I remember watching a movie where the character was talking about voices in his head. When I heard that, I immediately thought, “What a loony! He should be thrown in a padded room wearing a white shirt with long sleeves (long as the sleeves on the sweaters my grandma used to knit for me).” But then it hit me, I have voices in my head all the time. In fact we are all constantly talking to ourselves. Double in fact, it is a difficult feat to shut our minds up. Try it! Try to quiet your mind and let me know how long you can do that for. If you are not a trained Yogi, I am betting you have a better chance wrestling a bone away from a pit-bull than silencing your inner voice. This inner voice of ours, is it helping us or hurting us?

 Statistics show that the average person’s thoughts are over 80% negative. Do you find yourself holding yourself back, thinking you are unworthy, and constantly putting yourself down? There is a strong correlation between your internal thoughts and external success. Positive thoughts typically make life fulfilling and give wings to your dreams while negative thoughts can drag you down and anchor you to an unfortunate past.

 Ten years ago, a mentor of mine asked me to write out 20 things that I love about myself. I couldn’t do it. I immediately started talking about what I didn’t like about myself. I started talking about my weight problem, lack of discipline, and how I needed to read more. How interesting that I could not write out just 20 positive characteristics about myself. I had 24 years of experience knowing me at that time and my positive thought mental piggy bank came up empty (maybe even overdrawn). If I asked you that same question, could you quickly tell me 20 great things you love about yourself? Could you list 10? What if I asked you to list 20 things you don’t like about yourself? Would this negative list come out perhaps a little quicker?

 The good part is you can immediately start to change your thoughts from negative to positive. A great place to start is to create the list of 20 things that you love about yourself. This sounds easy to do, but the tricky part is that it is easy not to do as well. Create this list and put some thought into it. If you are having challenges coming up with ideas ask a friend, family member, or me. Ask, “What do you like about me or what do I do well?” In the beginning this will feel weird. A lot of people are just so used to negativity that it has almost become the norm, but don’t fall into that trap. Don’t have that 80% negative mindset. Don’t talk yourself out of the dreams that you are capable or achieving.

 We all have voices in our head. They are like the captains of our ship. But the question is where is your captain steering you? Put together this list of 20 characteristics you like about yourself. Help the captain steer you away from the jagged negative rocks that can lead to destruction and aim for the beautiful positive horizon that will carry you to your successful destination. Live, Love, Laugh.

 Henry Ford said, “If you think you can do it, or you think you can’t do it, you are right.”

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