Negative Self Beliefs Are Sabotaging Your Ability to Live a Life of Happiness

The opinion you have of yourself is the most important opinion that you have. Too many people do not realize that how they feel about themselves affects what is perceived by others around them. What happens is your negative self-beliefs, in turn, affects your relationships, your opportunities, and your overall life.

Too many people go around feeling wrong on the inside. Too many people do not like who they are. Instead they focus on their faults, their weaknesses, and they are constantly critical towards themselves. These are all negative self beliefs.

That recording of everything they have done wrong is always playing in their minds… “You are not patient enough,” “you blew your diet yesterday,” “you are a bad parent,” “you are still struggling with that addiction,”  “you should be ashamed of yourself”.  With all the noise in their minds, they wonder why they are not happy.  The reason they are not happy is because of this war going on inside their heads. We are not meant to go through life, feeling wrong on the inside.

Stop focusing on your faults,

quit overanalyzing your weaknesses,

stop beating yourself up because you are not who you thought you would be.

Here’s the key thing to remember: you are not a finished product yet.  Life is about progress, not perfection. I say this often but I believe it to be true: “little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

We have to learn to enjoy the life we are in right now. Absolutely you have some weakness, we all do. There likely are some areas where you know you need to improve, but being down on yourself is not going to help you do better…Being down on yourself is not going to help you do better.

Having that nagging feeling that is tell you that, you don’t measure up, you’ll never get it right is not going to move you forward.  You have to accept yourself right where you are, faults and all.  The changes and results you want, may not be happing as fast as you’d like them too,  but you need to trust in the process and accept yourself where you are right now.

The problem with not liking yourself is you’re the only person that you can never get away from. You can get away from your boss, your neighbor, even at times hide from your kids, but you can never get away from you. You are always with You. If you don’t like you, life is going to be very miserable. Don’t live your life being against yourself.

You may have some things wrong with you, but you have a lot more right with you.

You may have a long way to go, but if you look back, you will see how far you’ve already come.

Keep your flaws in perspective. Every person has something they are dealing with. Every person at some time had negative self-beliefs but the key is to invest in changing your perspective.  Social media is full of “the show”. You may see someone who looks further along than you are. They look like they have it all together, they are happy and enjoying their life. They are successful, their kids actually listen to them, they are in perfect health.  BUT, the reason they are not upset, the reason they are not down on themselves, is they have learned this principle to enjoy where they are at right now.

Often we think, I’m going feel good about myself as soon as I lose the 10 lbs, as soon as I break this addiction, as soon as I control my emotions, then I will get rid of the guilt, the heaviness.

What I am asking you to do today is to feel good about yourself right, where you are at. Recognize any negative self-beliefs you may have and reframe them into positives. If you don’t understand this, you will go through life not liking yourself. This is because as soon as you overcome the weakness in the forefront of your mind,  you cross this tasks off your list, there will be something else you need to improve upon. It will be a never-ending cycle. 

Identifying Negative Core Beliefs about yourself is often enough to understand recurrent problems in your life. Identifying core beliefs either about yourself, others, or your world can complete your understanding of why a situation is particularly challenging or distressing to you.
Try and recall an intense or stressful situation. Identify any “hot thoughts” or automatic thoughts that arise. End this exercise with thinking “is this true?” Write down some evidence to support the thought and evidence against the statement. Lastly think of a more “balanced thought.” The more you do this the less power negative core believes will have and you will begin to understand your reactions & emotions better.

Another exercise I want you to get in the habit of doing is affirmations. To do this write down 3 positive aspects of you in the form of “I AM”  statements.  Keep these in a place where you will see them regularly. Maybe on the bathroom mirror, beside your bed, or on the home screen of your phone. Look at them daily and remind yourself you are doing the best you can and your best is always enough.

“Start where you are. Use what you have to do what you can”

XO

Breanne