Have you ever considered why the thoughts you have about yourself matter? Or how they impact your personal and professional results?
As much self-work as I have done, it never really occurred to me that my thoughts about myself impacted the results I produced in my life. I used to think that who I am was something different than what I thought. Only recently did I learn that I am literally creating who I am by what I think. This was a game changer for me.
If I were to ask you, “who are you?” where do you go to find the answer? Did you go to your past? Your accomplishments? Or did you identify things that define who you are? Basically, what happens is you define yourself by this and often don’t realize it. Once we realize that we can change who we are by what we think about who we are, we can decide how we want to define ourselves.
You are only defined by how you think about yourself. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t change how you see yourself so you can be and do exactly what you want. ~Brook Castillo
Examining your thoughts about you reveals your self-concept, which establishes how you live and show up in the world. Some of the thoughts you might have that don’t serve you are:
- I was born this way
- I’m not ambitious
- I’ve never been athletic
- I don’t have a mind for numbers
- That’s just how I am
- I am set in my ways
- I can’t change
One way to uncover the thoughts you have about yourself is to complete the following:
I am _______________________________________________________________.
For example, when I started to explore my thoughts about me, I made a list of “I am” statements:
- I am courageous
- I am strong
- I am self-aware
- I am not good enough
- I am a bad person
- I am smart
- I am capable
Notice the sneaky negative statements that crept in. These “I am” statements had become beliefs that were deeply ingrained. A belief is a thought that we keep thinking until we believe it, and it becomes unconscious. Once I accepted that beliefs are sentences in my brain, I realized I could change them by changing my thoughts about me.
I started to work on what I wanted to believe about me – on purpose. As I dug deeper, it became clear that if I could change my beliefs about me, I could change my life. That life isn’t something that just is. Life is something we create with our mind. This means we can decide what we want on purpose, and go create it.
Since we are at the beginning of a new year and a new decade, I encourage you to begin to examine your thoughts about yourself. Take a few minutes to write down the thoughts that don’t serve you, and examine your negative “I am” statements. As you become more aware of your thoughts about you, it will be easier to change any beliefs that don’t serve you, so you can then design the life you want.
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