense, you have to accumulate 100 pounds in order to get paid. 

 I have also taken the opportunity to join another affiliate program, myhelphub.com. They promote products relating to self-development and writing skills. I have chosen this network because my blog is about self-improvement. Their products complement my articles. The reasons why I was invited are because my blog is a niche blog and most important of all, the Traffic Rank of my blog offers potential business opportunities.

 I will write another article in the future to brief you about these two affiliate programs.

Live Life Fully – 13 Lively Tips

You only get one chance to live your life fully

“Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.” - Anthony Robbins

Life is short. Life is unpredictable. Do not despair; you can live life fully because you are in total control of your own life. It is up to you to live the life of your choice. Here are some tips that can help you to lead a fuller life:

1. Take charge of your own life: Live the life you want because you can control your own thoughts and actions. Be responsible for your own life. Just remember “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”

2. Live with your passion and interest: Do things that you enjoy doing and especially you are able to do it better than others. As for me, writing articles allows me to be creative and lively because my articles are able to solve readers’ problems and uplift their mood.

3. Enjoy the outdoor: Go jogging or cycling. Breathe in fresh air. Bathe under the setting sun. When you enjoy the outdoor you are also looking after your health and fitness

4. Be curious and inquisitive: Be like a little boy who is very interested to know everything under the sun. A quest for knowledge is a never-ending process. It stimulates your mind and gets you the power to be creative

5. Take delight in every moment of your life: Slow down to enjoy whatever that you are doing. Eat slowly to savor each mouthful. Stop by the river to marvel at the full moon. Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain. Be observant to capture the beauty of nature.

6. Spread kindness around: Smile at people you meet. Say a few kind words to people who serve you. Your kind gesture will be appreciated and you will be happy as well

7. Be financially independent: Having sufficient funds means you can enjoy the material life you want. And more importantly, you will not have money problems

8. Happy at work: You may not like the work that you do, but just think of it; it is where you get your paycheck every month to support you and your family. Holding a full-time job impacts your self-image positively.

9. Connect with friends: Strike a lively conversation among friends. Crack a few jokes to laugh out loud.

10. Be yourself: Love yourself as what you are. Accept your strengths and weaknesses. Nobody is perfect. Express yourself freely; do not worry about what others think about you.

11. Love your family: Spread your love for every member of your family. When they are happy you are happy too and life is meaningful and wonderful.

12. Be happy: Happiness is from within. Just be happy and you will develop more positive emotions like self-confidence, enthusiasm, and optimism.

13. Appreciate things of beauty: Develop in your admiration of the finer things in life such as poems, work of art, and music. Visit the museums, art galleries, and attend classical music concerts. A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

Remember that you only live once. While you are alive and kicking why not live life to the fullest?

“I think the purpose of life is to be happy, to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, and to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all,” - Leo Rosten (1908-1997) Writer.