Life is a funny thing. Sometimes we can't truly find ourselves until we are completely and utterly lost. Lost in the storms life inevitably brings, and barely surviving each new day.
Lost when your mother dies.
Lost when your divorce is final.
Lost when the treatment fails.
Some people stay in the perpetual wasteland of 'lost' and never move on. Not you! You might be lost now, but you will survive life's storms and find your path. Survival doesn't just happen. You MAKE it happen. By working hard and creatively looking for solutions, you will find your path. YOU are going to get yourself there. Believe in yourself.
Take Five
Five steps to believing in yourself:
- Take Action. Actions reflect beliefs. By taking even the smallest steps, you are communicating to yourself and the world that you believe in yourself and your journey. Staying passive fuels depression, while taking action raises your self-esteem and generates feelings of power and hope. Make it as consistent as you can. Do at least one thing every day to move yourself forward. Show yourself that you believe. That's action. Take a shower. Get dressed. Take a walk.
- Change your focus to empower YOU. Think, 'When I get through this...", not "If I get through this". Only YOU have the power to get you where you want to be. At any given moment, you have the power to say, "This is NOT how my story is going to end." This is a process. Be patient with yourself as you begin to tap into the power within.
- Recognize your potential. You know the devastation of the storm; and can easily fall into the trap of blaming yourself for what has happened. You are human, full of flaws and failings, and you know your own limitations better than anyone. But each of us has another side of our humanity, an enormous potential within us that we rarely acknowledge. Ignore your internal self-talk. Move your thoughts to function on a higher plane of optimism and potential. Push yourself, even just a little, outside your comfort zone of mediocrity to tap into your inner awesomeness. This is tough. You are hurting and overwhelmed. Do what you can and keep coming back to this. Start a list. It may start with only one thing, but as time goes by and you think of another thing to write down, your list will begin to grow.
How many of us go through life conditioned to believe that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before? Failure is part of learning. Believe in your power. Shift your way of thinking about yourself away from flaws or limitations. Don't be held back by a limitation that has held you in the past. Don't listen to the strongholds placed on you, or by you, that carry from your childhood. Break out of the mindset that failure is bad, and pain is a dirty secret. Take stock of the depth of your potential.
- Neutralize Fear. Fear, by definition, is the expectation of pain. Some fears are instinctual, like fear of physical harm or the fear of falling. Other fears are learned; fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of consequences, fear for the future. Fear is a natural reaction to change. Your strategy for managing this fear is control. Make a plan to control the aspects that you can control, and let go of the rest. Live in today, not borrowing fear for what might happen tomorrow.
- Visualize Success. Seeing is believing. Don't just see it: ACTIVELY see it. Visualize your path with as much detail and energy as you can. What are you wearing, who is with you, what is the temperature like, what kinds of feelings are you having? Create the most compelling vision you can imagine. Embrace the vision by journaling, building a collage, or just one picture that speaks to you. Engaging other senses, or putting things in a visual format help make your future success all the more real. If you can see it, you can be it.
The first step to being found is finding yourself.
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