Saturday, August 1, 2009

Doggone It! You're Good Enough!

Saturday Night Live is one of my all-time favorite shows. Last year's Sarah Palin spoofs were hiliarious! The thing about SNL is sometimes you can even learn something if you pay close attention.

For example, remember Al Franken's character, Stuart Smalley, looking into a mirror affirming, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me!" So many people pooh-pooh the idea of affirmations; however, I've learned that what you say to yourself matters more than what others say to you. Why? Because your voice and your opinion carry the greatest weight in your subconscious mind.

Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “The most influential person who will talk to you all day is you, so you should be very careful about what you say to you.” Wow! What are you saying to yourself all day? Most of us cannot answer that question. I know I couldn't until I started to pay attention. Imagine my horror to hear myself saying things like, "stupid me!" or "I'm so crazy."

To those of you who're saying, "Dr. A, I'm just playing. I don't mean those things. Girlfriend, you just need to lighten up!", did you know that Proverbs 26:18-19 says, "Just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon is someone who lies to a friend and then says, 'Iwas only joking."' Think about this: if a lie to a friend is a deadly weapon, what about the lies you speak to yourself in the form of negative self-talk? So here's a three step process I learned from one of my mentors, Jack Canfield, that I want to share with you to help you monitor your negative self-talk:

  1. Identify your negative self-talk
  2. Cancel that negative self-talk
  3. Replace the negative self-talk with positive self-talk (that's where affirmations come into play)

I teach this in some of my seminars when we talk about self-confidence and self-esteem. You see, it's important what we say about ourselves and think about ourselves. Yet, most of us are going around in a negative self-created cloud unable to realize our goals and dreams because we are in our own way.

To anchor this behavior, I've put together a quick little video from one of my seminars to show you how to do this. Have fun with this. (It's not the best video quality. It was jerky, but you can still get the essence of it).



And remember ... You're good enough. You're smart enough, and doggone it, people like ya!


"Life with no purpose is no life at all!"
Dr. A
http://www.lifeonpurposellc.com/

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