I can focus it and personalize it best by asking a question.

How much time and energy do you spend arguing for your limitations?

In other words, how much of the conversation you have with yourself in your head, not to mention with others, sounds like:  I can't do this ... that's impossible ... nothing's gonna work ... it's all too hard ... I don't deserve it? 
 

Sound familiar?  Well, that's where the contrast occurs.  Really successful, happy people don't do this.

Look, most of us do at least a little bit of this on a bad day.  I get that, but what I'm talking about here is a habitual, reflexive pattern of approaching life this way.  Warning:  It's not a harmless indulgence.  It's toxic ... to you and your dreams.

The quality of your internal communication matters more than anything, because it's so absolutely fundamental.  If it's reflexively negative, not only can you not run at full speed, you can't even really get out of the starting blocks, because you don't really believe good things are possible for you.  That's a bad place to be.

And if you want to get out of that bad place and get on with the business of having what you want, that's where you have to go to work first.

It can be a challenge for me as a coach, because most people want to get on with making plans and creating strategies, thinking that strategizing and taking action is what's going to make them successful where they haven't been successful before.

These things won't help if the dialogue in your head is negative, resistant, and blocking.  They'll only help if the path of possibility is open.

And it doesn't even have to be wide open.  What matters is not so much that someone is blazingly optimistic or free of doubt or fear, it's just that there's an absence of the quicksand that is self-defeating self-talk.

Simply put, just don't erect your own roadblocks and when you do encounter real ones, don't amplify them, and you'll be fine.

Now, please, please, please don't think this is some kind of holier than thou message.  Ha!  Hardly.  I grew up negative.  If there were an Olympic event for embracing negativity to the fullest, my family would have taken the gold!

And don't think that if you're currently disposed to thinking this way that you're doomed.  It just means that before you can make serious progress toward your goals, you have to transform your mindset.

I'm here to testify that it can be done.

A year after my husband died, a friend who was truly concerned about me gave me a book by Louise Hay ... You Can Heal Your Life.  I read it and then read it again ... every day, sometimes several times a day.  I realized I had to reset my default state of mind.  I took it on as a project, as if my life depended on it ... because it did!

The key is consistency.  You can't just read a book once and be done. It's about consistently taking in the message and internalizing it.

Two years later, I was talking with another good friend in my car and she volunteered out of the blue that I was "the most positive person she knew."  I almost drove off the road!  Confirmation!

Do I still have to work at it?  Yeah, each and every day.

Okay, so what do you do if you've identified yourself as a negative self-talker who argues for your limitations and you want to change the default state?

Here are some terrific books that'll help:

Ask and It Is Given - Esther & Jerry Hicks

Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting - Lynn Grabhorn

Wishcraft...How to Get What You Really Want - Barbara Sher

The Attractor Factor - Joe Vitale

You Can Heal Your Life - Louise Hay

And, at the risk of seeming self-serving, we have a couple of audio CD's ... decide ~ believe ~ dream and The Power of Attraction that we created to help people strengthen their belief in themselves, get clear on where they want to go, and attract the things they want.  People seem to really like them and say they make a difference!

Just click on this link and scroll down to The Companion Set.  Enter the promo code Oct 12 when you check out and you'll get a special 20% discount that we've created just for you, our newsletter subscribers.

Success in anything starts between your ears.  The trick is to make sure what's in there is empowering.

All the best,

Denise