Kickstart Your Life in 3 Easy Ways

How many times have these thoughts crossed your mind? “I can’t do this, it’s too hard!” “No one will listen to me!” “I don’t have any skills!” “I wouldn’t do a good job!”

Do any of these sound familiar? We’re really good at tearing ourselves down. Telling ourselves things we think are true. And the comparison trap, paying way too much attention to what everyone else is doing and not giving any credit for your own life. Things like, look at that mom, she has it all together or I could never be as successful as her, I don’t have what it takes. And the list goes on.

But, honestly, what good does any of this do for us? All of these negative thoughts and emotions. It doesn’t do any good, it’s just beating us down. The more that we tell ourselves these negative thoughts, the more we’ll believe them.

I’ve struggled with believing in my negative thoughts for a very long time. They kept me down thinking I wasn’t good enough for this or that. That this person found their success because they were better than me. That I’m not enough and that I wasn’t worthy to have things that I wanted. It was exhausting and I certainly wasn’t living a life I loved. And I certainly wasn’t loving myself.

 

 

I realized these are called limiting beliefs. Beliefs that we think are true about ourselves but they aren’t. Unfortunately, most of us (me included) don’t know the truth about ourselves because we’re not seeing it and we don’t believe it. We’re believing all those limiting beliefs that are spewing around in our mind.

So, how do you stop these limiting beliefs in your head? It’s done by changing your mindset. And here’s how I’ve changed my mindset to believing the truth about who I really am and not believing what my subconscious is telling me and you can to.

Here are 3 ways to do that:

 

Positive Affirmations

 

Saying positive affirmations every day will change you. But you have to stick with them. Here’s the thing too about affirmations. You have to believe them too. For example, if you’re telling yourself that you’re a millionaire and you aren’t, you’ll never believe it. Just like saying you are worthy of success. If you keep telling yourself you’ll never be successful because of x y z. Nothing you say to yourself will change that. But if you look for evidence of how you know you’re worthy of being successful and you keep reminding yourself of that evidence when those negative thoughts come out, you will start changing your mindset.

Then, keep saying positive affirmations over and over again and you will change your mindset. You will start believing in what you are saying. These do work, I am a firm believer in that. They’ve changed my life for the better.

Search the internet for affirmations that speak to what you want to change about yourself. And remember to look for evidence in your life on what you know it’s true about you. Here’s a site with many ideas on positive affirmations depending on what areas you’re looking to improve.

 

Self-Help Books

 

Books can be very powerful in changing your mindset. There are hundreds of self-help books to choose from. Here are some of my favorites that have improved my life.

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown

UnFu*k Yourself: Get out of Your Head and into your Life by Gary John Bishop (Read this post on how this book changed my life)

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

Self-help books have made the biggest shift in my mindset. They’ve been eye-opening and showed me my limiting beliefs weren’t worth giving any time or attention to. And you don’t have to be a reader to get the benefits of these books. Many, if not all, will have an audio version that you can listen to. Audiobooks are also great for when you are busy and you just don’t have the time to read.

Podcasts are also another great idea to improve your life and mindset. You can try Ted Talks where you will find many inspirational speakers to listen to. One of my favorite Ted Talks is the 10 Days of Positive Thinking Playlist. My other personal favorite podcasts are Ruth Soukup’s Do It Scared and Cathy Heller’s Don’t Keep Your Day Job. These are both inspirational podcasts that have changed the way I view my life.

 

 

 

Give Yourself Grace

 

Lastly, don’t be so hard on yourself. Things will go wrong, mistakes will happen, and times will be tough. Instead of beating yourself up over something bad that happened (and that probably was out of your control), be kind to yourself. Accept your problems as they are and figure out how you can fix them and learn from them instead. And remember, give yourself grace. No one is perfect.

 

 

Final Thoughts

 

Charles R. Swindoll once said, “The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”

How will you choose to live out 90% of your life? By saying positive affirmations, reading self-help books and listening to inspirational podcasts, and giving yourself grace when things go wrong, you will greatly improve 90% of your life. Isn’t that worth it?

 

Have you read any books lately that have inspired you? Please share them in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!!

 

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