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Everyone craves happiness and feeling good about themselves. Unfortunately, psychologists spend very little time finding out how people can feel upbeat. In a 20-year review of psychological research articles, about 20,000 delved into depression and 27,000 studied anxiety. Only 1,664 focused on happiness. So, the public could not rely on psychologists to help them easily boost their happiness. My article shows you how to feel happy and confident.

You cannot psych yourself into feeling self-confident. Instead, to feel self-confident, you must do things that give you good factual reasons to feel upbeat and enthused about yourself. You can choose to feel self-confident. You also can choose to feel unconfident. It's your decision.

To uncover what women actually do to boost their self-confidence, my co-author and I surveyed about 500 women. Our findings are reported in our book, CHANGE YOUR UNDERWEAR -- CHANGE YOUR LIFE: Quick & Easy Ways To Make Your Life Fun, Exciting & Vibrant.

Survey respondents were asked, "List 2 things you do that make you feel good about you." We categorized the responses into five key areas of life, as shown below:

Area of Life & Typical Responses

Self
Being nice to others
Taking full responsibility for my life
Organizing my space

Physical
Exercising
Looking super & put together
Eating healthy

Work
Doing my job superbly
Taking seminar about my work
Getting a promotion

Social
Making a fuss over my friends
Having lots of friends
Spending delightful time with friends

Family
Doing unexpected favor for family member
Giving love to my significant others

Everyone craves to feel self-confident. But, it often seems so hard to figure out how. Here are some painless ways to boost your confidence and self-esteem:

TIP #1: Disconnect from toxic people

To become happier and more confident -- avoid emotional vampires. Unhappy people allow 'emotional vampires' to suck their positive feelings right out of their skulls. Emotional vampires include people who put you down, criticize or mock you, or sabotage your dreams and aspirations. Never let snipers or negative people shoot holes in your boat. These types of people drain the life out of you.

TIP #2: Connect with positive people

Disconnect from your TV set and start connecting with people. Make a fuss over friends, family and other people who buoy you up.

TIP #3: Smile a lot

Psychological research proved that a person emotionally feels the emotion he or she is acting at the moment. So, if you act cheerful, you feel cheerful. And smiling is the fastest way to act happy and confident. Also, your smile is contagious. It makes people want to catch you.

TIP #4: P.D.A.

Glorify people with public displays of appreciation. Shower people you like with thank-you notes, hugs, smiles, and calls to thank them. When you help them feel magnificent, they have a vested interest in helping you feel super.

TIP #5: Care for people or objects that make you feel good

My survey of over 500 women reported in the Change Your Underwear -- Change Your Life book showed a chief way to boost self-confidence is to care for another person, pets, plants, and even dolls. What goes around, comes around, and when you care for others you, in effect, care for yourself at the same time.

Overall, I urge people to take personal responsibility for their self-confidence. I recommend each person take at least one action each day that makes him or her feel proud.

The best way to feel self-confident is to do things that give you good reasons to feel confident. Here are some more suggestions:

TIP #1: Bask in a list of your achievements

To counteract your negative thinking, draw up a list of your achievements. When you read your list, you are bound to feel excited and, importantly, wonder how you doubted yourself in the first place.

TIP #2: Fill your head with positive, uplifting information

Read good news, inspiring articles and books, and stories about people who overcome obstacles or are successful. Spend your time learning how people succeed. You can use this wisdom to improve your odds of succeeding.

TIP #3: Look for solutions more than for problems

Get into the habit of searching for opportunities rather than for possible drawbacks. Remember, the favorite social gathering of complainers is a `whine-&-cheese' party.

TIP #4: Substitute your worry with action

Admit it most of what you worry about never happens. And the finest method to zap your worry is to instantly do something to solve the problem.

TIP #5: Imagine yourself as a success

A simple technique is to rehearse in your mind that you already are successful in what you plan to do. Imagine yourself doing it wonderfully. You will feel delighted to see how you can turn your mental practice into reality.

Successful people use all these tips all the time. Now, everyone can use these same tips to feel fabulous.

TIP #6: Change your underwear -- change your life

Your choice of underwear says a lot about your personality, according to my research. It also affects your mood. So if you feel like you are in a bad mood just look at the list below and put a new pair of underpants that best fit the mood you would like to create. Our findings are reported in our book, CHANGE YOUR UNDERWEAR -- CHANGE YOUR LIFE: Quick & Easy Ways To Make Your Life Fun, Exciting & Vibrant.

What This Underwear Item Reveal About Your Mood & Personality

1. Color of your underpants = Reveals your mood

A. Pink = You're romantic, sweet, and girlish.

B. Red = You're daring, energetic, and exciting.

C. Purple = You're creative, vibrant and unique.

D. Blue = You're cool, peaceful and sensitive.

E. Yellow = You're lively, original and imaginative.

F. Green = You're stable, kind and very nurturing.

2. White cotton panties with regular cut
Pure, hiding womanly curves& graces

3. High-cut white cotton bikini
Pure, yet a tantalizing tease

4. Lacy bra & panties
Feminine, delicate sexiness

5. Thong or g-string
POM-POM girl (Piece-Of-Meat)

In summary, I discovered that women can change their moods by changing their undergarments. So, you really can change your underwear, change your life.

Remember: The best way to feel self-confident is to do things that give you good reasons or ways to feel confident.

This article gives you simple ways to easily boost your mood, confidence and self-esteem.

Copyright 2005 Maryann Troiani, Psy.D.