You see, part of the problem is that the first 18 years
of our lives we are told no 148,000 times by well-meaning people who were only
trying to protect us and keep us safe. However, sadly, eventually after all
this ‘no’ programming we too eventually join in this bombardment of our own
dreams and what’s possible and began telling ourselves, “no”. Repetition sure
is a convincing argument, isn’t it? Especially, when we are the ones saying it
now, huh?
Sadly, at this point of saying ‘no’ to ourselves, without
realizing it, we begin constructing an invisible wall that stands between
ourselves and our dreams, and what’s possible. Even though we can’t see that wall,
that wall will remain standing tall and impenetrable for as long as our old
programming remains within us. You see, we become the thoughts that are in our
minds. And if those thoughts are… ‘no can do’… well, you already know the rest…
I don’t even have to tell you…
You want to know what the really sad thing is though?
Someone else programmed us to think like that. And ironically, they were most
likely the ones who were on our side and most likely just trying to help us
too! Sad, isn’t it? We’ve all heard that saying that the road to hell is paved
with good intentions, right? Life sure can be crazy and confusing!
There is a silver lining in this dark ominous crazy
life-cloud though. That lining is that there are many good self-help programs
out there that can improve our lives. The bad thing though, according to Dr.
Helmstetter most of them are lacking permanence, knowledge of the psychological
process of the brain, and a new word-for-word programming for our minds.
However, self-talk does have these three success elements. Thus, Dr.
Helmstetter’s self-talk makes a lot of sense because it can paint a new and
improved picture of ourselves in our own minds.
Another good thing in the self-improvement world is that
it makes no difference what happened to us in the past or how others programmed
us for something less than success without our permission. Thankfully, we
literally, can change just a little bit about ourselves in order to gain a
whole lot of quality of life back. The little thing we have to deliberately
change is what we let others say to us, what we say to ourselves, and what we
think and even feel about ourselves. With just a little bit of work we can
reprogram ourselves for a better life.
We really can erase and replace all the less than
excellent programming with excellent, life-fulfilling programming with
self-talk. Hey, we talk to ourselves all day long anyways. There is just no
getting around that. We’re going to do it regardless, so we might as well
deliberately change the conversation going on in our own heads. Change the
self-talk and change our lives for the better.
Interestingly, the real obstacle here many times isn’t
our subpar programming, but the fact that most of us don’t realize that we’ve
let others program us, and now we’re reinforcing it on a daily basis. We have
blindly jumped right on that same wave of negativity and have continually
strenghened that negative programming from others by what we say to ourselves
now.
Thus, the invisible wall remains. However, we can crack
that wall, weaken that wall, and then tear it down through our new and improved
spoken words, unspoken thoughts, feelings, impressions, and physical responses.
Hey, the former military man inside of me has always said that if you
physically feel those butterflies in your stomach, then just command that
squadron of butterflies to line up and fly in a wedge formation for you instead
of against you.
We really can do this! You see, Dr. Helmstetter says that
the human brain will do anything possible we tell it to do, if we tell it often
enough and strong enough. So, let’s get going on this! And let’s do it with
some vigor.
Hey, our subconscious mind is even working right now, day
and night, to make sure that we become precisely the person we have unconsciously
told ourselves to be. What kind of person have you told it to be? You see,
here’s the deal, in order to live our best possible life, we are going to have
to ditch the old habit of automatically believing the worst first, and the best
last.
Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and
educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net.
Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf
