Are your predominant thoughts focused on the love and gratitude you have for your inner gifts, or are you more focused on your perceived limitations? Either way, your predominant thoughts will decide the course of your life.

Last week I wrote about Stinkin Thinkin and how your personal philosophy determines the outcome of your life regardless of how aware you are of your deep seated beliefs. Unfortunately, it’s all too common to give your limiting beliefs too much weight. When you are immersed in the power and intensity of fear or self doubt, it is easy to feel isolated. Often we forget that despite appearances of confidence, self doubt can often be just as powerful in the woman beside us.

In addition to any limiting beliefs you have about yourself, many of us also field an onslaught of negative self talk on a daily basis. When self doubt and fear seems to be such a powerful force in your life, how do you begin to overcome the negative self talk and move ahead with more confidence?

3 Simple Ways To Overcome Negative Self Talk

1. Awareness

Awareness is the realization that the negative self talk exists. Awareness is like a muscle. At first you may not be aware of our underlying thoughts. Awareness may begin as a hindsight realization that you habitually reacted in a certain way. Over time, by continually watching your reactions and thoughts, you begin to see yourself habitually thinking, talking and acting in a certain way as they happen. The key with growing awareness is that you do not react to what you are witnessing in yourself. Be an observer but not a participant in the drama.

For example, when I started this blog, I would get really excited about something I wanted to share and the immediate negative self talk would be “what you have to say is not important” and “no one cares what you have to say”. Because I am aware that this pattern of outdated self talk exists, I can hear those thoughts arising and then I can allow them to pass (more often) without taking the bait and buying into the message. If I were to buy into the message and feel badly about my abilities, I would be reacting. Stated another way, the passing thought of self doubt may exist in the moment, however it does not inhibit you from moving towards your goals.

“Fear is only as deep as the mind allows” Japanese Proverb

2. Acceptance

In order for you to move past limiting self talk you have to accept that it is happening and influencing your life. The negative self talk will lose it’s grip the moment you decide to love and accept this unresolved aspect of yourself. When you are constantly reacting and judging yourself for your perceived weaknesses it creates a strangle hold over your life that leaves little room for growth.

You are a work in progress and the challenges that you face as you learn to love and accept all aspects yourself will add to the texture and richness of your life so that you can then love and accept these aspects in others. Love and acceptance of yourself regardless of the situation creates the space for you to grow and overcome.

“The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones” Anonymous

3. Action

Negative self talk can become so habitual and so powerful that it literally keeps you from pursuing many of your dreams. We are our own worst enemies! There are times however, that the light of inspiration will erode the negative talk for a short time and it is so important to ACT on this inspiration. A baby step at first perhaps, or diving in with both feet.  Over time, taking action during times of inspired thinking will slowly erode the power of the negative talk.  This is because with each action you take, you develop more and more confidence.

The key is to ACT in spite of the limiting beliefs you face in your life. First become aware, then accept, and most importantly act anyway.

I hope these 3 suggestions will help you to become more aware of negative self talk and give you the tools to move forward towards your goals and dreams anyway. We all have negative self talk, but it does not have to dictate the course of our lives.

Are you aware of how your self talk influences the decisions you make? What are your ways of dealing with negative self talk? Let’s talk more in the comments below.

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3 Ways To Ditch Negative Self Talk

How do you approach life? Do you see possibilities and opportunities at every corner? Are you a YES person who finds the “how to” later? Do you encourage others when they come to you with their crazy ideas? Do circumstances rule your life or do you find a way, regardless?

When you are gearing up for change in your life, it is so important to continually put yourself in front of inspiration. However, there is also a dominant ruling force in most of our lives that many times renders inspiration to be fleeting at best. This ruling force is your thoughts.

Your thoughts are the daily force that cause the creative power to act within your life, for better or for worse. Repetitive thoughts do become things, so if you want to move forward in your life, looking at your perspective can be very helpful to see if your thoughts are in alignment with the vision that you have for your life.

I wrote recently about overcoming some personal obstacles to find peace in my life. Looking back on the person I am today compared to who I was a few years ago I would say one of the most obvious differences is in the way that I think. I used to be as pessimistic and skeptical as they come. I even rationalized my perspective as a good character quality because at least “someone should be realistic.”

What I did not realize is that my doubt and skepticism was affecting every area of my life because I easily saw the problems in every opportunity that came to me. Because I saw problems instead of solutions, I usually was able to convince myself that each opportunity was not the “right” opportunity. This doubting, raised eyebrow view of life permeated into every area of my life until I finally woke up to the fact that I had a big old case of stinkin’ thinkin’ and it was time to overhaul my personal philosophy!

“You can have more than you’ve got because you can become more than you are” Jim Rohn

One of the people that has influenced me a great deal is an extraordinary human being named Jim Rohn. If you don’t know him already, I highly recommend his free weekly newsletter! His timeless philosophy gently shattered my self important opinions about the world in such a unique way that left me unable to defend and forced me to change.

In his book “The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle” he outlines the five principles for attaining whatever you want to have and becoming whatever you wish to be. These are the fundamentals of success that are unchanging throughout the history of human achievement: Philosophy, Attitude, Activity, Results and Lifestyle. The book is $12 and worth every single penny.

Jim Rohn describes our personal philosophy this way: “In the process of living, the winds of circumstance blow on us all in an unending flow that touches each of our lives. What guides us to different destinations in life is determined by the set of our sail. The way each of us thinks makes the major difference in where each of us arrives.”

He goes on to say that your life is a direct product of the way you choose to think. The way you think then directs your behavior and habits. Your philosophy is formed through your experience of events and the multitude of sources in your lives. In a way, your philosophy is not really your philosophy, it has been given to you, by your friends, family, environment, history, teachers, media etc.

The question you must ask is: Has your current philosophy given you the life that you desire? If not, then it is time to choose your own philosophy.

Many falsely believe that finances, upbringing & past, lack of time, circumstances, family etc hold us back from achieving the life of our dreams.

In order to get to the root of your philosophy about success, ask yourself questions like:

• What is my relationship with money?
• How do I regard successful people?
• Do I feel that I deserve a good life?
• What am I afraid to lose if I go for my dreams?
• What am I willing to risk to accomplish my dreams?

I soon realized that I had accepted the philosophy that: successful people were untrustworthy, that money was the root of evil and that if I was a successful woman I would have to give up any semblance of a family life. I believed that much of success required luck or that I had to know someone important to have a chance at big opportunities. As I write these limitations in my thinking I realize today how silly these sound. But the clincher is that I didn’t know that I thought this way until I dug deeper! It was all below the surface. If you asked then about this, I would have disagreed with all those statements!

Until we ask these questions and take the time to think them out our habitual thinking and conditioning will be the dominant predictor in the outcome of our life.

Our personal philosophy, known or unknown, will decide the course of our lives. Once I accepted that I had some pretty substantial and limited beliefs, it was a truly liberating experience to replace them with a new philosophy.

Here is a look at how to build a new & powerful personal Philosophy – one of the five fundamentals listed in the book.

Building a powerful personal philosophy.

1.  Don’t erase…replace! Begin to seek out the new information that your success and happiness requires. To change our thinking habits we need to input new information. Begin to learn from the people you admire and you will be introduced to a new language and way of thinking. You will soon have the resources to make different conclusions based upon a more successful perspective.

“The decisions we are making are not wrong based on the information we have, it is the information we have that is causing us to make wrong decisions” Jim Rohn

2. Learn from your past experiences. Make a review of your actions and the lessons learned. Make sure you have a truthful account of the event so that you don’t continue to escape from reality. You can learn from both failure and success and adjust your course for the future.

“Failure must teach us, or surely success will not reward us” Jim Rohn

3. Learn from an outside voice. Get an objective appraisal of your growth from someone you respect who will be able to examine our actions and determine if you have stayed on course with the fundamentals of success. The objective is to be able to see things you otherwise would not be able to see.

“We are wise, indeed, if we discipline ourselves to take council from someone who cares, lest life and circumstances force us to take it from someone who does not care” Jim Rohn

4. Learn from other people’s experience with failure. You also want to study failure so you can learn what not to do. I found this funny when I first read it, but then I wondered, when have I ever made a study of failure? Do you know what to avoid based on the evidence or do you simply follow along? The majority is not right the majority of the time!

“If we had more opportunity to learn from the negative experiences of others, we might well save our own lives from certain disaster” Jim Rohn

5.  Learn from other people’s success. Spend time gathering the knowledge and ideas that success requires. The habits, the disciplines, the language, the thinking. A great place to start is by reading a daily quote from the great minds of past and present. Choose a few mentors to learn from. Jim Rohn is a great place to start!

6.  The power of positive influence. We are all within the sphere of influence. Who you are today is a collage of the many people that have influenced you over the years. Choose to avoid at all costs the power of the wrong influence weaving it’s effect on you. Look for people you can admire and respect, even if they are not in your direct circle of influence.

“In this lifetime there is no greater project than the deliberate development of our own lives” Jim Rohn

I hope you enjoyed some of these ideas. There are still more suggestions to overhaul your philosophy in the book and then 4 more principles for becoming the best you can be in order to attract the best life that has to offer. Free yourself from “stinkin thinkin” and reward yourself with a treasure for your mind with this book. You will love his simple timeless philosophy!

WIN IT: I’m giving away a copy of “The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle” to a random winner. All you have to do to be entered is leave me a comment and tell me about one limiting belief that you have that holds you back from living your best life AND THEN, most important, tell me one way you can overcome it. Contest open to Canadian and USA residents. Winner announced here on August 1st and contacted by email. View official rules here

WINNER: Congratulations to Lori (comment#19) you have won this giveaway and I am so excited to send this book to you since it seems you are quite a reader! I’ve contacted you by email.

Hey, come visit the me and leave a comment! I'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this article, thank you for giving it a boost on social media. © All rights reserved. This post is from HealthyGreenMoms and cannot be republished without express written permission.

Is Your Thinkin Stinkin?