Did you know that you are always talking to yourself?
No, you are not cracking up! However, you are continuously communicating to yourself through the way you think to yourself, view things, and the images you create in your mind. I don’t know about you, but most of the messages I get from media and people around me tend to be more negative than optimistic.
One of the biggest differences between successful people and unsuccessful people is the tendency to be reactive rather than proactive.
Unsuccessful people tend to be passive listeners, receiving the messages from TV and radio in an unthinking fashion, so that they tend to absorb those messages and incorporate them into their thinking.
Choose Your Mental Diet Carefully
Successful people, on the other hand, take charge of the information that goes into their minds. They know that they can feed on junk food and produce junk food results, or they can consciously filter and choose what they decide to put into their mind: they feed on mental power vegetables.
Take An Inventory of What You Watch, Listen To, and Read
As you go into the next week, I would encourage you to take an inventory about what you listen to and read during the days of your life. Do you passively view and listen to junk food TV programs, radio shows, and negative opinions. Or do you seek to read quality content, listen to optimistic messages, and view valuable shows that will add value to your thinking and positive results to your life?
An example of positive sources of mental food that I choose to “eat” during the week: daily time in the Bible; 15 minutes of personal development at one of my favorite podcasts; reading quality books both in my field and fictional works as well, and quality blogs (for example, Zen Habits, Change Your Thoughts, Advanced Life Skills, among others)
One key success factor resource you will want to add to your mental war-chest is positive affirmations that will empower your brain.
Think of it as filling up on high grade gas in order to drive effectively throughout the week. I borrowed these positive affirmations from Zig Ziglar’s Success for Dummies.
As Zig states, “You should look yourself in the eye as you make these positive affirmations. Don’t be shy; go ahead and get started! I would challenge you to print these out, laminate them, and read them aloud in the car on the way to work in the morning, and prior to retiring at night:
I clearly understand that failure is an event, not a person; that yesterday really did end last night; and that success isn’t final and failure is not fatal because I only fail if I quit.
I have the courage to admit a mistake and to say that I was wrong.
I have vision in my life.
I utilize every minute well to maximize my ability.
I am successful because I believe that to be truly educated, I must be mentored–either in business or in my personal life, by reading or by association–by superior minds with greater skills and mature spirits.
I discipline myself to do the things that I need to do when I need to do them, because I know that doing them will enable me someday to do the things I want to do when I want to do them.
I clearly understand that if I develop yearning power and apply learning power, I will increase my earning powers.
I have written, specific goals for my life, and I review them daily.
I have a great sense of humor, and I have the ability to laugh at myself.
I am like an eraser. I recognize my mistakes, I learn from my mistakes, and then I erase those mistakes from my memory.
I move forward every day, even if it’s only a tiny step, because I know that great things are accomplished with tiny moves, but nothing is accomplished by standing still.
One other powerful set of Zig Ziglar affirmations I have used over the years with great success is found here. I encourage you to incorporate these into your life. I challenge you: if you use positive affirmations on a daily basis, you will see some very positive results after 30 days. Write me and let me know about the positive results that you bring into your life.
photo credit: Damien Pollet
About Stephen Borgman
Twitter: Mazzastick
says:
Hey Stephen,
It’s so crucial to maintain positive self-talk as well as filter the information that we are receiving. I seldom watch TV or listen to talk radio anymore because of the messages that are being broadcast.
We can take this a step further by filtering what people around us say as well. I like Zig’s line about the mind and the eraser. I will have to use that one.
Justin@Mazzastick recently posted..Master’s Lesson – Intuitive Exercises to Awaken The Divine Self
Justin, I like your points about filtering what people around us say as well. Thanks to Netflix and Tivo, I watch hardly any TV either. It’s been quite a nice change.
Twitter: lynnjonesie
says:
Stephen, I am a firm believe in the power of daily positive affirmations or Auto suggestion. Auto suggestion can change your life. Isn’t it cool how we can basically brain wash ourselves by using Positive affirmations and Auto suggestion. I also adopt Jim Rohn’s philosophy on reading self development books on a daily basis and that we should have a huge library of books that cause us to learn and grow.
Great post. Iiked it!
Lynn
Lynn Jones recently posted..What Do You Do to Get Back on Your Feet After You Fall
Great article Stephen! I am acutely aware that I talk to myself – seriously. I especially use my internal conversations to work out problems. My best problem solving method is to spend some time thinking about the problem I need to solve just before I drop off to sleep. When I start to wake up in the morning – that magical rim sleep time – more often than not a solution comes to me. I read somewhere that’s particularly common to introverts (which I am) … I don’t know, but it works for me. I so agree with you about being aware of what we’re feeding our brains – which is one of the reasons I very seldom watch television. Thanks for the inspiration!
Marquita Herald recently posted..A True Story- Embracing Fear as the Price of Growth
I love your idea, Marquita, of posing the problem to yourself before falling asleep. Our minds can be incredibly creative on our behalf. I’m glad to be in the company of others who restrict their TV so that they can feast on great mental food
Hey Stephen,
It is a great pleasure to read your blog. I really enjoyed this post. Thankfully I learnt early not to pay much attention to the pressures of the media and outside influence and thankfully, I never followed the masses when it came to fashion pressures, advertisements, the news and popular culture.
I very rarely watch TV and I don’t listen to the news. I am guessing if there was something really important and affected me greatly they would come knocking on my door
I just more and more people could learn to live this way, it would take an awful lot of stress and pressure off of them, to live a more tranquil and positive life.
Yours in Success,
Beth
Beth Hewitt recently posted..Be who you want to be
Beth, thank you for the kind words. It seems some of the most successful people are those who have removed their exposure to the news, the media, and to negative people. You’re right: doing this does lead to a much more tranquil and positive life
Hey Stephen….I really enjoyed this post. I’m a great believer in filtering the news and information I am exposed to and try to listen to some personal development every day. When I first embarked on this journey I was astonished to find that so many successful people do not listen to the news or read newspapers, but now I understand.
I once heard that after 9/11 some people were suffering post traumatic stress symptoms, even though they lived hundreds of miles from New York and had not been in any way personally affected by the disaster. Watching the news over and over again had been enough to trigger the symptoms!
Thanks again for your post.
Louise
Louise Steiner recently posted..Video Email – 7 Reasons Why You Need Video Email Software In Your Business
Wow, Louise, what a great example of the negative detriment that repeated exposure to bad news can bring. One morning about two weeks ago I happened to watch the morning news, and I had what felt like an emotional hangover for the rest of the morning!
What a fun post Stephen! And, yes, I do talk to myself all the time, that’s what minds do! Happily I’m able to slow it down during meditation. I love the concept of only seeing and hearing what is positive around me because that is what I choose to be attuned to. I’ve made it a practice to eliminate things and also some people from my life who are negative. When we focus on the positive, that’s what we get. However, I’m not perfect either and can catch myself slipping up… but with practise it doesn’t take but a few moments to get back on track. It’s much more rewarding to view life as refreshing and full of opportunity!
Loren Greig recently posted..Blog Comments Help With Search Engine Optimization – Always Aim For Higher SEO
Eliminating unhelpful sources of input and opening ourselves up to meditation and good input: it’s a great concept and an even better practice! Thanks, Loren, for the feedback. I love your last point: “It’s much more rewarding to view life as refreshing and full of opportunity!”
Affirmations are so powerful and yes, we need to filter out the junk that we digest through the lens of our brains everyday. So much is coming at us that is hard sometimes. It is really a hard path to get to know yourself and the self talk you use but it is worth it. Thanks for inspiring and motivating.
Nicole Rushin recently posted..Calling the Dog
Twitter: steveborgman
says:
Thanks Nicole. Awareness is really the key step to being able to filter. Unfortunately, many of us go from day to day on autopilot. So it’s great to know that we can contribute to our own outcomes by the inputs we choose to receive.
Steve-Personal Success Factors recently posted..Discover the Best Way to Talk To Yourself