We Determine Our Paths & Actions
Today, I encourage you to reflect on the stories you tell yourself. Our stories become our beliefs, but our stories are not always based on fact. You can challenge the stories you tell yourself, and you can change them. As Tony Robbins says, “Change your story, change your life.”
The stories we tell ourselves form our beliefs and are the top of a cascading waterfall that ultimately results in our actions and intentions, as shown below.
The thought stage is a critical point in the cascading waterfall. Thoughts represent our inflection point. Thoughts make the story/belief become real. Changing how you think about your story is your chance, your point of attack, during which you can conjure your own witness and have the most profound impact on your life.
If you can watch your own thoughts and recognize, or “catch,” negative thought patterns as they happen in real time, you can change most anything in your life that would result from the negative thought patterns.
Here’s how you change your story:
- Spot negative thought patterns.
- Stop negative thought patterns.
- Swap negative thought patterns with positive thought patterns. (This takes you back to the top of the waterfall so you can change your story and challenge your beliefs.)
If you recognize negative thoughts within your mind as a result of false beliefs or fictional stories, create space for yourself to reset, stop what you are doing, get outside and go for a 20-minute walk to reset yourself. The time spent resetting is well worth it. Yes, it’s 20 minutes now, but this 20-minute reset will prevent you from wasting time going down the dead end that most false stories and negative thought patterns lead you to. 20 minutes today will save you many hours or days later.
We all have the power within us to change. Yes, change is hard. Our internal beliefs and stories have been coded and programmed into our brains — sometimes for years. These tapes play over and over, and it can be very hard to break a negative cycle. But, you can do it.
An unwavering commitment to change and staying focused on your goals is the best way to change your story to focus on positive energy and emotions. Visual aids are critical during this process. Write out your core values (toward and away statements) and your life mission statement, and have them on display, where you can see them, as a constant reminder of who you are and how you want to live your life.
Define your goals for one year, three years and five years out. Your goals along with your core values and life mission statement will create powerful visual aids that remind you of who you are and where you are going. These positive thoughts will help you build strong stories and beliefs that create positive energy that can and will move you forward in your life.
There is real power in positive practices and routines. You have nothing to lose by removing negative energy from your life by putting positive habits into practice.
Make a decision to drive meaningful change in your life.
5-4-3-2-1
Off you go!