What Story are You Telling Yourself?
Jun 25, 2019HI I'm Andrew from the Foolish Couple.
Today we are going to talk about the Thoughts and Beliefs that you tell yourself.
In the Success Principles by Jack Canfield, who is the author of the Chicken Soup of the Soul book series, he talks about 68 principles of success. And you can take these principles and apply them to all areas of your life and they will ALWAYS work. Whether you want to improve your career, your finances, your relationships, your health or your contributions. Whatever they are, these Success Principles will work for everyone every time.
As long as you work the principles, the principles will work for you.
You see, you are creating your experiences, your success, the quality of your relationships, and your health by your thoughts and beliefs (beliefs are no more than thoughts you have conditioned yourself to think over and over), the visual images you focus on (internally and externally), the resulting emotions they create, and your actions…and you have total control over all three of these.
Personal responsibility is the key attitude for personal empowerment.
It is to your full advantage to assume full responsibility for the circumstances of your life as well as your reactions to these circumstances.
Therefore, without self-judgment or self-blame, you can focus your attention on understanding yourself and your range of choices that may be possible in any given circumstance. With this awareness you can make educated, intentional choices.
When your choices don’t result in you getting things the way you thought you wanted them, you can look to understand what happened and what action you can take next, rather than looking for someone or some circumstance to blame.
There is a simple formula that can help you understand and embrace 100% responsibility:
E + R = O
Event + Response = Outcome
Every outcome you experience in life is a result of how you’ve responded to an earlier event or events in your life. If you don’t like the outcomes you’re currently getting, there are two basic choices you can make:
- You can blame the event (E) for your lack of results (O). In other words, you can blame the economy, the weather, gender bias, your spouse, your boss, your co-workers and so on.
There are many factors that can contribute to the outcome but if they were the deciding factor, nobody would ever succeed. For every reason why something is not possible; there are hundreds of other people who have faced the same circumstances and succeeded.
- You can instead simply change your responses (R) to the events (E) – the way things are – until you get the outcomes (O) you want. You can change your thinking, change your communication, change the pictures you hold in your head and you can change your behavior.
You can break out of your conditioned responses to circumstances, increase your awareness and change your actions. All this leads to a new outcome.
There are only 3 responses (R’s) you have any control over:
- Your behavior (including what you say and how you say it)
- Your thoughts (self-talk) and beliefs (both conscious and unconscious)
- Your visual imagery (including your images of the future)
Suppose I approach John and say,
"John, of all the people I’ve ever met in all my years of speaking, you have to be the biggest idiot I have ever had in one of my groups."
Do you think that that would raise John’s self-esteem?
Or do you think that that statement would lower John’s self-esteem?
Or do you think it doesn’t matter what I say to John, but rather what John says to himself after I stop talking that affects his self-esteem?
It’s important that you understand fully that it’s not what I say to John, but what John says to John after I stop talking that affects how he feels about himself.
If John goes inside his head after I stop talking and says,
"My God, he’s only known me for 30 minutes; how did he find out so soon that I was an idiot?"
that will affect his self-esteem in a negative way.
However, if he goes inside and says to himself,
"Well, the trainer just picked on me because he knows that I have a strong self-concept and can take this kind of teasing."
John will feel good about himself.
Remember, when someone says something that hurts, look inside and see what it is you are telling yourself about yourself.
Until next time, Love what you Live, and Live what you Love.
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