Life! By Design_ 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You - Laura Morton [75]
Negative self-talk is one of the most debilitating self-inflicted acts we can do to ourselves. The good news is that it’s a habit that can be unlearned. The bad news is that most people find it easier to be self-loathing, saying things like “poor me” and “feel sorry for me,” and therefore stay that way. One thing is for certain: We are our worst critics. If you’re like many of the people I speak to every day, you’ve had countless sleepless nights wondering where your life is going. Most of the time your thoughts are negative, which seems to make matters even worse than they appeared during the day. And before you know it, you’ve created all sorts of scenarios that simply don’t exist.
Most people have a hard time giving up negative self-talk. The habit is hard to break because it requires a strong desire to make the necessary changes and then take action. The secret is more about awareness than effort. Negative thoughts are often based on preconceived ideas. Changing how you view them is the first step to seeing these same circumstances as positive experiences. Once you learn to reject self-limiting beliefs, they lose their power over you. When you change your self-talk, you change your self-concept, which unleashes all of your unlimited potential.
The only real limitations you have in life are the ones you place on yourself. You limit your potential when you focus your energy on reinforcing negative messages. According to research psychologists, the average one-year-old child has a three-word vocabulary. By fifteen months, children can speak about nineteen words. At two years of age, most kids possess a working knowledge of 272 words. Age three, 896 words; age four, a little over 1,500 words. Our word accumulation continues to grow. The average adult speaks around 18,000 words a day. Sigmund Freud said, “Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student…” This is why it is so important to choose your words By Design!
EXERCISE
Make a list of all the common negative self-talk statements you make during the day. Next, reword them to become positive statements. For example, if you say, “I don’t understand technology,” change it to say, “I love technology and am excited to learn new things every day.” If you say, “My spouse doesn’t give me the attention I want,” let it become “I love my spouse and I take one hundred percent responsibility for the love in my relationship.” Do you hear the difference in these statements? One is living as a victim, by default; the other is living as a victor, By Design.
In order to change your negative thought patterns, you must learn to limit negativity in your life. One effective method I use to start the process is replacing those old self-beliefs with positive, present-tense, By Design thoughts throughout the day. Some people refer to such statements as affirmations. Brian Tracy first exposed me to affirmations in 1989. His message was that if I wanted to increase my self-esteem and self-image and strengthen my vision, I must affirm the things I want.
Before you roll your eyes at me, understand that your doubt is, in and of itself, an affirmation. Think about it. Affirmations can be both positive and negative. If you say “my back hurts,” “I can’t,” or “I’m so fat,” you’re creating a negative affirmation every day. The real question is, are you doing it by default or By Design?
Because you decide how your mind works, you may as well feed it positive thoughts, right? Even though we have all heard the statement “You are what you think,” few people understand the value of doing positive affirmations, let alone allocating the time to do them.
When affirmations are used to reinforce positive feelings, they induce a calm, confident attitude that provides a sense that everything will be all right. Affirmations can open your channels of creativity and allow you to let go of the pressures you feel throughout the day. In the process, you release the negative energy, tension, anxiety, and other pessimistic