6 Ways to build your partner’s self-esteem

I remember when I was 12 years old, playing in a peewee hockey game where we were getting destroyed. My father (and coach) stormed into the dressing room between periods and yelled at my teammates, “Listen up, you guys! Just give the puck to Paul and get out of his way!”
I was mortified at the time, but later on it hit me. My Dad thinks I’m pretty good! I’m not sure how the other players felt, but in his own way, my dad was telling me that he believed in me. Times like that gave me the confidence that I needed to fulfill my dream of playing in the NHL.
All of us need cheerleaders in our corner. As a husband, one of my greatest responsibilities – and greatest privileges – is to support and encourage my wife to become the woman that God created her to be. A big part of that is helping her to feel good about herself, to give her the confidence and courage to step out, take risks, and grow.
There is a principle that says “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29). How exactly do we do that? My Dad had his own way, but here are a few suggestions that might help your marriage.
1. Go back to school
You need to become a student of your mate. Watch their life, and get a sense of their potential, their goals and their dreams. Determine where they could use some encouragement or empowerment to overcome a fear.
I always believed that my wife Eleanor would make a fabulous public speaker. But for many years, she just couldn’t see it and was even terrified of trying. She didn’t have self-confidence. But that was okay – I had enough confidence for the both of us! I spent our early years encouraging her and helping her sharpen her speaking skills, and now we speak together regularly at FamilyLife marriage conferences across Canada. What once was a huge area of fear for her has become one of our greatest joys as a couple.
2. Affirm their strengths
As I said, we all need a cheerleader in our corner, and no one should be a bigger fan of your spouse than you. When you see an area of competence and excellence in their life, tell them! Be specific in giving them examples of where you have seen them be wise and discerning. Praise them for whatever they do well, whether it’s cooking, decorating your home, caring for the children, helping people, excelling at work, or being a person of character. Your enthusiasm will put a smile on their face and will give them a confidence that they can achieve their goals.
3. Critique carefully
If we are serious about helping our spouse become a better person, there will be times when some constructive criticism is necessary. This is dangerous territory – tread carefully!
There is a fine line between exhorting and destroying. Our job is to build one another up, not tear one another down. Communicate your intentions to help in the best possible light so your spouse does not become defensive or feel put down. Paint the picture of a diamond in the rough; it just has to be mined – polished, cleaned up, refined. Focus on the diamond not the rough – remember that it takes seven positive comments to outweigh one negative.
4. Public praise
One of the most damaging things we can do to our spouse is to criticize them in front of others. On the other hand, there is nothing as empowering and uplifting as public affirmation. A lot of people today seem to enjoy cutting down their spouse in the presence of others, whether friends, acquaintances or children. Instead, always speak well of your mate, whether or not your spouse is present.
I tell everyone I meet that my wife is the most wonderful woman I have ever laid eyes on. (And she is, too – you should see her!) You will never catch me complaining or even making negative jokes about her. She is God’s precious gift, and I want everybody to know it!
5. Work as a team
Although I may tell my wife how wonderful she is, if I never listen to her or value and acknowledge her suggestions, my words will ring hollow. Individualism creates a feeling of worthlessness in the other person. Seek your mate’s input in your decision-making. God brought you together because you complement one another. Work as a team, and you will not only make better decisions, you will communicate, “I value you.” You will also discover how often God will speak to you through your spouse.
6. Provide security
Dave Currie makes the excellent point that you should be a safe place for your mate to land. Create an environment where your mate knows that they can share anything openly and freely without the slightest hesitation.
Be sure to remind your spouse often how much you love and cherish them. I tell Eleanor all the time how much I admire her and want her. Assure your mate that you will always be there for them and you will never leave them. The security of knowing that there is someone who is always behind you, no matter what, creates an environment that encourages a person to take the necessary risks to chase their dreams.
Above all, point them to the other Person who is totally enamored with them. As people created in the image of God, each of us is exceptionally valuable in His eyes. He has plans for each of us that are far beyond our comprehension. Our great honour as a husband or a wife is to help our spouse fulfill God’s vision for their life. Nothing is more rewarding!

BUILDING SELF-CONFIDENCE

BUILDING SELF-CONFIDENCE

Self confidence and self esteem

What Is Self-confidence?

Self-confidence is the belief that you can handle a certain situation correctly. Self-confidence knows that you don't lack any of the necessary skills in order to successfully complete a task. This task could vary from a social activity like being able to approach someone you don't know, to a professional activity like the ability to complete a certain task that your work or your business needs.

Where Does Self-confidence Come From?

Without confidence you will surely miss a lot of available opportunities because you will be afraid to take the risk of trying something that you aren't sure you can handle. The following are some facts about self-confidence:

    Self confidence is never inherited, it's learned. The belief that you lack the confidence genes is just a popular myth.(See personality and genes relation.)

    Self confidence is not a general trait but instead you have different confidence levels for all the different activities you do. For example, you may be confident about your ability to drive a car but at the same time dread public speaking.

    Self confidence is not constant with time; it may change to the better or worse because of the new events that happen in your life.

    Self confidence may be independent of external factors, like being rich or having someone who loves you back.

What Can I Do to Build My Self-confidence?

You could be more confident through the total elimination of the dependency upon the opinion of others. This is because if you don't really have a solid knowledge of your abilities and of who you are then you will most likely be depending on others to tell you who you are.

If they were satisfied with your actions then they may tell you that you are a good person; if not, they may label you with labels like fool, an idiot or anything else that suits their own faulty perception. You will of course welcome these labels and add them to your beliefs about yourself because you've left the decision to them from the beginning to tell you who you are.

How to Eliminate Dependency on Others' Judgment

Correcting this problem is very simple: Get a piece of paper and write down your strengths and your weaknesses. Keep editing this paper until you are satisfied with what you've written. Now keep reading it daily until you are really sure that what you wrote down are your real abilities and skills. Now, whenever someone criticizes you or labels you, you can simply see if any of what he said matches your judgment of yourself. If it doesn't then just drop the comment.

Is it rude to disregard the Opinion of others?

You may think that it's rude to judge yourself without referring to others but lets face reality. If you are twenty years old, you should know yourself better than someone who's only known you for few months and so your opinion about yourself will probably be the most relevant. Moreover, in such an imperfect world, you will never be able to get a sufficient answer to your questions and your quest for gathering clues from others will never end.(See this article for more information.)

Just like anybody else, you definitely have people who consider you their enemy, people who are jealous of you or people who just dislike you for one reason or another. Such people will almost never tell you that you're great or that you're talented at a particular activity and so you will find it extremely difficult to get an honest opinion about your abilities from anyone. Consequently, the best thing to do would be to depend on your own judgment of yourself.

Self-confidence and Making Mistakes

Some mothers shout at their children as soon as they break anything, stain their clothes, forget to do their homework or when they do any other minor mistake. Treating a child this way results in making him think that doing something wrong is shameful and that making mistakes makes him different from other perfect people who do not make mistakes. When this child grows up and makes a certain mistake in public ( like dropping a glass or saying something wrong during a presentation) then he will feel embarrassed and might believe that he is not worthy. These kinds of thoughts will gradually but surely damage his confidence.

A parent's role should be building self-confidence in their children by encouraging them to try new things and not to teach them to fear making mistakes. The parent should teach them that, as a human being, mistakes are unavoidable.

In short, it's best to accept your mistakes without criticizing or labeling yourself.

Self-confidence and Inferiority Complex

One very important thing to note here is whether your lack of self-confidence is because any of the reasons we mentioned earlier, or if it is because of a deeply rooted inferiority complex. If suffering from an inferiority complex is your problem, skip to this section. Simply put, inferiority complex is a disorder that develops as a result of feeling inferior when compared to your peers or friends. This can act as a barrier to building self-confidence and so it is necessary to deal with it first.

SELF-CONFIDENCE AND PERFECTIONISM

In the Solid Self confidence program i explained that one of the great causes for a lack of self-confidence is being a perfectionist. A perfectionist always sets impossible goals and very high standards that he can never meet and this causes his confidence to degrade as he success escapes him again and again. One example of these impossible standards could be "I must never make mistakes if I want to be great at what I do".

LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE AND ASSERTIVENESS

A lack of assertiveness in communication can also lead to having less confidence of your abilities. If you are assertive, this will help you feel that you are in control, important and more worthy of respect and attention. Assertiveness is the ability to express yourself and needs without being aggressive; it's also the way of communication that makes you stand up for your rights and never let them go while at the same time avoiding violating others' rights.

LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE AND NEGATIVE SELF-TALK

Usually, the lack of self confidence is associated with negative self talk; which are the negative phrases and words you keep telling yourself while doing your normal thinking process. Stopping those negative words and phrases and replacing them with positive ones can not only increase your confidence but can help in fixing many of your emotional problems.

LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE AND POOR SELF IMAGE

Sometimes the underlying cause for a lack of self-confidence is having a poor self image. An example of this is if you think that you are ugly and so lack confidence whenever you meet new people. In order to know whether or not your lack of self-confidence is rooted in your poor self image; there is a small test that you can do: If you find that you feel more confident wearing your best shirt and much less confident when wearing something else, then your lack of confidence may be a direct result of the poor self image you have of yourself. In that case, fixing your poor mental self image is all what you have to do to restore your self-confidence.

Self confidence and love

People fall in love with those who can help them compensate for their weaknesses and those who have complementary personal traits. In my book How to make someone fall in love with you i described how presenting yourself as someone who is confident can increase your chance of making someone fall in love with you. It was found that women become more attracted to confident and assertive men especially if they were shy themselves.

If you found a way to convince people that you are confident you will definitely have more fans and you will increase your chance of making someone fall in love with you.

Self-confidence and Knowledge

When you know the benefit of something that you do regularly, you will be much more confident talking about it and doing it than if you were just doing it out of habit. Although you shouldn't have to provide an explanation to other people for what you, the power of knowing can still give your self-confidence a big boost. (See the power of knowledge.)

Self-confidence and Comparing Yourself to Others

Some people have developed the terrible habit of always comparing themselves to others; what's worse is that they choose to compare criteria that almost always puts them at the weak end of the comparison. They ignore all that is great about them and pick just this one thing that they lack and compare it to others. On finding that they are different, they feel less confident about themselves and their abilities. This behavior only results in damaging their already worn self-confidence. (Read this article to know how to avoid these unhealthy comparisons.)

FEAR AND LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE

do you know that fear can also steal some of your self-confidence? If you are afriad of ghosts or of the dark, your subconscious mind will probably be a little confused as to why you think you should feel confident when you find yourself helpless in certain harmless situations like being alone in the dark. The more helpless you feel, the more your self-confidence will erode as a result.

You can still be confident even when afraid of something, but facing your fears will make you that much more confident than you already are.

Self-confidence and the Self Reinforcing Cycle

Just as your personality affects your behavior, so does your behavior affect your personality. Acting in a non-assertive way will result in your feeling less confident and will lead to a self reinforcing cycle; where your continuously decreasing self-confidence makes you even less assertive and this in turn weakens you further. This can also work the other way round, since by forcing yourself to act in a confident and assertive way, you will start feeling more confident which reinforces and strengthens you even more. (Check this article for more details about this reverse effect.)

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why we worship God

WHY "WORSHIP IS ABOUT GOD, NOT ABOUT US" IS WRONG

This popular sentiment can often define our conversations about worship. Here's why that's wrong..

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times. I’ve heard pastors and conference speakers say it, too. You probably know the phrase, or some version of it: “Worship is all about God!” The crowd always responds with some measure of enthusiasm. After all, we are called to make God famous, to proclaim His renown, right? But then, after I’ve made that bold and seemingly noble statement, I’ve followed it up with a phrase that carries the weight of a logical afterthought. Confidently I would say, “Worship is all about God—it is not about us.” I know what I’ve meant all these years. And in most ways, I’ve been wrong. Dead wrong. So has everyone else who has said it—especially without qualification.

One time, when I said this as a guest speaker in front of a worship conference of about 600 folks, I pounded on the plexiglass podium for emphasis. (I’m not given to that; it just felt like the right thing to do at the time.) “Worship is all about God,” I said, “it’s not (pound) about (pound) us (big pound)!”

That last pound did the trick—in more ways than one. A large glass of cold water, sitting on the inner shelf of the podium, spilled as I hit the podium on the word “us.” It tipped right onto my pants. From my belt to my toes, it looked like I had wet myself! I stepped out from behind the podium, and the entire conference burst into laughter. I was a living metaphor. And yes—the water was very, very cold. God has a quirky sense of humor.

I’ve heard pastors, worship leaders and very influential people communicate this same idea—that “worship is all about God, it’s not about us”—in a hundred different ways. The intention is good, and even seems Scriptural. But the problem is that these ideas strung together convey something about human beings—and God’s invitation to worship—that is dead wrong. Especially if our Gospel begins in Genesis.

INCOMPLETE CHRISTIAN THOUGHTS KILL

True, God is great, and we are flawed. But that is an incomplete thought. And incomplete Christian thoughts kill.

Sure, worship is not only about us, our preferences or the small spiritual paradigms we can build. But to say that worship is not about us, our participation (I work hard to serve it occurring every weekend), our preferences (I think God gave some of them to me), or our spiritual paradigms (you have a unique design in your life just as I do mine) is just wrong.

Since our Gospel begins in Genesis 1, specifically Gen. 1:26-27, let’s try this: “God is great, and we are great in His image—yet now flawed to the point of death.” “Fearfully and wonderfully made,” the Psalmist said (Ps. 139:14), Image Bearers of God (Gen. 1:27), the Lord says.

Yet we push God up into His heavens, making Him so wonderful, and we so insignificant (Willard), that we actually do violence to both the Story of God and the reality of worship. While I love elements of Calvin (ever read his Institutes?) and pieces of reformed theology (the greatness of God is so majestically told), I sense a deep fear of human participation. We make things dirty. Messy. Imperfect. Lawyer-minds, like Calvin have given many gifts to the church, but their quest to codify faith into pristine theology has often engendered a stark resistance to any language that implies we have something to do with what happens in worship or in furthering God’s kingdom.

If we change our cliched language, our dehumanized language, we change our destiny. So to my pastor friends, and my worship leader friends, we need to fix this at the root.

“WORSHIP IS NOT ABOUT US”—IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE

Everyone knows that the hidden message in this statement is: God matters; you and I don’t so much. We’re not saying “we’re not the focus of worship.” Sure, we’re self-centered and fixated on our preferences. That must be challenged. It’s the silent statement of “who you are doesn’t matter—you should somehow objectively understand that God is the important one here and you are … well … not.”

Yes, worship is about God. When we lose sight of this, we become spiritual cheerleaders, doing religious gymnastics to get God to show up when he sees how hard we work (Peterson). We cajole and push our congregation to get them to express their worship demonstratively so we feel like all our hard prep work was not in vain. It’s dark. Once again, God is removed from being the Subject of the worship sentence, who acts on us through the verb of love—to us being the subject of the sentence and God being the recipient of our frenetic, psycho-spiritual gyrations.

The worship theology seems good and noble, but is it?

So yes, worship is about God. But to say without conditions “It’s not about us” does not ring Scripturally, experientially, traditionally or reasonably true (anyone notice Wesley’s Quadrilateral sneaking in there?).

Worship is indeed for God alone, and not for us—but we both have something to do with worship happening—God and us. From Genesis 1 all the way to Revelation’s “Come, Lord Jesus,” we are invited to participate with God in the grand relationship that is worship. When worship spills out into the streets, strengthening the poor and defending the weak, it has truly become a great dance with the Creator.

Something rises in the heart of God when He sees we are engaged with Him in life-to-life exchange that is the activity of worship.

Worship has everything to do with us. God makes it so.

WHEN WE DESIGN:

• local liturgies,
• musical environments,
• visual environments,
• room environments,
• sound environments,
• service orders,
• worship sets,
• instruments, architecture, messages, class materials, programs and parking lots …

… and more for engagement with God and His story, God must certainly be delighted! God must say “Yes! They are participating with me in this lavishly expressed, mutual love relationship that is worship! That was my original purpose in creating humankind in my image! We revel in this relationship together, and bring gifts that nurture our shared life!”

YOUR PREFERENCES MATTER

Wait a minute. Now we’re on touchy ground. Have you ever heard someone say, “It shouldn’t matter about what music is playing, or how loud or soft it is! It’s about God and worship. Your opinion doesn’t matter!” I’ve heard a few iterations of that over the years.

That, from my perspective, is also wrong. Yes, when our preferences become prejudices, that’s a problem. When a 60-year-old feels called to a community where 30-year-olds are leading worship, there is much grace that must be shown for the sound and music preferences that can radically differ across age groups.

But we are creational beings. Aesthetics matter. For that reason, it is good when churches work hard to create different kinds of worship environments for different seasons of life. Yes, we need to worship together. But we also have preferences that can serve our unique stage of calling and life.

When our little church in St. Stephen began an early morning Celtic liturgy service upstairs while the band rocked in the service below, it was a gift to my wife. She wanted some quiet, some reflective space, in the middle of a challenging season of life. The recited prayers came alive to her, and I was glad she had a fresh opportunity to find her voice—her preference—in worship.

Yes, we should be together in worship and show abundant grace. Yes, we can’t always accommodate everyone’s preferences (so we hand out ear plugs). But to say your preferences don’t matter? That is “uncreational”; we are wired differently and have different experiences. The fact that I love ambient worship spaces and my wife prefers “normal” music is a good thing, a God thing, and one to be navigated with grace. The fact that we both appreciate immersive silence (Darrell Harris) brings us together.

WORSHIP WORK IS ABOUT US

Whether it was the ancient Israelite choirs and bands of David’s day (who rehearsed the musicians?), Jesus breaking bread and sharing the cup at Pentecost (who set the table?), or the disciples worshipping together in the upper room (who wrote and taught the songs?), or the Body of Christ for thousands of years creating spaces, songs, patterns, readings and more to facilitate our receptivity to the Spirit’s forming us into Christ (who has designed our great body of worship work?), it all mattered and still matters.

Worship is all about God, yes—and yet He then makes it also about us. We then do our worship work, and make it about Him—serving those who have gathered. He is the Subject of the worship sentence, acting on us as the Objects of His love—and then we in turn respond. That response is not only “all God” moving through us. It is our gift as His beloved creation to create beauty, rhythms and tools of worship.

We have worship work to do, and if Christ is sitting at the center of our efforts, we will serve our communities well.

Question: Have you heard the title phrase before, or used it yourself? How has that shaped you and others as worshippers?  

behold i will do a new thing

BEHOLD I WILL DO A NEW THING: Isaiah 43:18-19

OUTLINE

1.NEW PERSONALITY
2.NEW PIETY
3.NEW PRINCIPLES
4.NEW PURSUITS
5.NEW PROVISION
6.NEW POPULARITY
7.NEW POWER

THE MESSAGE

BEHOLD I WILL DO A NEW THING

1.NEW PERSONALITY
I Samuel 10:6 Genesis 32:28 Romans 12:2
The Lord wants to give us a new personality to enable to be all that He wants us to be. Samuel told Saul that he would be changed into a another man when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him.Jacob the deceiver was changed into Israel a prince with God and man.God wants us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.Often we want God to change others and to change circumstances.But God wants to change us first and then we will experience a corresponding change in others and in our circumstances.A little child may find it difficult to lift a big chair .But the same child when it grows and becomes an adult will find it easy to lift the same chair because it has now grown bigger and stronger than the chair.Similarly when God transforms us and strengthens us we become bigger than our problems and can tackle it easily.

2.NEW PIETY
Ezekiel 36:26-27
The Lord wants to lift us to a new level of piety .He wants to remove the stony heart from us and give us a new heart and put a new spirit within us.The stony heart prevents the seed of the word of God from producing fruit in our life. The new heart and new spirit helps us to obey the commandments of God and do His will.

3.NEW PRINCIPLES
Acts 11:9 Hebrews 7:12-14 Matthew 15:6
The Lord wants to give us new principles to follow in line with the new things He wants to do. Apostle Peter was told not to consider things unclean when God has cleansed them.Peter had to change his principles in obedience to the ways of God.This helped the spread of the Gospel to the Gentiles.Jesus belonged to the tribe of Judah and according to the Law of Moses he could not be a priest which was reserved for the tribe of Levi.But Jesus became a priest according to the will of God which superseded the laws of Moses.Jesus warned us that we can make the word of God of none effect by our tradition.When God does a new thing He may supersede our traditions and practices and principles and we should be prepared to sacrifice our cherished principles if they contradict what God wants to do.

4.NEW PURSUITS
Colossians 3:2 Luke 5:10
The Lord wants to give us new pursuits.He wants us to seek and pursue the heavenly blessings and eternal rewards.Often we seek only the things of this world and the desires and the longings of our heart are only after earthly blessings.God wants to put new longings and pursuits in our hearts.The disciples tried all night to catch fish and caught nothing.But Jesus told them to cast their net again and immediately they caught a multitude of fishes.The disciples were amazed at this miracle and probably started dreaming about a very prosperous career in fishing with the blessings of Jesus.But Jesus changed their pursuits and told them that they would now start catching men.God wants to do a new thing in our lives and give us new pursuits in our lives.

5.NEW PROVISION
Romans 8:32 Matthew 21:22

BEHOLD I WILL DO A NEW THING : Isaiah 43:18-19

Summary: This is a prophetic sermon to believers all over the world to get ready for the new thing that God wants to do in their lives.

Scripture: Isaiah 43:18-43:19 Psalms 2:5 (add scripture)

Tags: God's Will, Doing God's Will (add tag)

Denomination: Pentecostal

Audience: Believer adults

Pages

The Lord wants us to experience new provisions in our life. He wants us to have a strong unwavering faith that we will receive what we petition Him. He wants us to realize that if God would love us so much that He would sacrifice His Son for us surely He would provide everything else that we need. God wants us to reach a new level of faith that would cause us to receive His provisions .

6.NEW POPULARITY
Isaiah 62:2-4
The Lord wants to give us a new popularity and a new reputation. Especially in the lives of those who have faced much shame and ridicule and humiliation God wants to bring new blessings and honour in their lives. He will change their reputation from being known as forsaken and desolate people. Instead they will be called people whom God has blessed. They will be called by a new name which reflects their new elevation.

7.NEW POWER
Matthew 9:17 Acts 2:17-18
The Lord wants to fill us with new power. He wants His children to live a life of divine power. He wants to fill us with new wine .But we must become a new wineskin before God would pour out His new wine into our lives. He will not pour out His new wine if we remain an old wineskin because it would destroy our life. Let us become new wineskins and receive the new wine that God wants to pour out in our lives.