The more I continue to work on myself and witness others doing the same, the more convinced I am that often the biggest obstacle to success in our relationships, work, families, and our lives is –ourselves.
I realize, to many, this may not be a huge revelation. In fact, many of us know this, yet we can’t seem to get out of our own way. For me, one of the biggest obstacles is fear, and, if I’m truly honest, not feeling worthy. When I slow down and pay attention to the negative messages I tell myself, here’s what my TNT voice says (like a stick of dynamite that rips us to shreds):
• I’m lazy, irresponsible, and disorganized.
• It’s much easier to sit back and get by than to step out and risk. Why don’t you just be happy with what you have?
• Your goals are unrealistic and a pipe dream—just let go and save yourself a lot of heartache.
• If I clean up my bad habits, then I will be successful—and I’m not worthy of being successful.
• If I get successful, I will become one-up and entitled just like everyone else. I will lose my humility, my friends, and my loved ones.
The list could go on and on, but hopefully you get the picture. We all have a TNT voice inside us, and whether we know it or not, it can, and often does, wreak total havoc in our lives.
I’ve noticed that it’s ten times easier to tear ourselves down than it is to build ourselves up. I’m also well aware of all the literature that stresses the importance of being kind to ourselves, looking at the positives, and using positive affirmations to counter our TNT voice.
The problem is, the teenager in me equates positive affirmations with Stewart Smalley from “Saturday Night Live” who would often say, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with Stewart Smalley, you missed out on a very funny character. In essence, I made up that the entire skit was about making fun of positive affirmations. So naturally it took me a while to get over my pride enough to actually use them without feeling stupid.
Soooo, where am I going with this? Well, I’m getting clearer about the effectiveness of positive self talk. More specifically, I’m very clear about the toxicity of negative self talk, and I know that you cannot remove one thing without replacing it with another. It’s the same concept with babies: if you want to take an object away from them, you put another object in front of them so they are distracted from what they are losing and excited about what they are gaining.
However, I’m aware that if your teenager (the one inside you) is anything like mine, you won’t want to go there quietly. So, I’m going to throw a challenge out to anyone who’s interested, because I want you to decide for yourself whether or not affirmations are helpful for you. You cannot make that decision, however, unless you actually try them out. I will do the same and report back.
First off, I want you to come up with an affirmation around a particular issue you are struggling with. The affirmation needs to be in the present (i.e., “I am” versus “I will”), positively stated (i.e., what you are doing, not what you are not doing) and must feel on target to you. Below are a few examples of strong affirmations:
“I am feeling the fear and doing it anyway, because I am absolutely worth it and I rock!”
“I am worthy and lovable just the way I am.”
“I am getting more organized and responsible every day.”
“I am powerful, and I love it.”
“When I was born, God danced.”
Challenge: Choose an affirmation from the list above, or create your own, and for the next thirty days repeat the affirmation twenty-five times a day. You can break these 25 up any way you’d like (i.e., ten in the morning, ten in the afternoon, and five at bedtime), as long as you repeat it twenty-five times. If you miss a day, then you need to start over at day one until you do it thirty consecutive days.
At the end of the thirty days and/or during the thirty days, I would love for you to check back into the blog and let me know what you’re noticing. I will be doing the same thing, and will let you know what I’m noticing.
As of Wednesday, December 13, I have done it two days. Let’s see how many people we can get on board. If you have an affirmation you’d like to share, please do, because it can help many people.