Confidence and Self Esteem

Confidence Playing Football – Hypnotherapy Ely and Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Mar 9, 2025 | Confidence and Self Esteem, Sports Improvement

Confidence Playing Football – Hypnotherapy Ely and Newmarket

Has your confidence playing football taken a dip? Or maybe you know you have more to give on the pitch but your confidence when playing football isn’t where you want it to be.

Anyone who plays football knows that where your head is at before and during a game will affect how you play. It could be day to day anxiety and stress that you carry with you onto the pitch. Maybe your general confidence and self-esteem levels aren’t as high as you would like them to be and this plays out in your game. And for many players, their own tendency to worry about being judged negatively or to be overly harsh and self-critical towards themselves, can impact on performance.

I’ve worked with players who make one mistake on the pitch and then their thoughts are stuck on that moment even when the game has moved on. Something shouted at you from someone on the side of the pitch can get in your head and you start playing with doubt and nerves. You miss a tackle, get booked, mess up a shot a goal, make an error and you concede or any other number of perceived or actual mistakes and mishaps that can be part of a game.

You start to dwell upon your performance and what you think you did, or didn’t, do well in the game. Instead of playing naturally you overthink and force things. You start to feel more nervous and anxious in the warm up and even in training. You start to think that you aren’t good enough. Your head can drop and you spend large parts of the game more focused in your own imagination and negative self-talk rather than responding to what is going on around you. Your performance suffers and you feel even worse.

When your confidence levels while playing football are good, everything just flows. You respond instinctively, your concentration levels are good, things just click and you are in the zone where you play at your best. Your thoughts, feelings, ability and performance all come together for you in these moments. Yet when your confidence levels dip, everything becomes harder. You don’t play to your best, things just seem a bit off for you and you can even start to lose the joy for the game that you once had. That’s where football confidence hypnotherapy can step in so that you can step up.

Hypnosis Downloads Review Video

by Dan Regan | Mar 28, 2024 | Confidence and Self Esteem, Hypnotherapy Hypnosis and NLP

Hypnosis Downloads Review Video

Earlier in the year I headed back into the recording to add to the ever expanding collection of hypnosis downloads that I have available to help to support you with aspects of mental health and positive psychology. Alongside my ever popular free hypnosis download for relaxation, there are hypnosis audios to help you with overcoming anxiety, boosting confidence and self-esteem and a load more besides (so do head over to my shop and take a look!).

My hypnosis audios are a part of how I help my clients to successfully tackle their issues and achieve their goals. I also gets lots of positive feedback from those who have purchased them to use as a powerful stand alone method for priming their minds to move forward positively. I spend many hours behind the scenes crafting the audios and so it’s always brilliant to hear how well received they are and how much they benefit those who regularly use them.

If you want to know more about how they have helped others then you can find my hypnosis download reviews in the What People Say section of this website or under individual products over in my shop. A massive thank you to everyone who has left feedback, it is greatly appreciated and means a lot.

One of my recent hypnosis downloads was about taming your inner critic. Changing what you habitually say to yourself inside your own head, as well as how you say it to yourself, is one of the most powerful ways to start feeling better in yourself. Instead of negatively, harshness, criticism, self doubt and rumination, your inner dialogue can become more encouraging, supportive and understanding. This means you feel more and more capable, resilient and comfortable in your own skin. This hypnosis dialogue is designed to help you to move forward along that path from putting yourself down to boosting yourself up.

And I’m very grateful to one of hypnosis download listeners for recording a video review about how the audio has helped her (link to the video below).

Tame Your Inner Critic Hypnosis Download Now Available

by Dan Regan | Mar 1, 2024 | Confidence and Self Esteem

Tame Your Inner Critic Hypnosis Download Now Available

Do you have a habit of criticising yourself and putting yourself down? A lot of people struggle with their own inner self-talk and thinking, let alone with having to deal with all of the other challenges that can come their way in life.

Your inner critic is that voice in your head and in your self-talk where you habitually put yourself down, criticise yourself and exacerbate your perceived failings. It leads to feeling low, bad and lacking confidence in yourself. If that inner critical thinking has been there for a long time, you may not even notice you are doing it. You get lost in a cycle of negativity, doubt and rumination over what you do, how you do it and who you consider yourself to be.

It can be incredibly frustrating to seemingly be your own worst enemy and to undermine and sabotage how you feel and what you do. You may tell yourself that you aren’t good enough or worthy, that you will fail and that you don’t deserve to be happy. You overlook your positive qualities (the ones others may mention) and instead amplify and focus upon your own perceived failings. It becomes a cycle of feeling bad and limiting yourself.

Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. You can start to become more encouraging, supportive and kind to yourself. This will mean feeling better and more motivated to take action on your goals and to trust in your ability to successfully handle any challenges. You can accept yourself and recognise that no-one is perfect and that there is always potential for learning and growth.

Tame Your Inner Critic – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Dec 27, 2023 | Confidence and Self Esteem

Tame Your Inner Critic – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

Every waking moment you have a constant stream of thoughts running through your mind. You have ideas, you make decisions, evaluate things, replay things, imagine things and talk to yourself in an ongoing stream of thought as you go about your day. Much of the time you may not even notice this is particularly happening. Sometimes these thoughts are encouraging, positive and helpful and there may be moments where they are random or unfocused and your thoughts just seem to flow in all sorts of directions.

And, of course, there are those thoughts that cause negativity, low mood and that limit you and hold you back in a variety of ways. Sometimes the things you might say to yourself in your head are not that kind. You can berate yourself, criticise yourself and put yourself down about something you have or haven’t said or done or a mistake you think you’ve made. Long after everyone else has moved on and forgotten about it, you can still find yourself criticising yourself over and over inside your own head.

You may even judge and be harsh about yourself as a person, putting down who you are, what you do and what you are capable of achieving. You wouldn’t let a stranger talk to someone you loved in the same way yet there you are putting yourself down all the time. And it has real life consequences in how you feel and what you do.

This inner critic is that part of you that grabs hold when you put yourself down and criticise yourself. You tell yourself you’re a failure, that you always mess up, that you’re a loser and that you aren’t good enough. And perhaps the worst bit is that this inner voice of yours follow you around all day, reminding you of every little mistake you’ve ever made.

Yet because this all occurs inside your own head it is very possible to tame your inner critic and to learn how to encourage and support yourself in ways that all you to move forward confidently and capably.

Dress To Impress! How Your Clothes Influence Thoughts and Feelings

by Dan Regan | Oct 13, 2023 | Confidence and Self Esteem

Dress To Impress! How Your Clothes Influence Thoughts and Feelings – Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘dress to impress’ where it is suggested that you dress impressively to look good to others and to potentially influence their reaction towards you. Yet could it be that the clothes you wear have more influence over your own thoughts and feelings?

Could it be that your clothes influence thoughts and feelings so that you feel confident and feel good in yourself in ways that certainly could influence how you are perceived by others, as well as boosting your own self-esteem and positive self image.

Even as I write this I’m reminded of power dressing in the 1980s, a fashion style that suggested wearing certain clothes as a form of establishing authority in professional environments. Whilst designer labels were seen as a thing by both sexes at the time, power dressing was the fashion style that was associated with women standing up in environments traditionally dominated by men. And whilst I’m no fashion expert (obviously!), certain clothes and styles of clothes have always been associated with certain values, views and social groups and to either fit in or to stand out from others.

And recently I was reminded of the use of clothes to influence how you feel by a client who told me that wearing certain accessories and clothing styles helped her to feel more confident when public speaking.

Of course, if you subjectively perceive that what you wear affects your thoughts and feelings then it most likely will and that could either be helpful and positive or negative and a hindrance. And, there is evidence to support that what we wear influences how we think, feel and act.

Comparing Yourself To Others – Confidence and Self-Esteem Hypnotherapy

by Dan Regan | Jan 26, 2023 | Confidence and Self Esteem

Comparing Yourself To Others On Social Media – Confidence and Self-Esteem Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

Do you have a tendency to negatively compare yourself to others online?

Maybe you’re feeling a bit anxious, low or down on yourself and as you scroll through your social media feeds it just seems that everyone else is having a better time of things than you are. They are all happy, smiley and seemingly having a great time doing great things with great people. In your head you just start thinking how their lives are so much better than yours and how that means you aren’t good enough or are failing in some way.

And as you mindlessly scroll on and on, perhaps pausing every so often to look at their photos, you start dwelling, being hard on yourself and you feel that you and your life are lacking and just not as good as everyone else’s. It probably all feeds into your anxiety, social anxiety, low self-esteem and low mood. You might even carry around all of the negativity with you for the rest of the day, feeling low and down, lacking in motivation and wanting to just hide from the world (while you just keep scrolling to try and distract yourself from your thoughts and feelings but continuing to feel bad).

Whatever your relationship with social media, and however much (or maybe little) you engage with it, there is no doubt that it can exacerbate any tendencies to negatively compare yourself and your life with others. You look at what they are saying and doing and compare it to how things are for you right now and to how you feel in yourself and about yourself. It’s very easy to start feeling worse as a result and yet to, paradoxically, scroll and spend even more time looking at the posts and photos from others that appear in your feed.

Is Impostor Syndrome Holding You Back? Anxiety Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Jan 3, 2023 | Confidence and Self Esteem

Is Imposter Syndrome Holding You Back? Anxiety Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

Many years ago, I can remember being in my then manager’s office just causally chatting about some work related things, when all of a sudden they turned towards me, with a look of fear upon their face, and they said ‘I hope I don’t get found out as a fraud.’ This was my first real exposure to imposter syndrome and how it can affect anyone, even those you least suspect.

This manager had always seemed competent and confident at work. Apart from the usual little grumbles that most staff have towards their boss, I’d not heard anything except positive things and respect from other people in the office. Yet on the inside, this person was struggling with that fear of being exposed as incompetent, of being shown to be a fraud and not up to the job. Underneath their outer facade of confidence, they were anxious, fearful and vulnerable like so many others.

In fact, imposter syndrome, and the lack of confidence and fear of exposure that goes with it, is surprisingly common. That inner anxiety and fear affects and limits many, many people, even those whom you may least suspect. It might even be something that holds you back and troubles you in your daily life, leading to self-doubt, catastrophising, fear, regret and anxiety. You lack confidence in yourself, worry about being found out and being exposed, and you belittle your achievements, skills and capabilities.

If you get positive feedback or compliments then you’ll struggle to just accept them and enjoy them, and if you get negative feedback you may feel angry, threatened and useless.

More and more people have come to me for help with overcoming imposter syndrome and the unhelpful thoughts and feelings that come with it because they are tired and fed up of the constant sense of inner struggle and negative mind chatter. And because it is something that is all about your own internal thoughts, feelings and beliefs, it is something that you certainly take positive action to overcome.

Moving Out Of Your Comfort Zone – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Oct 20, 2022 | Confidence and Self Esteem

Moving Out Of Your Comfort Zone – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

We’re told a lot that life begins at the edge, or outside, of our comfort zone. The message is clear, if you want to live a fulfilling life and to be happy, then you need to do more and more and newer and newer things.

And certainly there’s an element of truth in this. As humans, we are learning machines, we seek out novelty and grow accustomed to sameness. We can become stale and feel stuck in the same old routine if we aren’t stretching ourselves a bit. Getting a bit uncomfortable can make life more exciting and interesting, and it can add that good feeling that comes from giving effort and focus towards a desired goal.

Yet, despite that, I do think there can be happiness and reward even if you stay within your comfort zone. You don’t need to start jumping from planes, dropping off cliffs, speak in front of a thousand people or do any of those things that living outside your comfort zone can easily inspire in your imagination. You can stretch yourself within the realms of the areas you already enjoy. You can add variety and challenge into what you already enjoy, whether that’s exercise and sport, playing an instrument, in your workplace or whatever. You can feel comfortable in yourself and your environment as you push yourself on a bit.

And whilst usually I feel pretty comfortable in myself within my own routine, especially when it comes to my high intensity training and running, there’s still room for getting comfortable with feeling uncomfortable and room to try new things, experiment, set challenging goals and then put the work in towards them. Yet more recently, an opportunity has come up that has really pushed me outside of my own comfort zone in my training, yet which is bringing rich rewards beyond the ever oscillating mix of nervousness, fear, confidence and excitement.

Could Talking To Strangers Make You Happier? Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Oct 13, 2022 | Confidence and Self Esteem

Could Talking To Strangers Make You Happier? Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

If you want to feel happier, could proactively starting up conversations with strangers help you to boost good feelings?

Naturally, if you want to get better at connecting with others, then it makes sense to start engaging more in conversation and to go about deliberately seeking opportunities to chat. The more you do it, the more comfortable it becomes and the more relaxed in yourself you will be.

For others, their confidence and self-esteem can get in the way of doing this. Yet, it may that by getting over any general reluctance to talk to strangers, and by ditching any worry about what they think or of failing and looking stupid, may help contribute to your overall levels of happiness and enjoyment of life.

Routinely, we often ignore strangers who are close by and around us. We put our heads down, stare at a book or a screen, and stay rooted in our own space and comfort zone. Even when we may like the idea of engaging and chatting, we often hold back and the moment passes. And, of course, sometimes solitude and space can be nice. It can be enjoyable to have some time to not have to think or engage or talk. Yet research suggests that interacting and connecting with others can be a positive experience (for you and for them), even if we mistakenly expect that not socially engaging will be the more likely to make us feel better.

So what does the research say, and what might be getting in the way of us all being more social with strangers and taking these regular opportunities for boosting our own well-being and happiness?

Impostor Syndrome – Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Jun 23, 2022 | Confidence and Self Esteem

Impostor Syndrome – Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

Recently I’ve been working with a number of people who, as part of their self-doubt, anxiety and stress, are struggling with imposter syndrome.

Impostor syndrome leads to you feeling like a bit of a fraud in what you are doing at work or another aspect of life, like at some point you expect to get found out and that others will finally discover that you aren’t up to the job and that you’ve somehow just been getting away with things. You doubt your own skills, capabilities, accomplishments and achievements and you live with a fear of being found out.

Now, this worry, self-doubt and fear will continue even where you can point to a long list of achievements. You may put your successes down to luck or chance, or that others didn’t notice the flaws in what you did (which can contribute to elements of perfectionism). When you receive positive feedback you probably don’t internalise it and feel good, but rather think it’s well-meaning but false.

And, of course, the more you achieve and the greater your responsibilities, the more there is to lose and the greater your fear of failure and of being uncovered for the fraud you think you really are.

No matter what positive feedback comes your way, how well others may say you do or how objectively visible your accomplishements are, that perception that you aren’t as good as they think lingers on. It leads to self-criticism, putting pressure on yourself, fear of failure, perfectionism, anxiety, fear and doubt.

By it’s very definition it’s a false perception of your own skills and capabilities. No matter how much praise you receive or how well things go, it doesn’t stop that feeling of fear of failure and the fear of exposure as a fraud.

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