Five Life-changing Lessons Crucial to Success! — The Law of Attraction — Part 5

This is the last in our series of life-changing articles. We at MessageRocks.com hope that you have enjoyed the series and that you have found them informative, challenging and beneficial. In the previous four lessons we have dealt with the area of Changing Your Thinking so you can Change Your Life. This final article deals with beliefs that cause unhappiness, common self-defeating behaviors, the cycle of negative thinking, signs of self-sabatoge, freeing yourself from the great thinking crippler—the fear of making mistakes and how to become mentally fitter.

"People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them." — Epictetus (Greek Philosopher 55 AD-135 AD)

Dr. Aaron Beck, one of world’s foremost authorities and pioneering father in the field of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, read this statement as a young medical student and was strongly influenced by it. It became part of the basic premise of his work: It is not a thing that makes us unhappy, but how we view things that make us unhappy. In other words, if we avoid struggling to change things, and instead change our own interpretations of things, we change how we feel and how we act in the future.

Dr. Beck suggests that there are seven unwritten rules that cause the most unhappiness. “Unwritten rules” are beliefs that we accept as being absolutely true, however, they are only as true as we believe them to be true.

The Seven Unwritten Rules That Cause Unhappiness are:
1. In order to be happy, I have to be successful all the time.
2. In order to be happy, I must be accepted and liked by all people at all times.
3. If I’m not the best, I’m a failure
4. If I make a mistake, I’m inept.
5. My value as a person depends on what others think of me.
6. I can’t live without someone to love me.
7. If somebody disagrees with me it means they don’t like me.

As you can see, these are all thought distortions! Thought distortions which are guaranteed to cause you untold grief if you allow them to have any influence over your life.

Dr. Beck also categorized these thoughts into 10 common self-defeating beliefs that sabotage our happiness and success. When we become aware of these erroneous beliefs and eliminate these self-defeating, self-sabotaging thoughts from our lives we will go on to lead far more productive and fulfilling lives than we ever dreamed possible.

The Ten Most Common Self-defeating Beliefs are:
1. Emotional perfectionism: I should always feel happy, confident, and in control of my emotions.
2. Performance perfectionism: I must never fail or make a mistake.
3. Perceived perfectionism: People will not love and accept me as a flawed and vulnerable human being.
4. Fear of disapproval or criticism: I need everybody’s approval to be worthwhile.
5. Fear of rejection: If I’m not loved, then life is not worth living.
6. Fear of being alone: If I’m alone, then I’m bound to feel miserable and unfulfilled.
7. Fear of failure: My worthiness depends on my achievements (or my intelligence or status or attractiveness, etc).
8. Conflict phobia: People who love each other shouldn’t fight.
9. Emotophobia: I should not feel angry, anxious, inadequate, jealous or vulnerable.
10. Entitlement: People should always be the way I expect them to be.

The Cycle of Negative Thinking

There is a cycle that negative thinking follows and it goes like this:
1. Faulty, negative thoughts lead to negative feelings (anxiety, worry, fear).
2. Negative feelings lead to unproductive or destructive behaviors.
3. Unproductive or destructive behaviors lead to negative outcomes.
4. Negative outcomes reinforce negative thoughts.

Think of this cycle in your life like a wheelbarrow going down a road. If the soil was moist (childhood) when you started to go down the path you would soon create a groove in which the wheelbarrow (your thoughts) would easily travel. After many years (adulthood) there would be a well-defined rut worn into the ground by the front tire and the edges of the groove would have become ridged like they had been molded in concrete.

Now whenever you take the wheelbarrow down that road, you have no options, you automatically get into the rut and follow it to the end of the road. However, after a while, you begin to realize you’re trapped.

Then one marvelous day, you decide that you don’t want to be in that rut anymore. You look around and realize that there is a better path you want to take your wheelbarrow along. You are ready for a change. You are ready to put the effort and work necessary into getting the wheel of your wheelbarrow out of the rut.

In the beginning you are going to have to push really hard to get the wheel out of the rut and when you do you may only go a few steps before it slips back into the same old groove. But if you persist, if you keep on reminding yourself that you want out of the rut and that is all that is important to you, you will eventually succeed and you will find yourself on that new path you saw and wanted. You can get out of the rut!!!

This process happens in everyone who is trying to change long standing problems or issues in their life. Many succeed in making the changes they want in their life and consider the hard work and effort well worth the effort. Unfortunately though, some just tire of the work involved in trying to get out of the rut — they have become comfortable and familiar with life in the rut and they are afraid of change. They begin to sabotage their own efforts to make changes, to prove to themselves that change is impossible. The tragedy is that they often don’t even know that they are sabotaging themselves.

The following article, written by the brilliant Dr. Robert Anthony, explains 7 behaviors that are clear evidence that we are sabotaging ourselves. I have included this article because so many people have been helped by this information.

The Top 7 Signs of Self-Sabotaging Behaviors and what to do about them! — By Dr. Robert Anthony

Having trouble reaching all your goals? Are you going for what you want, but feeling like something is road-blocking the way? Are you finding yourself “not” doing some of the things you know you should be doing?

You may be a victim of sabotage—self-sabotage. How do you know, and what can you do about it? Read on and see.

1. Focusing on what is not working, not right or missing from your life.

Problem: Notice how often you speak about and think about what is not working, not right, or missing from your life. This only attracts more of the things you don’t want.

Action: Ask yourself a new question: “What’s going right?” or “What IS working?” Begin to notice all the things, no matter how small, that are working well. Keep an evidence journal and each day write down everything, I do mean everything, that is working and you will attract more of what is working!

2. Being stuck in fear:

Problem: Do you worry a lot about the future and what is going to happen or might happen? Are you thinking about your fears so much that you are paralyzed and take no action because of fear of what might occur?

Action: It is time to put your focus on the present. We can’t control or predict the future or other people’s behaviors. All we can control is our own, right here, right now.

Ask yourself the question “What is the worst thing that could happen?” Then, let go and know that rarely do the scenarios we create in our heads occur. Take a moment to put things into perspective by writing down the things you can not change, the things you want to change, and accept that the Universe, God, Spirit, whatever you call it will take care of the rest. It always does!

3. Feeling you have no value.

Problem: Do you forget all your accomplishments and lack pride in who you are and what you have accomplished? If you obsess about the past or your lack of success or lack of achievement, then you’ll be stuck in noticing how much you lack as a person. If you often criticize yourself or can’t accept compliments, it’s a definite sign that you have fallen into this trap.

Action: You can choose to notice what you do that is good and the things you can be proud of, no matter how small they may seem. Each day keep a log of what you are grateful for about YOU. When you hear your mind chattering about what you haven’t done right or well, turn down the volume and turn up the volume to hear the voice that knows the TRUTH about who you are and how you add value to the world.

Acknowledge yourself for at least 5 things each and every day that you did well. Each day, compliment yourself on something you did that you feel good about. Notice your small successes and accept the compliments others give you.

4. Comparing yourself to others.

Problem: Do you constantly compare yourself to others and then feel badly when compared to them? Comparison doesn’t motivate us to do more or be better, instead it makes us feel we’ll never be good enough and we aren’t right now.

Action: Write out the 5 qualities you like best about yourself. Then write out what you value most in your life. When you go to a place of comparison, notice how similar you are with the other person versus what is different. Begin to create a list of adjectives that describe you - at least 25 positive words about your greatness. Whenever you notice yourself in a comparison mode, think of some of the adjectives that describe YOU.

5. Self-Sabotage - getting what you want and then losing it.

Problem: Do you not believe that you deserve to have what you want? When you get what you want, why do you often lose it or mess it up? What is the true story underneath - maybe that you think aren’t good enough to have it?

Action: List all the things you have accomplished that faded away. Simply notice these things, but don’t place any judgment on the fact they disappeared. How did they bring you satisfaction? How did they make you feel? What is the limiting belief that you have that tells you inside why you can’t have what you want? Be quiet, be still and listen to it.

Write down how you felt when you had what you wanted. Write down how you feel now, without it. Then write a “bridge belief”: a very, very small belief that feels a little bit better than what you now feel. Each week, create a new bridge belief, no matter how small, that you can really believe. By using these bridges as stepping-stones, you’ll shift your limiting beliefs slowly and be on the other side of the bridge and able to maintain it because you will have a new belief inside of you.

6. You chase away relationships.

Problem: Do you always feel something is missing in your relationships or find fault with the other person? Perhaps you are afraid of intimacy. Underneath this is usually a fear of abandonment or exposure that causes you to distance yourself from others.

Action: Create a list of the qualities you value in a relationship and the qualities you want to attract in your partners. Express what you want and don’t want to the other person and allow them to express the same to you. Create time to acknowledge the other person on a regular basis. Notice when you feel afraid. Don’t try to push the feelings away. Know that the feelings are there and that is fine. Then, in that moment, focus on what feels good about the relationship.

7. Having no purpose.

Problem: Do you feel you have no purpose in life? We all have some purpose for being on the planet and it is time to notice yours.

Action: Write down all the things that are important to you - the thing you want to create in your life. Then write out what you want to contribute to the world. From your writing, create a statement of purpose for yourself that you can read each and every day.

Then stop worrying about not knowing your purpose and start creating what you desire now. It doesn’t matter what you want in the future. So start creating something you want in your life NOW. This action will ultimately put you in alignment and bring you closer to your overall purpose.

I would like to add one more to this list of self-sabotaging behaviors and that is:

The fear of making a mistake.

I have included in this lesson an article by Dr. David Burns because it examines the sequence of going from a wrong thought to thinking right. It is an excellent article.

Why It’s Great to Be Able to Make Mistakes — by Dr. David Burns

In Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated, Dr. David Burns illustrates in point 1 how we typically view a mistake and the ramifications we believe will come of it. As he goes through each additional point, he teaches us how to view our mistakes and how to enjoy the process.

1. (Your perspective) “I fear mistakes because I see everything in absolutist, perfectionistic terms — one mistake and the whole is ruined.” This is erroneous. A small mistake certainly doesn’t ruin an otherwise fine whole.

2. It’s good to make mistakes because then we learn — in fact, we won’t learn unless we make mistakes. No one can avoid making mistakes — and since it’s going to happen in any case, we may as well accept it and learn from it.

3. Recognizing our mistakes helps us adjust our behavior so that we can get results we’re more pleased with — so we might say that mistakes ultimately operate to make us happier and to make things better.

4. If we fear making mistakes, we become paralyzed — we’re afraid to do or try anything, since we might (in fact, probably will) make some mistakes. If we restrict our activities so that we won’t make mistakes, then we are really defeating ourselves. The more we try, the more mistakes we make, the faster we’ll learn, and the happier we’ll be ultimately.

5. Most people aren’t going to be mad at us or dislike us because we make mistakes — they all make mistakes, and most people feel uncomfortable around “perfect” people.

6. We don’t die if we make mistakes.

Isn’t that a relief! That is the key to freedom right there!

I would like to conclude this series with the following article. I felt it was an appropriate guide to end this series on Change Your Thinking! Change Your Life! and we hope you will benefit from the lessons in it.

How to become mentally fitter
source: http://www.futurevisions.org

Most people are shocked when they learn that every thought or image has both short-term and long term consequences.

We all know from experience and observation that physical training affects physical health and can be a powerful way to reduce stress. Now, it has been proved that mental training is at least as effective. Researchers have been able to ascertain that moving one finger and visualizing the same move activates the same neurological circuits.

So thinking and doing are equally powerful in the brain. New thoughts and images can literally stimulate new pathways in the brain (called dendritic growth). Thoughts and images that are constantly repeated become stronger, more readily available, and have the greatest impact on behavior.

For example, the thoughts and images you repeat about your job strengthen those neurological connections, just like you can wear a path through grass by repeatedly walking the same route. In a real sense, you are unknowingly using mental training principles to strengthen your response to your job. If you hope to enjoy your work but are regularly thinking negatively about it, your pattern of expending mental energy will have potentially catastrophic effects.

Mental training “rewires” the brain; it actually creates adaptations and structural changes in the brain and central nervous system. Some neurological connections are strengthened, others are replaced with completely new ones, and still others are simply reconditioned.

Here are the top techniques to create mental fitness:

Controlling negative thinking - negativity is normal, indeed a requisite, in the professional world. Yet everything from mood state to belief systems and from productivity levels to personal happiness can be adversely affected by negative thinking. It is therefore important to find ways to control it.

Desensitizing fears - procrastination is usually due to interfering and troublesome emotional responses (usually fear). Combining relaxation techniques with nonthreatening images associated with the fearsome situation can recondition the fear response. This will also work with one-cause phobias such as spider phobias but not with multiple-cause phobias such as claustrophobia or agoraphobia.

Writing - can release negative thinking and create new thinking scripts. A classic study showed that writing in a personal journal about conflicts results in less illness and fewer visits to the doctor. Although the actual writing itself may be somewhat painful and uncomfortable, the long-term results of writing in a way that leads to insights and a new, more effective script for keeping positive juices flowing will invariably be less distress and improved health.

Changing beliefs through affirmations - a simplistic procedure of replacing a negative thought with the opposite, positive statement. For example: I hate my boss is replaced with I admire my boss. This can be very helpful, although we usually revert under stress. Affirmations usually work best when replacing a neutral thought with a more helpful, positive one or when repeating the affirmation whilst under the same stress that usually produces the negative thought (quite a difficult feat to perform - try it sometime).

Preparing with mental rehearsal - the brain uses the same pathways to trigger an emotion as it does to respond to one. Emotions are reactive to thoughts, that is, our ingrained attitudes and beliefs create our emotions - both positive and negative. Just as visualizing moving your fingers in a specific sequence strengthens the neuromotor circuits that are involved in real physical practice, visualizing how you want to respond to a future event, such as an interview or meeting, strengthens the probability that those responses will actually happen.

Practicing mental focus - calmness and focus both reflect specific patterns of neurological arousal. Anything that strengthens the capacity for this, such as focusing your attention on walking as you walk or when you become completely absorbed in drafting a document, can achieve the same results.

Practicing positive thinking - top athletes, for example, fully understand that a positive and optimistic view of things is essential for success but that it can never distort the real truth about what’s happening. Positive thinking alone is important, but inadequate. It is necessary to be able to think critically without becoming negative. This is the ability to see the truth, warts and all, and to critically analyze a situation but within a positive context. Because of the way the brain works, the more negatively you think, the more negative you become. Conversely, inhibiting negative thinking and behavior automatically increases positivity.

One of the most powerful mental training strategies identified is the daily mental preparation — taking no more than ten minutes daily. It is one of the most valuable and effective techniques, provided it is given high enough priority that it becomes a daily ritual, like brushing your teeth. The most effective way is to be quiet and alone, making sure you have a present focus (to do that you merely have to shift your attention to anything external or anything below your neck). Briefly consider the day’s challenges and then connect them to your basic beliefs and values, your principles. Without meaning, the daily grind remains just that.

Finally, mentally and emotionally rehearse any scheduled performances. Do a practice run-through, anticipate potential trouble spots and see yourself responding with precision and poise. Anticipate difficulties and solve them as though they were happening right there and then. Recruit as many senses as possible and remember that your brain cannot distinguish something vividly imagined from something actually happening. Without question this is one of the most powerful tools discovered for accelerating mental fitness.

Mental training for top athletes is considered just as important as any physical training they do. Just as no Olympic athlete would skimp physical training, they would not dream of ignoring mental fitness training. Isn’t it time for this knowledge to become as widely adopted in the professional world?

This is Lesson 5 in a series of 5 articles entitled
Five life-Changing Lessons crucial to success!

This inspiring series of articles is a free gift from MessageRocks.com.
It is our hope that the messages contained in this series will enlighten, encourage, and empower you to create the life you always dreamed of. If you need an effective, life-changing tool to help you keep your focus on changing your thoughts and your life, visit the Pocket Motivator Gallery today at messagerocks.com.

Wishing you all the best that life has to offer!
— Lauren Sage Alexander —
© Copyright 2008

MessageRocks.com