Be In Charge of Your Destiny
Remember when you were a kid and you used to dream about a time that you would be in charge of your destiny and nothing could stop you from being exactly what you wanted to be? Now as an adult, you have the authority you wished for as a child, but things aren’t going the way you had planned. Does your life seem to be all work and no play? Do you feel uneasy about your future? Do you ever start to doubt yourself? Do you get stuck wanting to move ahead in life but aren’t sure if now is the right time, or you aren’t exactly sure how to proceed? Have you been waiting for the right time to achieve your goals and are now realizing there is never a perfect time?
From childhood, we’ve been taught to do what authority figures told us to do. We have been programmed that other people are smarter, wiser, and have more experience. We’ve been warned about the disastrous results that might happen if the rules aren’t followed. The bottom line is that we’ve been taught to give our power away and not trust our own judgment or truly believe in ourselves. Perhaps you’ve forgotten your power to listen to the deepest part of yourself — your real needs, your desires, your gut instincts — and you’ve begun to make choices that are no longer satisfying. The good news is that your point of power is this minute in time. It’s the decisions you will make and act on from this day forward that will determine your destiny.
I am going to give you some new perspectives, motivation, and strategies for taking action so you can take back your true power, engage in habit busting, and start Believing in Yourself and abilities again.
One of the first things you must do is start to be aware of how YOU are programming your future. How are you labeling yourself? Are you programming yourself to fail and allowing past habits and events rule your future?
The way you label yourself and think about yourself with your self-talk will determine how you make good decisions about critical issues in business.
We all have unproductive behaviors or habits that keep us from using our potential effectively. If your self-talk reinforces those unproductive behaviors or habits you are actually programming those unproductive behaviors to be more powerful and harder to get rid of in your life and self-image.
Think of it like this: giving yourself negative labels only makes those unproductive behaviors stronger. Example: anything negative within your thoughts about yourself is like having someone else sit on your shoulder whispering bad things in your ears about your ability to be successful.
Some people label themselves with things like: I am fat. I am a smoker. I am a nervous person. I have a bad temper. I am always late. I am a not a risk taker. I am not good at public speaking. I am not good at marketing. I am a bad speller. I am lazy. I am not organized. I am not good at hiring people.
I am not good at _________ (now you fill in the blank with how you are programming yourself to fail).
All these type statements are negative reinforcements that only create a picture for yourself with the unproductive behaviors or past habits, instead of creating the new image you want in your life.
We were not taught that we are a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the truth is we are. In other words, what you say and think about yourself does come true. It is as if we unconsciously believe that we can say negative things about ourselves, and those negative thoughts would have no effect on us or our future. But the truth is all those thoughts, self-talk, and labels keep us stuck with old behavior patterns.
The bottom line is that you are now the sum total of all the programming others have given you and that you have reinforced through the thoughts you have had about yourself.
The end result is that all those past images, thoughts, and directions will influence your attitudes and every action you take today. If you do not take personal responsibility for the nurturing, caring, and feeding of your own mind, you will be manipulated and controlled by past programming and your current environment. For most people, that is going to cost you time, self-esteem, confidence, money, success, and peace of mind.
You have the power to train your mind to choose what you think instead of allowing random thoughts to hold you hostage. Your goal is to become inner-directed and focused so that you decide what you want to think, rather than have your thoughts and emotions determined by the world around you. The untrained mind has more emotional ups and downs because it is reacting to random thoughts. Focus on what you want with joy and enthusiasm.
Remember, just like the earth, your brain does not discern what you plant. It will work just as hard to grow weeds as it will to grow beautiful flowers. You determine the seeds that are planted by what you say to yourself over and over.
Your homework assignment is to take a notebook around with you this month and jot down all the negative things you say and believe about yourself. If you are not making the money or having the success or life you want it’s because you are hurting your own chances for success with your self-talk. If you want to move to the next level of success you must take responsibility for the caliber of information that you feed your computer daily. Yes, I know it’s a pain to do this exercise and you will want to put it off, but if you do, you’ll only be postponing your ability to change the way you think. If you want to improve the chances of massive success, you have to take back your power and believe in yourself.
Happy New Year,
