Blog: Friday the 13th
Today being Friday the 13th we will hear a lot of superstitious sayings and beliefs today. Some created out of fun and others created to hold different groups and people back.
One of the oldest beliefs taught to people is what the world has convinced young women about themselves. Even as we think about the advances and opportunities women have made, forces still exist to hold them back that their belief about themselves and where they fit in is still very much impacted.
A generation of adolescent girls will fail to fulfill their professional potential because they are suffering from low self-esteem.
One in four females aged between 11 and 17 are weighed down by pressure to conform to an ‘ideal notion’ of how they should look, a survey suggests.
The study concludes that the low self-esteem will have a disastrous effect on their career prospects.
The widespread lack of physical confidence has led to girls spending an average of 42 minutes a day working on their appearance, choosing outfits and applying make-up – almost as much time as they spend doing homework.
More than half of the girls studied said they would be happier if they were more physically attractive.
The results have been interpreted to suggest that the lack of confidence among young women will mean thousands fail to achieve their professional potential.
Five percent of girls say they hate the way they look, and a further 20 percent say that ‘there is a lot I would change’. Negative comments about their appearance from other girls were one of the biggest factors making girls feel less confident, the survey found.
And low self-esteem damages their prospects, with only one in three confident that she will have a successful career.
I work with teens individually and in workshops to build self-esteem and self-confidence. I do this by helping them: Identify dreams and set and achieve goals. Through this process, everyone, especially young people develop a positive self-image, learns positive self-talk, and create healthy and effective lifelong habits.
I speak to parents and kids almost daily and they share their stories of how they weren’t as successful at something they did as they thought they were going to be and when I listen to the parent they want more practice at that task. But when I hear the kid I hear a teen who lacked self-confidence.
Just the other day I had a parent ask me what’s the solution to their daughter underperforming at a tryout that she was prepared for, so I offered him this four-hour session to improve her self-belief.
- I will facilitate a Dream Session to expand her mind to all things are possible.
- Teach her my successful 9-step goal setting process so she can set Goals from the dream list.
- Teach her how to use the 9-step goal setting process to accomplish the goal using an action plan.
- Help her define an affirmation and then create a list along with a vision board, to keep her confident and on track to reaching her goal.