So it’s the end of the naughties and we’ll all have to grow up and stop being so damn naughty.  I’m off to be as naughty as I can in the time that’s left, but here’s what I consider to be the 12 very best posts from this blog in 2009 (plus one for luck).

If being more confident is something you want to see happen for yourself in 2010, take a look at these babies.

1. Finding Your Confidence after Redundancy
Redundancies were everywhere in 2009, and they can shake you to your core if you’re one of the many unlucky ones. This post shows you how to re-discover your self-confidence after redundancy and get back on top.

2. How to Deal with People Who Put You Down
Most people find me online with the phrase “deal with people who put you down”, for the simple reason that put downs from someone you care about really hurt and can destroy your confidence – this post talks about how to respond and change things for the better.

3. Is There a Hero Inside You?
I’m a superhero nut as regular readers will know, and in this post I tell you what Tim Robbins, Obama and Spider-man have in common and what it means for YOU.

4. Find Your Voice or Die a Slow Death
You build confidence by finding your voice – your real voice. Do that and your life will feel simpler, easier and more fun.

5. Confidence is Sexy – Fact
We all know that confident people are naturally sexier than people who lack confidence.  Why?  Find out here.

6. Life Purpose is Nothing Without Confidence
Coaches always go on about finding your “life purpose”, but when you’re truly confident finding your “life purpose” won’t matter. Find out why confidence has to come first…

7. Dating Without Confidence Will Never Work
I’m no dating expert, but I do know that dating without trusting yourself just doesn’t work. Real confidence is allowing yourself to let go, and that’s just what dating needs.

8. Honesty Time – Things WILL Change
A hard post for me to write, and stuff I’m still dealing with. I am, can and will do better.

9. What to Do When You’ve Lost Your Confidence
Confidence goes up and down and sometimes vanishes completely. That’s okay, here’s what to do in those situations where you’ve lost your self-confidence.

10. 63 Ways to Become More Confident
As a confidence coach I have heaps of tips and strategies for building real self-confidence, here’s a whopping 63 tips for growing your confidence.

11. The Power of The Unexpected
The unexpected moments in life are the ones that take you out of your comfort zone and need real confidence to deal with. They’re also the ones you’ll treasure the most.

12. Do You Have the Confidence of Your Convictions?
I really love this one – imagine that cops are on their way to arrest you. Will you be convicted for being yourself?

13. I Want to Be a Kid When I Grow Up
Your child-like qualities are some of your best. Come and join me in being a kid.

Redundancy can shake you to your core. Learn how to re-discover your self-confidence and get back on top.

Redundancy can shake you to your core. Learn how to re-discover your self-confidence and get back on top.

It’s been a while since I gave you a round up of the articles I’ve read with gusto and that I think really nail their subject. These are some of the most useful and insightful things I’ve found on the Net recently – all with a relevance to confidence and self-esteem…

1. My Bohemian Self Versus My Corporate Self
   A great example from the always courageous Holly Hoffman of the difference between defining yourself through the roles you step into and defining yourself through what matters to you.
2. The Lesson of the Sigmoid Curve
   I love this post because I discovered something I never knew existed that I always thought should exist, and now have a name for it. Check it out.
3. Lesson Learned: It’s ok to be goofy (as long as you’re being yourself)
   I’m a big fan of silliness and make sure that I make what I do more fun by bringing in a little randomness from time to time. The folks at my current freelance gig are beginning to figure that out…!
4. 17 Ways To Stand Out From The Crowd
   Catherine Lawson gives us this great list of pointers to stand out in life and business. Love it.
5. How to Be Outstanding
   A lengthy post but one that’s well worth spending time with for the brilliant insights it offers. Go take a look.
6. Don’t Just Follow Your Passion
   I’m always banging on about how important your values are and they’re a central piece of my Truly Confidence Living method. This spot on post from Tim Brownson echoes that.

“Just what the hell is a confidence coach?”

That was one of the questions I heard many times when I was chatting with people during my trip to New York. Whether it was the girl or guy sitting on the bar stool next to me (and a big “Hey” to all the random people I met and talked with, especially the good folks from Calgary), or someone I was introduced to through a friend, when I said to them “I’m a confidence coach” they’d look at me with a smirk/frown and ask me 2 questions –

1. What the hell that means, and
2. How the hell it worked.

I thought I was always pretty clear, but considering the questions seemed to be fairly consistent, I thought I’d put my answers into an article for everyone right here.

What the hell do I do as a confidence coach?

I make people more confident. Next question.

Just kidding. What I do is this. I help people to figure out who they are way down deep; the person that they know or hope they are, but have somehow lost touch with.

I help people find the real them, and trust themselves implicitly.

Confidence problems manifest in all kinds of ways. It could be that you’re at a career crossroads and don’t know which way to go, or feel lost in your current job. It could be that life isn’t turning out as you thought it would when you were in college and you don’t know what to do about it. It could be that you struggle somehow with dating and relationships, or that some social situations leave you doubting yourself. It could be that you just feel like you’re not living up to your potential or feel like you’re doing the wrong thing in the wrong place.

People come to me with all of these scenarios and more, and having worked through these areas for over 6 years I’ve found that a solid sense of who you are and what you’re about is the very best way to navigate through them. It boils down to trusting yourself to make decisions and allowing yourself to roll with the punches in a resilient way.

What I do is all about building inner confidence, real confidence, practical, long-lasting confidence.

How do I do it?

Over the last few years I started noticing that every client of mine ended up being more confident, and that the confidence they gained simplified things in their life and gave them the tools to deal with all the stuff that life throws at us. How this happened kinda puzzled me for a while, so I took a look at what was happening.

I pulled together all the elements that I saw contributing towards that greater self-confidence, added more elements and tuned the whole process to make it work as easily and simply as possible. What I ended up with is my own coaching process that takes people from where they are to a place of true inner confidence.

People call me up on the phone every couple of weeks and we dive right into things. It’s not necessarily a linear process – I’ll pull elements out of the methodology depending on what’s going on and where the individual happens to be.

After each session I’ll send out an action list for them to take away and put into practice based on what we talked about in the session – this is about seeing results so it’s important that things are put into practice and insights are leveraged in the best way. As momentum builds up we continue to gauge progress and look at where we need to focus.

As having fun is one of my key values, it’s not all heavy stuff. I love to laugh with clients, and encourage lightness and silliness in sessions as much as the more serious stuff. I’m lucky enough to call a number of ex-clients good friends of mine, simply through the relationship we developed along the way.

So that’s what I do and how it works in a nutshell, and hopefully it’s pretty clear.

Anything not clear? More questions? Feel free to fire away below.

Here’s a quick round-up of some of the most useful and insightful things I’ve found on the Net recently – all with a relevance to confidence and self-esteem…

1. You’re Not the Brand I Thought You Were, Starbucks
   An insightful post relating where Starbucks went wrong with dating and relationships. Nicely done.
2. Making It
   Sam talks a lot of sense in this post about what success really looks like, and how TV seems to be making us believe it’s something else. The key point for me is when Sam says – “Be your best – even if no one’s watching“.
3. Finding Time For Yourself In A Busy Day
   I’m a frequent visitor to Dee’s blog, and this post is an excellent example of why.
4. Your Own Big Picture: How to Know What You Should Do Next
   There’s a balance between making things happen and letting things happen, as Monica’s found, and sometimes you have to evolve even if you have no idea what you’re evolving into.
5. Why Women Attack: The Affirmation Effect
   Good for you Allison, couldn’t agree more.

Here’s a quick round-up of some of the most useful and insightful things I’ve found on the Net recently – all with a relevance to confidence and self-esteem…

1. Quote About Truth
   This is what I talk about with every client I work with, so it’s crazy how I haven’t come across this quotation before.
2. A Kick Up the Back-side
   Nice and succinct – love it.
3. Dreaming Through Obstacles
   This post from Jaye Fenderson is a great example of how damn hard life can be, and the simple stuff that makes the biggest difference.
4. The Change that Generation Y is Actually Creating
   A really inisghtful post from Monica O’Brien that hits so many nails on the head that she could build a small out-building from this post.
5. Five Secret Japanese Tricks to Make Life Better
   Silly, frivolous and surprising – this post reminds me of 2 things. Firstly that solutions are always out there and someone will always know the answer (if you’re willing to ask), and secondly, that sometimes the craziest sounding ideas are the ones that work the best (if you have the guts to go out on a limb).
6. Make a Goodwill Tour of Your Office, Increase Productivity
   Forget about any productivity benefits, this article is really about the importance of building relationships with people, even if it’s tricky or awkward to do so.
7. What Defines Success?
   A common-sense article dealing with what real success looks like. Also check out her post about Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It – couldn’t agree more…

I get a lot of blogs through on my feed, and am always finding interesting ideas, stories and little nuggets of gold. Every now and then I’ll be posting a round-up of what I think is useful. These posts all have a relevance to your confidence and self-esteem, and all have insights into what can damage how you see yourself and into what can build real confidence. That’s why I want to share them with you.

1. Getting What I Ask For
   Ami Spencer discovers that she has new powers and is getting out there and learning how to use them. A great post that demonstrates exactly what can happen when you start building your self-confidence.
2. Twenty Something Advice: Always Second Guess but Never Regret
   While I disagree with the advice to “Second guess yourself, always“, this post touches on that biggest of questions – ‘What If?’
3. Be Good at What You Do – Even If You Don’t Like It
   Holly Hoffman’s posts are always worth a read, and this one about making a choice to engage with something – even if it’s not your first choice – is a particularly good example. I learned this same lesson myself last year (a little later in life than Holly learned it!) and it’ll be the subject of a future post.
4. Does Gen Y Really Want to Change the World?
   Ryan’s a popular and well known Gen Y blogger, and this post ask committed Gen Y’ers are to changing things around them. How compatible is the easy-going, selective behaviour that’s common among Gen Y’ers with real engagement and committment? Some interesting thoughts.
5. Balancing or juggling… the very fine line
   There’s way too much talk about personal productivity and how to squeeze more time out of your day. Some of it might be useful, but a lot of it missing a key point – that it’s okay to slow down and it’s okay not to be super-productive sometimes. This post from Jen Dalitz demonstrates that perfectly.
6. How to step up and have anything but a normal career
   Rebecca’s blog is one of my favourites and I love seeing what she’s learning as she moves around her life. This post is all about having the balls to take a leap…
7. How to Avoid Burnout
   Naomi Dunford is a new feed into my reader, and a very welcome one. This article takes the subject of Jen’s post and mixes it up with the need to engage with something that matters. A worthwhile read.