self-talk – Page 5 – Empowering Your Mind

Be Kind to Yourself for More Success

September 5, 2019 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

What is your relationship with yourself? Is it adversarial or hostile? For instance, when you make a mistake or fail, are you your own worst critic? You may think that putting yourself down, berating or criticizing yourself will help you do better the next time. But it doesn’t.

Instead, because you’re focusing on what you did wrong, you’re simply setting yourself up to repeat the behavior. And rather than taking care of yourself, you become stressed and frustrated with yourself. This may lead to indulging in self-destructive habits like procrastination, overeating, excessive drinking and more.

Your relationship with yourself is reflected in your relationships with others. If you judge yourself severely, you’re going to attract others who do the same to you. How you treat yourself determines the kind of treatment you’re willing to tolerate from others. You’ll allow people to disrespect, insult and take advantage of you, because you think that’s normal. This can negatively affect your personal and professional relationships, holding you back from achieving your goals and being successful.

Cultivating Self-Compassion

Just because you’ve done something wrong doesn’t mean that you are bad. Rather than being so hard on yourself, what if you were kinder to yourself? Research shows that when you’re nicer to yourself, you’ll experience less stress and anxiety. It also improves your sense of well-being, self-esteem, self-worth and your relationships with others.

People who are kinder to themselves have greater motivation to pick themselves up and try again. When you’re compassionate towards yourself, you’re able to accept yourself for who you are. This gives you additional energy and resilience to improve on your weaknesses and make better decisions in the future.

Shifting your viewpoint makes all the difference. By taking a more realistic view when something upsetting happens, you can put it into perspective and realize that you’re not perfect. You’re simply a human being doing the best you can with the knowledge and resources you had at that time.

When you’re kinder to yourself, you support yourself and your endeavors which allows you to reach your goals. You become more patient with yourself and become more confident. You can cultivate self-compassion by making some easy changes in the way you treat yourself.

Ways to Be Kind to Yourself

1. Use positive self-talk. Give yourself uplifting messages, especially when you realize you didn’t live up to your potential. Tell yourself something like, “It’s okay. I’ll do better next time.” Or, “I am capable and have what it takes to succeed.”

2. When you make a mistake, encourage yourself. Treat yourself as if you were a good friend. Be understanding of what happened and why. Mistakes are the way you learn. You can say, “Everyone makes mistakes. I can learn from this and move on.”

3. Write 3 things you appreciate about yourself every day. It shifts your focus to what you’ve done right in your world. This builds self-acceptance and shows you that you support yourself. You inspire and motivate yourself when you pay attention to what’s good about you.

Self-compassion can improve your relationship with yourself. Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have. You’re the only person you’re with every hour of every day. Why not treat yourself well, which is what you deserve?

Affirmation:
The Universe loves and approves of me, just the way I am right now. I realize I’m a spiritual being having a human experience, and as such, I’m not perfect. I do the best I can with the knowledge I have at the time. But I have the capability to grow, learn and be better. I’m kind to myself, and view myself with the same compassion that the Universe does.

Watch the accompanying video, Self-Compassion Can Help Tame Your Inner Critic.

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Will saying an affirmation occasionally make changes?

September 4, 2019 Linda-Ann Stewart

Question: If I say an affirmation a few times a week, will it turn my life around?

Answer: Saying an affirmation a few times a week won’t undo decades of programming. Change won’t happen overnight. It takes about 30-40 days (and sometimes a few months depending on the difficulty of the issue) of CONCENTRATED focus and affirmations to turn things around.

By concentrated, I mean you can’t do the affirmations, then during the day, counteract them with old, negative beliefs. This gives the subconscious mixed messages. You have to catch those automatic, negative thoughts and turn them around to be consistent with the goal of your affirmation.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

If you’d to achieve a 90-day goal more easily, download my free comprehensive Strategic Vision Worksheet.

Sparks of Insight

July 22, 2019 Linda-Ann Stewart

“Peace, serenity and tranquility are the truth of my being. I now allow it to flow through me from my core. No matter what is going on in my life, I center myself and stay calm.”

Tension and anxiety is a protective response to what is happening or has happened in your life. But that reaction isn’t a permanent part of you, even though it may feel it is. Peace is at your center, and you can touch it when you quiet your mind and body. When you’re able to draw upon that serenity at will, you’ll discover that the events of your life simply come and go and you don’t have to let them affect you.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

3 Exercises to Improve Your Self-Image

June 19, 2019 Linda-Ann Stewart

Your self-image is about how you view yourself, and changes every day. You can affect it by the things about yourself that you focus on. When you pay attention to what’s right about you, you start making different decisions that increases your positive view of yourself. Here are 3 short, easy exercises to do that will help to improve your self-image.

Transcript:

Thank you for joining me. I’m Linda-Ann Stewart of Heartvision Consulting. I’d like to talk a little bit about your self-image and give you 3 easy exercises to improve it.

Your self-image is about how you view yourself, the image you have of yourself. It’s like a reflection in a mirror, but it’s not just about your physical appearance. It’s about who you are and how you interact with your environment.

Unfortunately, when your perception of yourself leans towards the negative, it can hold you back and sabotage your goals. But you already know that, right? The good news is that your self-image is malleable. It changes every day with your thoughts, choices and actions.

My tip to improve it has to do with focusing on what it is you like and appreciate about yourself. When you pay attention to what’s right about you, you start making different decisions that then increases your positive view of yourself.

So here are the three easy exercises to do to get you started.

1. Find one thing you like about yourself. It could be your appearance or one aspect of your appearance, like your hair. It could be that you’re organized, prompt, creative or responsible. What is it for you?

2. Identify one skill or ability you possess. This could be that you’re a good listener, a great cook, or an artist. And then describe how it’s affected you and others. What’s your skill or ability?

3. Remember one achievement you’ve had or time when you were successful. Something that you’re proud of. It could be winning an award or just participating in a competition. It could a time when you were promoted or did a great job on a project. It doesn’t matter how big or small it might be in the scheme of things. What matters is how you feel about it. What have you accomplished that you’re proud of?

Write all of these in your phone, on an index card, or someplace where you see them often. Now, you can add items to each one, making a list to further boost your self-image, but I wanted to make it really easy to get you started.

When you begin to slip into a negative frame of mind about yourself, remember these three items. Your self-image will begin to improve because you’re paying more attention to what you appreciate about yourself than to what you don’t. And that can change your world.

If you’d like more tips on how to make your day flow more smoothly, download my free guide, Take Control of Your Day.

Thank you for watching. And remember to focus on what you appreciate about yourself. Take care.

Read the accompanying article, 5 Steps to Create a Greater Self-Image.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

5 Steps to Create a Greater Self-Image

June 6, 2019 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Do you identify yourself as a procrastinator, leader or optimist? How you view yourself is a component of your self-image and it affects your decisions and actions. Without being aware of it, you’ll be congruent with how you characterize yourself. For instance, if you consider yourself to be a procrastinator, then your actions will support that belief. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But your self-image isn’t set in stone. It can be changed. When it changes, then your actions and decisions change to agree with your new one. To achieve your goals and vision, personally or professionally, your self-image will have to shift. It will have to be in alignment with the person you need to be to accomplish your vision.

For instance, a procrastinator will not be tapped to be a manager, because they won’t have the necessary quality of being proactive. But if you start viewing yourself as proactive, and choosing those actions, you’ll be management material. You’re not lying to yourself in this new view; you’re choosing to behave in a new way.

Improve Your Self-Image

One way to expand your self-image is to imagine your ideal self. This is your vision of who you are in the future, the person you want to be. This is the same concept as having a vision for other parts of your life or your business. With your ideal self, you have a vision of the future you, so you can create strategies to achieve this goal.

This is the person you must be working towards before you can bring your greater vision for your life into being. You may have these ideal characteristics in some measure, but won’t have fully expressed them at this time. They’re qualities you’re aspiring to embody and are still striving to bring into reality. And your choice of traits may change over time.

Here are five steps to help you create the new, ideal you.

1. Select three to five words you want to use to describe yourself. They need to be reasonable and possible for you. These words are different from your values, but may have values inherent in them or made up of them. They’re concepts that reflect the way the Universe views you. And the ideas probably suggest traits of your most authentic self.

For instance, you could want to be:

Compassionate, imaginative, and motivated
Confident, proactive, and determined
Resourceful, trustworthy, and self-disciplined
Spiritual, present, and empathetic

2. Ascertain the qualities you need to develop for your words to be true. These will include attitudes, beliefs, habits, and skills that are cultivated and amplified as you work on your overall vision for yourself. What do you need to develop to fully bring these attributes into reality?

For instance, to be self-disciplined, you need to follow through on the decisions and promises you’ve made, even when they’re inconvenient. To be proactive, you take action to bring about specific results, addressing issues before they become a problem. In developing compassion, you choose to consciously seek the good in everyone and be nonjudgmental.

3. Write your words somewhere so you see them daily. This could be on your phone, tablet, computer or taped on the wall by your desk. They’ll remind you what you’re aspiring towards and that their qualities are important to you.

4. When you read these words, feel what they mean to you. This impresses the subconscious and it will take that as direction to become like them. Say to yourself, “This is who I’m choosing to be.” Identify with them because you tend to become what you identify with. Your subconscious wants you to be congruent with your belief about your identity.

5. Commit to acting on your new characteristics. For instance, to be more determined, persist when the going gets rough. If you want to be more optimistic, and you’ve had several setbacks, choose to believe the best possible outcome. Be consistent with the behaviors, qualities and traits that reflect your ideal you. Over time, they will feel more natural and it will become automatic.

What you’re doing is creating a vision of the best version of yourself. You’re molding your future you into the person you want to be. As you do, you’re becoming the person who accomplishes your goals and vision.

Affirmation:
The Universe approves of me, as I am, and also has an ideal concept of who I can be. It views me as my best self and knows that I can grow into that ideal. It supports me fully in my endeavor to be a better person. I make the choices that reflect my future, ideal self and act on them.

Watch the accompanying video, 3 Exercises to Improve Your Self-Image.