Ali Luke, Author at Possibility Change

10 Secrets for Instant Self-Confidence

There are lots of ways to improve your self-confidence over the long-term – but sometimes you need an instant boost. You can’t walk into an important work meeting, (or a class at college or a room full of strangers at a party) whilst frantically re-reading a self-help manual, or making a last-minute phone call to your life-coach. So here are ten secrets to boosting your self-confidence in just a few seconds…

1. Smile

The one-second tip for when you’re feeling nervous and unconfident is simply to smile! You don’t just smile because you are happy and confident – you can smile to make yourself feel better. The act of smiling is so strongly associated with positive feelings that it’s almost impossible to feel bad while smiling.

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The Winding Path: How I Started a Lifetime of Personal Growth

By Ali Luke / 19 Comments

Update from Last Month: I told you last month (when writing about “How to Grow Outside Your Comfort Zone”) that I was going to send out five magazine pitches every week. I’m happy to say I’ve done it, though I’m going to take some time now to try to build up a portfolio of printed clips from student press, as the response rate to my queries wasn’t very high.

I’ve also made a real effort to be less shy in my first couple of weeks at Goldsmiths; I’m going to a graduate event this afternoon which I’m a little nervous about, but I’m already starting to feel more confident striking up conversations with strangers!

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How to Grow Outside Your Comfort Zone

By Ali Luke / 23 Comments

Growth doesn’t tend to happen when we’re feeling comfortable. In order to really change, we need to grow outside our comfort zone.

But when we’ve found something which is easy and which works, we want to carry on doing more of the same … it’s difficult to take a step into the unknown, or the uncomfortable. We convince ourselves we’re making progress (perhaps working slowly up the ladder at work, passing the next test in school, writing another blog article) – but we secretly know we’re not growing.

I’m going to think about three questions below:

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Getting Back on the Right Life Path

By Ali Luke / 46 Comments

Do you sometimes wonder if you’re on the wrong path through life – but can’t see any way to rework your footsteps and join a different one?

After I graduated from University, I wrote in my journal:

“It is exciting to have my whole life ahead of me and know that I could do pretty much anything I put my mind to. It’s daunting but exhilarating to stand at the summit of 16 years’ full-time education and gaze out at the land around me. I could go anywhere from here.”

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Keeping a Journal Can Change Your Life

By Ali Luke / 50 Comments

Have you ever started keeping a journal – perhaps starting on a particular milestone like your birthday, or January 1st – only to give up after a few days or weeks? Like many projects which we’re initially enthusiastic about, writing daily or even weekly in a journal can all too quickly become a chore. After all, what difference can it make to write down words that no-one but you will see?

There are several ways for keeping a journal to change your life, and I’ll show you how to achieve each in just ten minutes a day. Still think it’s not worth it?

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7 Benefits of Losing Weight

By Ali Luke / 13 Comments

Are you overweight? If your life never quite satisfies you – if you don’t feel you’re as confident, productive, motivated or enthused as you could be, try kick-starting the changes you want to make by beginning with your body.

Seven years ago, I was shy, chubby, lacking in confidence, and struggling to think beyond my immediate future: going to Cambridge University. I’d been fatter than my classmates since the age of nine or ten. Finally losing that extra thirty or so pounds I’d been carrying around has had a tremendous impact on my life over the past seven years.

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