/? bio" My Successful Life

I have learned that self confidence is an upward spiral. Self confidence leads to professional success, which in turn leads to increased self confidence, which leads to higher levels of success, and so on.

You might be saying, "That's great, but how do I become self confident if I'm new in my job or career and haven't had a lot of success to bolster my self confidence?" There's an old saying that applies here: "Fake it till you make it." In other words, act as if you're successful. This will help you succeed. Your success will help you build your self confidence.

How, do you "fake it, will you make it?" Begin with affirmations. If you're in a new job, tell yourself something like, "I have the skills and desire to succeed in this job," several times a day. If you repeat this to yourself often enough, you will begin to believe it. This will help you perform at the level necessary in order to actually succeed in your job. /? bio" My Successful Life

Affirmations are positive self talk. The idea behind affirmations is that when you think of the things to which you aspire, like becoming a success, and then tell yourself that you are a professional success, you will believe that you can become successful. More importantly, you will be more likely to do the work it takes to make that aspiration come true.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book that used a star to depict this model. I urged readers to think of themselves as a star and to aspire to becoming a career and life star. I like the star metaphor. Daily, I repeat the following affirmation to myself: "I am a star."

I've done a lot of working in making this affirmation a reality -- redoing my website, developing better promotional materials, speaking, writing books, and blogging.

I've also done something a little unusual. A few years ago, right after my book was published, I went to the "Name a Star" website and named a star after myself. Now I can say "I am a star" and really believe it, because a star with my name really exists.

My named star is Catalog Number TYC 868-1011-1 in the constellation Leo. It has a Visual Magnitude indicator of 11.2. Right Ascension is 11h 58m 21s. Declination is 11degrees, 43,'18."

I don't have a clue what all of these things mean, except the constellation Leo, which I chose because my birthday is August 14. But I do know one thing. Bud Bilanich is a star! /? bio" My Successful Life