Improve Yourself: Practical Guide on How to Acquire the Winning Mental Approach to Develop Self-Esteem and Improve One's Quality of Life

By Steve Carter

Does your mind keep getting the upper hand over your chances of success?
Do you often make decisions that you systematically regret?
Would you like to develop full self-control by being able to eliminate negative thoughts that prevent you from achieving your dreams?

 

If the answer is "yes," then this is the message you have been waiting for....

 

Many people fail to find a balance between themselves and others, getting held back by the anxiety of not being able to communicate in the right way, losing job or romance opportunities, and ruining the most important relationship of all: the one with themselves...

 

The personal growth you are seeking is a 360-degree journey through various aspects of your psyche, leading you to the discovery of a new version of you that you were unaware of.

 

To help you achieve the best version of yourself, this collection contains 6 books that will help you enormously in all aspects of life that will lead you to success.

Through a practical, science-backed approach you will be led through useful strategies, techniques, and tips to better manage your emotions, gain unwavering confidence, and achieve the life you've always dreamed of...

 

Here is a preview of what this book will enable you to do:

• Learn ASSERTIVE COMMUNICATION and become an excellent communicator, able to convey the right feelings to others and make beneficial connections;
• Enter your interlocutor's psyche with EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, positively influencing the emotions your neighbor feels toward you;
• Discover the most powerful NLP techniques that will enable you to replace your negative thought patterns with ones that will lead you to success;
• Develop a powerful SELF-STIME, an indispensable element that will characterize the successful person you will become;
• STOP THINKING TOO MUCH by controlling the negative thoughts that cause you anxiety with simple techniques.

There is no wrong time to start working on yourself, and there is nothing more noble than deciding to become better than we have been so far.

 

You have already waited far too long....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Carter
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223903185

Book preview

Introduction

If a person notices that he or she thinks too much about certain episodes and contexts in his or her life, if he or she spends too much time imagining what might be the right things to say in the run-up to an important meeting, that person may already have a fairly general idea of what excessive thinking is.

This overthinking can either generate a flow of negativity or positivity in the way one interfaces with others, and, of course, it all depends on the very nature of those thoughts that one is going to overload.

Excessive thinking is most commonly driven by desire or fear and very rarely results in creative thinking.

The overthinker is led to demonize whatever and whomever he identifies as the cause of his problems or as an obstacle to their resolution.

Hence, overthinking is inherent in being self-critical, saturated with issues, judgmental and opinionated toward others.

Excessive thinking-induced criticism and self-criticism results in an almost obsessive repetition of summary judgments about one's own and others' ways of being and behavior, such as, "Titius Caius is a bad person, Sempronius should be less selfish, I need to stop being so lazy," etc.

Every old image concerning oneself, others and the more general aspects of life go to form a kind of double identity, austere and uncompromising, which causes the person to be obsessed with his or her ego and to be too strict with himself or herself.

Then when this judgmental dual identity is not busy attacking others, the sufferer proceeds to rework in the form of distraction whatever needs to be properly and conscientiously analyzed.

In particular, this can turn into a denial of feelings.

The human being's mind proceeds in planning and progresses in an attempt to anticipate, and why not, even judge.

The analytical function of the human psyche undoubtedly constitutes its greatest strength, but it also possesses its limitations.

This is because the moment a person tries to apply himself to something simple, emotional, sensual and wants to do it in the present moment, he finds that the more rational part of his mind takes a back seat.

Simply put, it is not necessary.

For example, everyone may be aware of the emotional benefits that arise from the act of giving a kiss to a loved one or the act of holding one's child; but would one be able to fully enjoy such benefits if one kisses the person one loves and hugs a child while one's mind is busy thinking about work?

Listening to birdsong while sitting on a bench, walking on the beach hand in hand with one's partner, consuming the food one loves most constitute just examples of simple pleasures for which the rational part of one's mind not only takes a back seat but even proves to be a hindrance.

It has happened to anyone to go through long periods when it seems that the mind cannot rest and when thoughts seem to follow one another in a whirling manner, progressing toward a state of impatience.

It then happens to many to experience a jolt, perhaps in the middle of the night, following which the eyes cannot even close and one frantically goes from one worry to another, unable to glimpse the slightest solution.

But this does not detract from the fact that the human mind always remains in full operation, and at certain times it is the type of thoughts one faces that makes the difference, in addition, of course, to the mood associated with them.

All these things can make a difference on one's state of mind and can direct one's days, for better or worse.

In a state of overthinking, the mind continuously proceeds to process and rework issues and negativity, yet fails to find real solutions and associates a change of mood with each evaluation.

In such a context, finding one's own peace and inner balance appears to be a utopia.

At the point when it takes more serious bends, overthinking paves the way for such a spike in stress, anxiety and even depression that the performance of the simplest daily tasks becomes unthinkable.

Often and often, a person subjected to an overload of thoughts ends up no longer being able to grasp, appreciate and enjoy the small and simple beauties of everyday life, such as can be, for example, the kind gesture of a colleague who comes over with a coffee to offer or the smile of a child with whom one crosses eyes on the street.

On the contrary, in the most severe cases of overthinking, the subject misunderstands and reworks everything in a hostile way, because he interprets everything as a distraction from the pressing task of thinking about his own problems, yet never manages to find a shred of a solution to them.

In this emotional state, positivities are belittled and negativities are seen to be amplified, so much so that every slightest triviality is perceived as either a catastrophe or an affront.

From all this, it can be deduced that also seeing deterioration are the interpersonal relationships of the person who is in a state of overthinking, and it is not uncommon for him or her to then face the consequences of this from an employment and economic perspective as well.

In cases where excessive thinking goes on for an excessively long period of time, the subject also sees his or her consideration of others and the dynamics of life change, because around him or her he or she cannot perceive anything but inadequacy and negativity.

These are the specific reasons why overthinking can degenerate into states of true depression, in which the subject continually seeks loneliness because he constantly feels rejected by those who should be his affections, or, but this is a very rare case, because he manages to retain that minimum amount of self-awareness that he realizes he is a negativity to others.

Misunderstandings and misunderstandings become commonplace items, and personal serenity and balance become a distant and nostalgic memory.

The overthinker, which should not be overlooked at all, often then deludes himself into thinking that he can find relief from his emotional state by seeking excess, and it may also happen that he engages in compulsive eating and the abuse of vices such as smoking and alcohol.

Such a person suffers greatly from all his shortcomings and the consequences resulting from his behavior, which he is often even aware of, yet he is completely trapped in a vicious cycle from which he feels he cannot break free.

Everything is black, everything is becerely adverse, all the people in one's life are inadequate and evil.

However, there are several methods to succeed in counteracting overthinking and removing those obstacles constructed by one's mind.

In the next few pages, you will be shown how to reduce overthinking through the performance of special exercises and ad hoc practices to succeed in getting rid of this annoying problem.

CHAPTER 1: Overthinking, the cause of your problems

In psychology, excessive thinking (overthinking in English) refers to the behavior of a person who commits much time of his or her daily routine to thinking compulsively about something.

This can be about life itself, work, a relationship, a project of any kind, or a simple event.

This overthinking can consist of negative as well as positive elements, and although it may appear to be a superfluous recommendation, the subject needs to take special care when he or she notices that negative thinking takes over excessively in his or her psyche for an extended period of time.

In 2016, Yale University conducted a study on overthinking by examining a sample of 1,300 people, with the first systematic survey on the topic yielding some very unheartening results.

Primarily, Yale scholars were able to find that women fall into the vicious cycle of overthinking far more than men, and that 63 percent of young people and 52 percent of adults can be confined to the set of overthinkers.

The fast-paced society in which we find ourselves living today, and in which everything is perceived as an issue that must be solved at once, is one of the triggers of overthinking, because people tend to conceive of time as a resource in constant shortage and are inclined to force their minds to think simultaneously about several topics, all different from each other.

Social networks and free access to real-time information also plays its role in all this flourishing of excessive thinking, as the continuous overload of content stimulates a relentless application of thought, on the most diverse elements.

Because of all this, people tend to draw intricate and busy mind maps on the most diverse topics instead of thinking in an organized and linear way.

Excessive thinking is thus a primary source of stress.

But in addition to the exhaustion of which overthinking is the cause, quite a few other negativities may arise to hinder a person's life path, such as mental disorders and personality disorders.

Every person in the world thinks a lot, either for the purpose of reflection or analysis, but very many are unaware that in order to be critical and analytical effectively, one must first experience quality time.

The quality of lived time, not surprisingly, helps one to plumb a problem of any kind in its essentiality and beyond one's mental superstructures, as well as to be curious in one's thoughts.

One of the triggers of overthinking is the determination to want to achieve goals at all costs.

They may be economic, work-related, relational, yet it is happening more and more often that a person fails to cross the finish line he or she set out to achieve.

Such a person may then allow himself to get bogged down in metaphorical quicksand, in which he sees the goal clearly in front of him but fails to catch a glimpse of the way to be able to reach it.

In this way, the moment the goal is not achieved, it is continually brought back to the surface by the mind, which at the same time proposes both probable solutions and brooding over the failures that have already occurred.

In addition, it must be considered that the mind is nothing but a defense mechanism and therefore tends to always configure the worst-case scenario in order to find itself prepared to face anything.

It is at this point that overthinking is also joined by anxiety and, along with it, frustration at not achieving a goal.

In this case, the term goal also refers to something very simple and not necessarily to something important; for example, a goal might be to be able to make peace with a person with whom you have been at rancor for days, as well as being able to finish early a job that you had considered particularly burdensome.

The human mind translates any act involving an opportunity for success and an opportunity for failure into a goal.

An overthinker can easily realize how the onrush of negative thinking only suffocates and exhausts one's mind, as well as disrupts one's emotional regulation and makes it difficult to enjoy one's daily activities.

Sleep is also an element of the excessive thinker's life that is completely disturbed.

This is because if you demand excessive performance from your mind and for an excessively long period of time, you end up creating nothing but physical and psychological stress.

Stress and excessive thinking become strongly linked and manifest their negative effects in full force.

When you are in a stressful condition, it is easy to fall into the trap of overthinking, and in this case you may find yourself struggling to understand which of the two is the cause and which is the effect.

In fact, it becomes difficult to understand whether it is stress that gives incipit to everything, which then paves the way for overthinking or whether one becomes stressed because one thinks too much.

What really needs to be understood is that it is not important to analyze cause-and-effect dynamics, because rather the two elements should be considered as a unicum.

In addition to this, issues related to self-esteem and insecurity are also among the most common causes of overthinking, because the person with low self-esteem tends to place all the blame for an event on himself or herself and all the credit on others, wallowing in constant brooding about 'how, when and why' certain events took place and certain things happened.

It is also interesting to note how the COVID-19 pandemic has created a sharp surge in all the most common psychological issues; this is all due to the fact that social distancing, relational difficulties resulting from not being able to physically interact with others have led to further overthinking and rethinking of every daily occurrence.

Excessive thinking