I was on a call this morning and something really got to me. I think it’s so sad a lot of people don’t believe in themselves and accept less in their lives than they deserve.
It seems that human nature has hard-wired us to stall and second-guess everything. We pull back just when we should be pushing forward. It’s like we have one foot on the accelerator ready for action but the other foot is firmly on the brake!
We say, “I wish I could be more productive with my life” but procrastinate about all the important things and waste our precious time. We say, “I wish I could be more calm and content” but never find ways to get our emotions under control. We say, “I wish I could live my life’s passion” but aren’t prepared to put in the effort or resources required to make it happen.
It’s painful hitting your head against a brick wall. It’s also painful living your life miserably, when you know there’s other ways to be doing it. You’ve GOT to find ways to get through the wall!
Solutions are often trying to show themselves to us but we either miss them or we’re too scared to take them up. Sometimes we’re even afraid we might actually succeed and that scares us too! (What’s with that?!).
As humans, our belief in ourselves and our confidence to go outside our comfort zone is very easily crushed, and the chatter that goes on inside your head can either be productive or destructive.
If you find that negative self-talk and worry hold you back, here’s a few great strategies:
# 1. Change the vocabulary you use to talk to yourself. Every time you hear yourself say words that are disabling, replace them with these:
- “I can’t” becomes “How can I?”
- “It’s a problem” becomes “What solutions could there be?”
- “I don’t know how” becomes “I can do this, I just need to find a way”.
When you allow your mind to be inquisitive by asking it questions and don’t limit its imagination, you’ll be surprised what you can problem solve your way through. You just have to have an open mind and be willing to see that the right way may not be what you first thought.
When you really want something THAT bad, it’s up to you to find a way to make it happen. Don’t settle for “I can’t”, “It’s a problem” or “I don’t know how”.
If it’s to be, it’s up to me.
# 2. A practical solution to eliminate your worries
- Get the facts – what EXACTLY are you worried about? Why is it important to collect the facts? Because without real facts you can’t begin to solve the problem in a methodical and practical way. You are just in confusion and you can’t make a decision before you have enough knowledge on which to base a decision! Without the facts you are only working on opinion (yours), and that’s sometimes not really that relevant to finding a proper solution. And make sure you look at it objectively and not one-sided. To help with this you could try looking at it as though you are an observer, or your friend looking at you from the outside (what would they see and is it the same facts as you see?).
- Analyse the facts and brainstorm some solutions – you know…what would I do? What are my options? If this happens then I could possibly do a,b or c. If that happens then my options are 1,2, or 3.
- Make a decision on what you’re going to do about it and then ACT on it!
So what is the easiest way of doing the steps of ‘Get the facts and analyse the facts‘?
- What am I worrying about? Write it down on paper.
- What can I do about it? There’s always three solutions to every problem, so brainstorm with yourself and don’t eliminate anything before you’ve written it down. Get creative with this and see how many ideas you can come up with. Ask your friends to help you because they may think of something you hadn’t!
- Decide what one or two of the options are practical.
- Then act on one of them!
You’ll be surprised how your worries fade away when you have thought them through in a practical and realistic way. Sometimes just having a plan and knowing what you’ll do IF your worry became reality is all you need to relax and not stress so much.
If you could do anything in the world, knowing you couldn’t fail, what would you do?
