I believe that jitters are a manifestation of passion, and I personally use that energy I generate to keep moving forward. A human spirit may or may not be born with some confidence. However, it is still a trait that you must nurture by taking daily steps to keep moving forward.

You must confront your own fears, whatever they may be.

Personal fortitude and self-esteem are characteristics you must choose to sharpen. Rather than allowing the fear of the unknown to lessen your personal power, draw on your strengths and trust your instincts. You will then start to propel your life to amazing heights.

1. Acknowledge self-doubt each and every time it appears. What if's" shake your self-belief. Rather than being in the comfortable pattern of beating yourself up for feeling doubtful, acknowledge it and let it pass. The intention is not to rid yourself of negative feelings and thoughts, rather the intention is to empower yourself to take action when you feel inadequate in any way.
2. Break out of your comfort zone and do something completely new. Decision making and follow-through expand your self-confidence. By doing something new on a regular basis, you lessen your fears and learn that you are able to manage and recover from any consequence or situation.
3. Educate yourself with real-world experiences.           Familiarity builds confidence and limits feelings of self-doubt. Spend time with and talk to people who are successful in your areas of interest.  Ask them to share with you their experiences and stories of what they had to overcome and what roadblocks got in their way. This face to face connection is important. Knowledge is power. Know that there will always be people who disagree with your ideas. Know that people who are themselves struggling and feeling insecure will want to cut you down with their sword of words. Stay true to your heart as you are the only one who knows what really matters to you. Connect with those that share your passion.
4. When you get stuck, develop a question of the day. You can overcome barriers in your life by gathering the right information. When you become stuck, know that someone else has been in the exact same position as you before. Form your obstacle into a question and ask those you trust what is needed for you to overcome this situation. Even when a person may not know the answer, they may have some insight that leads to an answer. Keep asking the same question over and over again even after you get one answer. There is usually more than one way to create a workable solution and this will add to your life knowledge base for the future.
   

Get out of your own way. Be comfortable with who you are and know that you are a very capable and confident person and do not need to live your life in fear. When you respect yourself, you will be amazed at the opportunities the world presents to you.

For the first half hour of the meeting with the parents, it was hardly surprising to see Dad fiddling with his iPhone.

At an hour, it seemed a bit much.  After an hour and a half, his wife wondered what he could possibly be doing with his phone for so long when we were sitting there discussing addiction treatment and intervention for their 16 year old daughter. The wife peeked over his shoulder.

"He is playing a game," she said.  "He did ask questions though."

As Web-enabled smart phones have become standard on the belts and in the totes of almost every parent I meet, these parents are increasingly caving into temptation to check e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, even the news while we are discussing their child who is in crisis.  I want to start a spirited debate about priority here.  The use of a BlackBerry or iPhone in a meeting about your child who is in crisis is tacky in my opinion.

What one parent said to me was that to ignore a real-time text message in a need-it-yesterday business was to invite a loss of business for him, and that business was paying for his son's treatment program. I would like to ban BlackBerry's at meetings with parents, especially when they spend more time reading what is on their BlackBerry than they do discussing their child's needs.

I know that the phone has become routine in the business world - and I am wondering how many parents know their child shares with me how much it grates them that the phone takes priority over them. A third if not more of the kids I ask about this situation say their parents are checking their emails and not making eye contact with them when they are asking Dad or Mom a question.

Nearly 20% of the kids said they had then been accused of having poor phone manners by their parents.

This is now spanning generations.

It is routine in a business meeting to see heads bowed silently around a conference table - and they are not praying - while others are speaking they are checking their BlackBerry.  Their use is epidemic. I now ban them from parent workshops as I had an experience where the parents were sending messages to each other during the seminar.

Blackberry's have become like cartoon thought bubbles. Some of the parents in the workshop admitted that they occasionally sent mocking commentary to distract themselves from their own emotions that were evolving, but most insisted they were checking their BlackBerry's for legitimate reasons: responding to work deadline requests, searching the Web on the topic of discussion, and some said they were simply taking notes.

Still, their kids were annoyed.  One teen told me that his Mom checked her BlackBerry during his middle school graduation and was laughing at a joke someone sent her and missed taking his graduation picture. I am going to encourage parents who come to see me to turn off their devices. It is pretty insulting to their kids to see their parents not even be able to discuss which wilderness program they may be attending because they are busy checking their e-mails instead. I do not believe that people have opened their eyes to how offensive this can be in certain situations.

Beyond practical considerations, there is also the issue of image.

In many circles, where connections are power, making a show of reaching out to those connections even as someone is speaking to them seems to have become a kind of boast. It is customary now for parents to lay their BlackBerry or iPhone on the dinner table, to have it plugged into their ear as they walk around the house or drive in the car with their kids, or even at their kids birthday parties and sports games. It is like the gunfighter who used to lay his revolver on the card table or on top of the bar in a saloon.

It is a not so-subtle way of signaling "I am busy.  I am important.  I am more important than you. And if you or what you are doing or saying does not hold my interest, I have 10 other things I can do instead."

Dore E Frances, M.A. can be reached at (541) 312-4422 or at dore@dorefrances.com.

A client was 15 minutes late showing up for our appointment this morning. Facebook!

She blamed Facebook!

Is this social-networking phenomenon "addictive?"

Can you survive without it? Are you one of the 175 million people who are on Facebook? For the last year this parent has been passionately against her son being on the Internet, as she feels he is addicted. She has been concerned about his fake friendships and virtual connections rather than genuine ones. Now, who is the fanatic and where did her son learn about the Internet and how is it that he became addicted? This mom says that Facebook is the ideal procrastination tool for her. She finds creative excuses for not being with her son when he is aggravating and not being with her husband when she wants her own "me" time. On the average she spends 1 hour to 2 hours on Facebook daily. What does she do?

She says she updates her status, gushes over photos, discovered her neighbor had a bad cold, and a co-worker has a crush on Brad Pitt. She now knows 25 things about someone's brother she does not even know and has debated over which way the toilet paper needs to be placed on the roll.

She also knows who is tired and who is energized. She knows who loves the beach and who loves burgers.

She knows who is going to bed and when, and who is staying up working late. To an outsider, this probably sounds like 60 minutes of nothing. Yes, sometimes it works. A while back I had a neighbor that was sick and was on Facebook and was worried she would be sick for her wedding. I was able to take something to her that helped because I saw it on Facebook. And so yes, it can be beneficial. So, is Facebook a good way to stay in touch or is it a way to avoid "real connections" and "actual communication", and is that what we are teaching our kids, and if so, why then are parents so angry at their kids for avoiding them and not talking to them, as they would rather be on the Internet? The costs of devaluing real connections, real communication, real friendships and the reduction of face-to-face interaction and replacing those with superficial relationships is hurting our kids and our families.

Yes, Facebook is fantastic for staying in touch with far-flung friends and family and business associates. Moreover, it can give us day-to-day surprisingly touching snapshots of our loved ones day to day lives.

The site has greatly strengthened bonds in my real world.

However, when it comes to choosing between cultivating relationships on Facebook versus in real life, of course, it is no contest. A computer cannot offer me a cup of coffee, laugh out loud at my jokes, or give me a hug.

I know my client feels bad about arriving late for her appointment today, and she vowed not to let Facebook take precedence over her home life, her kids or her husband!