standards – Empowering Your Mind

You Are Your Authority

March 11, 2025 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Chains breaking — vector silhouette of a girl with raised hands and broken chains

Years ago, I discovered that the critical people in my life, who loved to pick at me and tear me down, were just echoing the condemning voices in my head. I’d spent so much time distracted, defending myself against those outer critics, that I hadn’t addressed the real issue, how I felt about myself. I’d given the past, and the people in it, authority over me.

Most of us have disapproving judgements about ourselves that tell us that we’re not good enough. Maybe you have an inner critic that tells you that you can’t do anything right, that you “should” be perfect, or that making a mistake is worse than death. I know of people who can’t take a day off because they’d feel guilty. And others who refused to hire someone to paint their house because they felt they “ought” to do it. Your internal judge pounds you with its condemnations, both from within, using guilt, and outwardly by reflecting your inner feelings in how the people in your life treat you.

Life Reflects Your Inner Struggle

Many people who have rebelled against authority figures in the past tend to have problems now with bosses, police, the IRS, etc. They defy internalized critical messages from their childhood environment, and don’t accept responsibility for their actions. Therefore, the energy that they have resisted and disowned increases and echoes back to them from the world.

Whatever you feel victimized by will mirror in your life. Just as my environment had been reflecting back to me what was already in my consciousness. I had to change my attitude from defending myself to addressing the internal messages from a position of strength. As I took responsibility for my own well being, the critics began to fade out of my life. I’m not saying it was easy. It wasn’t. But once I convinced myself that no one had the right to put me down, including my internal critic, my life began to improve.

How to Counter Your Critical Judgements

When you listen to the critical things that you say to yourself, you can begin to deal with them. As with everything in the subconscious, they once had a reason and a purpose to protect you. Although they’ve been trying to help you, they’ve been doing it in a way that you have outgrown. Those messages were patterned on the authority figures in your childhood so that you could fit into the conditions at that time. But they are no longer necessary, and won’t realize it until you tell them so. Believe it or not, they’re waiting for you to assert your power over them and reclaim your authority.

If the old ideas are telling you that you don’t deserve good, or that you’re not worthy, realize that the Universe has much more authority than the people who implanted those beliefs in you. And the Infinite knows that you deserve all the good that Life has to offer. Spirit is stronger than any outdated attitude. A Divine truth is that the Universe wants you to accept and express the wholeness of your being.

You Have the Right to Be Free

You have the right to re-examine the standards by which you have lived your life. Those condemning internal messages have been trying to keep you living within the bounds of someone else’s values. With all the knowledge you now have, you can change the attitudes that no longer serve you. Using affirmations and Divine guidance, you can transform the outdated values into ones that are in alignment with love, harmony, joy, abundance, and all the good there is.

Affirmations I used during this period were, “I am the authority in my life” and “I own my authority.” I had to review all the standards I’d grown up with, reassess them and release the ones that no longer served me. When I began to do this, it was scary. The first few times that I stood up for myself, I felt the sky might fall. It didn’t. Instead, the Universe rushed in to support me and my world expanded. The same will be true for you.

Affirmation:

I know that the Universe supports me in the good that I desire. The only one that keeps my good from me is my own thoughts about it. I now release any old concepts that might have restricted my acceptance of all the good I desire. As I place my desire in my mind, knowing that I deserve it, then the All of the Universe rushes in to fulfill it in a perfect way.

As a focus mentor, hypnotherapist, and writer, Linda-Ann Stewart motivates women entrepreneurs and small business owners to focus and transform their business through deliberate actions that break through distraction and overwhelm to greater success, wellbeing and prosperity.To boost productivity and reduce overwhelm, register for her FREE guide, Design Your Best Day, at https://www.Linda-AnnStewart.com/guide.html

Break Free of Perfectionism

March 13, 2018 Linda-Ann Stewart

Perfectionism prevents you from moving forward in your life. It’s an enemy of innovation and creativity, because they start off being disorganized. Progress is messy. And when you try to be perfect, you block your ability to complete anything. Learn how to overcome this undermining tendency so that you can achieve your vision.

Transcript:

Are you a perfectionist? Trying to get everything perfect before you move on? Is it successful? I’ll bet probably not. That’s because perfectionism is an unreachable goal. It doesn’t serve you or allow you to thrive. It holds you prisoner to its demands. And it lies when it lures you with the idea that it helps you to excel. It doesn’t. It can actually derail your ability to excel Perfectionism and excelling are two different things. Perfection is a dead end. Excellence can always be improved.

I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, a vision strategist. For almost 30 years, I’ve been a hypnotherapist. Clients came to see me to create change in their lives. Early on, I discovered that they had to also have a vision of where they wanted to end up with that change to be truly successful. Now, as a vision strategist, I help women entrepreneurs get a clear vision, get focused on its strategies and get back in control so they’re able to accelerate to the next level of their business.

Voltaire said,”Perfection is the enemy of the good.” It’s also the enemy of innovation and creativity. Because those are messy and disorganized. They’re designed to create order out of chaos, but first chaos has to reign. I understand if you’re just shuddering as I mention that. I’ll bet it goes counter to everything you’ve believed.

As an example, an artist friend of mine was blocked. She specialized in oils, and wanted her paintings to be perfect. So she’d work and rework parts of her paintings and had gotten to a point where she wouldn’t complete one. To break through this block, and loosen up, she decided to take a watercolor class from a friend.

She was shocked to her bones when the teacher started the class by saying, “Give yourself permission to paint the worst picture you ever have.” My friend was almost immobilized by this instruction. “I can’t do that,” she said. “I have to try my best.” After a lot of encouragement, she was finally able to let go and experiment and play. And it made her realize that her attachment to perfection was what was blocking her. And she began completing paintings again.

Have you ever heard the saying, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well?” Many people read that to mean “perfectly.” I prefer the quote by G. K. Chesterton, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” If you’re a perfectionist, I’ll bet you just winced. It’s completely opposite of everything you were taught or have done. But I promise, the sky won’t fall if you do something badly. The earth will continue to spin. No one will think less of you. You’re the one who puts that pressure on yourself. No one else cares that much. You’re the one blocking your progress and your vision, like my artist friend was.

When you first start working on something or starting a new enterprise, don’t expect yourself to be perfect. You’re going to do poorly at first. A child doesn’t walk the first time they try, do they? You’re not going to be an expert when you first start something new. Yes, I know that rocks you down to your feet. But you have to practice before you can reasonably expect to master your project. You’ll just have to keep working at it. The idea is progress, not perfection.

But sometimes perfectionists procrastinate or rework what they’ve already done just to avoid completing a project. It keeps them from facing judgement, rejection or criticism. But most of that negativity comes from themselves. Like I said, most of the people who know you aren’t going to care.

Perfection is the enemy of good, progress and achieving your vision. Your path to your vision or completion isn’t going to go in a straight line. It’s going to be messy. Accept it. I know that’s hard. There are going to be setbacks and leaps forward. You’re going to learn along the way and make different decisions. That’s the way progress works. It’s messy.

You can still have high standards. Just have reasonable ones. Don’t sacrifice progress or completion to impossible ideals. If you start procrastinating, then you know that standard is too demanding. Scale back and just start. Take a step. Then another. Keep taking steps until it’s done. Just get it done. Even if it’s badly. You’ll eventually get used to it. And you’ll be more likely to excel, be happier and more successful.

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

Thank you for watching. I know this was hard for you, but I hope you’ve gotten some encouragement to loosen some of your perfectionistic tendencies. Take care.

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“When Self-Image Sabotages Positive Thinking”

May 7, 2010 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Positive thinking, which powers the Law of Attraction, always works, as long as there isn’t anything that conflicts with it. Some of those sabotaging issues are ones you know about, such as focusing on what you don’t have (instead of what you want), verbally negating the positive, and old programming conflicts. But one of the main reasons it doesn’t fulfill expectations is due to having a self-image that contradicts your positive focus.

Self-image is a combination of self-worth, self-esteem and self-acceptance. If your self-image doesn’t agree with your conscious affirmative thinking, then your subconscious won’t allow it to manifest. Your subconscious makes sure that what you attract into your life is consistent with what you believe about yourself. If you try to change the outer experience before changing the inner attitudes, your subconscious will short-circuit your positive thinking efforts.

Here are three of the ways a negative self-image can undermine your constructive thinking:

1. Guilt.

There are a couple of ways this can express in your life. Both tie up energy and focus.

The first way guilt can affect you is if you’re acting or thinking in a way that violates your values. For instance, if you consider yourself to be diligently honest, but you cheat on your taxes, this could set up a niggling feeling of guilt. You’ve ignored your values, and your subconscious knows that. So you unconsciously punish yourself by not getting that raise you want. The solution for this is to find where you’re going against your values and change it.

The other way is outdated feelings of guilt that aren’t valid anymore. You could still be feeling bad for stepping on your classmate’s hand in kindergarten. If something happened a long time ago, and you’ve learned the lesson from it, then this type of guilt no longer serves you. It has fulfilled its purpose. Stop punishing yourself by forgiving yourself and move on.

2. Standards and values.

You may have standards and values that conflict with what you’re affirming. For instance, you consider yourself to be honest and generous, and believe the rich to be selfish and corrupt. If you want to be wealthy, that would mean that you’d have to become selfish and corrupt, which would be inconsistent with your values. Your subconscious won’t allow that kind of incongruity.

You could also have old standards that prevent your achieving more. For instance, you want to earn more money, but you feel you shouldn’t make more money than your father or your husband. Not only would this be putting an unrealistic limit on your goal, it could prevent you from achieving it at all. Assess your standards and decide if they’re appropriate for you and and your goals. Some of those values are holdovers from past generations and need to be adjusted.

3. False beliefs about yourself.

Do you believe that you’re unworthy, undeserving, or unlovable? That’s a false belief. Evaluate anywhere you feel bad about yourself, and track it back to where it began. Usually the feeling got rooted in childhood, and was never challenged. Challenge it now. Consider where you’ve been successful, complimented, or appreciated. Those times could be more recent and more objective than the original events. Instead of focusing on the past lies that tear you down, fill your mind with all the constructive opinions that build you up. Stand up to your own self-criticism and let your power unfold.

Although a negative self-image can short-circuit positive thinking, the good news is that your self-image can be changed. Affirmation, visualization, and action in a constructive direction will reap great rewards. When your self-image is consistent with your positive thinking, you’ll get the results you want.

Affirmation

I know that positive thinking works, because what thought has created, thought can change. My thoughts are now changing to be in alignment with my goals. I now release anything that sabotages the good that I consciously choose. I forgive myself for past mistakes. I now update my standards and values to reflect what I feel is important. I recognize my true worth, and focus on the positive about myself. As I improve my self-image, and act accordingly, it becomes easier for me to achieve my goals.

A nationally known speaker, life coach, hypnotherapist, and writer, Linda-Ann Stewart helps people rediscover their power and sense of self-worth. Visit Secrets To The Law Of Attraction to download your copy of this free ebook.

self improvement, self help, personal growth, personal development, motivation, inspiration