Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Takes a little work - but well worth it, 15 Jul 2008
I'm not someone who is usually a fan of self-help books. In fact I've always thought that many of those experts on telly and in most books are frauds and quacks (I would name some of those people and their books, but I think that amazon would probably strike the review!)
But this book is refreshing and really useful because:
1) it works.
2) it doesn't promise instant results - the author is quite clear in the intro (and then he repeats it a couple of times) that you have to put the work in to get results.
3) it helped me to realise that a lot of my lack of confidence is caused by myself. The book talks about the inner voice that we use to speak to ourselves. And I now realise that I do feed myself a whole lot of negative messages when I worry. So by consciously monitoring what I'm saying to myself, I can manage my nerves and feel less panicky about stuff.
4) my confidence really has grown, but i think that the best bit is that I can see myself using the techniques to tackle other situations too.
My challenge has always been about speaking in front of other people. So, literally, I used to freeze and blush and my heart would hammer in my chest when I had to update the rest of the team on the status of a project. Litearlly, as each person in the team spoke and it was coming round to my turn to speak, my heart would thud louder and I'd worry more and work myself into a tizzy. I've always felt a bit silly about it as I go red and I get like a red rash across my neck and face and then I realise that other people have noticed it so it gets worse - you can imagine me going bright red and me seeing that their eyes are flicking to my neck and chest so I get worse and worse. Anyhow, I think I've got it under control now - or at least I feel a lot less frightened about having to speak up now.
I initially flicked through the book in a store (and then bought it off here, of course!) and worked through the book. Some of the techniques are quite difficult and I didn't relate to one or two of them - I guess that's always going to be the way, isn't it? But some of the book's techniques were spot on. One of them called CATS (Capacity-affirming thoughts) took me about 5 minutes to work through and I seriously rely on them all the time now. When I have to speak in front of the team, it takes me just a few seconds to use them to give me a bit of a pick-me-up.
I've not used all of the techniques yet. There's about a dozen different techniques and I've tried about half of them. On balance, I'd say that I now use one of them religiously, and another 2 of them regularly. Another 1 I use occasionally, and the other 2 were just too much hard work so even though I'm sure they're fantastic techniques, I haven't got round to applying them yet.
Overall, a pretty good book. For the price of two grande frappucinos, I do feel a lot better about myself.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
To infinity and beyond!, 2 Aug 2008
This book is the book of the month at WH Smith so it must be alright, right? Well, yeah, actually! Having spent the weekend working through some of the exercises, I can already say that I feel like I have a stronger sense of clarity about my life and confidence in my ability to achieve more.
When I pick up a book, I always look out for a variety of practical exercises and examples rather than one big block of text, and this book delivers on that front. I've been flicking through the book picking out some of the 'confidence booster' exercises in the book and applying them. I'm sure that's probably cheating as you're probably supposed to do the exercises in order from A through to Z. But the exercises are still working for me.
The author does stress a few times that you have to actually do the exercises rather than just read about them. So don't buy this book if you expect that one quick read will change your life forever. I like this book because it isn't a quick fix. The process of having to interact with the book and work through the exercises is actually what is helping me.
The book jacket says: 'Confidence combines the best methods from cognitive behavioral therapy, sports psychogloy, neuro-linguistic programming, positive psychology and much more'. I'm not sure what all of that means, but Confidence by Rob Yeung will definately make you think and give you a greater sense of confidence.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Read, 10 Sep 2008
I bought this book a few weeks ago and its already helped me to make some changes, specifically altering my mindset and dealing effectively with set backs. That's not to say its been a quick overnight fix, in fact its taken time and commitment and the author reiterates this himself throughout the book! I like his style - its very direct and to the point but still motivational to encourage you to start taking action in improving your confidence.
There's a good level of theory on NLP and positive physcology without being too technical and then at the end of each chapter it has really effective exercises to get you started.
I'm about halfway through the book now and can honestly say its definitely been worth the time and money I've invested so far...
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