Develop Self-Supporting Behaviours
Having identified and defeated the false rationale for your self-sabotaging behaviours, you are now free to start rebuilding your self-confidence. Ask yourself:
- What can you say to myself that is positive or encouraging?
- What options do you have? Is there more than one way to achieve your goal?
- Can you build self-confidence by setting and achieving much smaller goals, on your way to achieving the big ones you’ve not achieved in the past?
Turn your assumptions around and put them in the correct perspective. Align them with positive beliefs about what you can accomplish. When your skills, beliefs and behaviours are aligned, you will have the right mental, emotional, and physical states to do whatever you set your mind to.
Then use your answers to come up with a message that inspires you to move in a positive direction, for example, “Even though I doubt that I can complete this project on time, I know I have the resources and skills I need to get me through. When I start tackling the project, I know I will release a lot of the stress and anxiety I have been carrying around while I’ve been procrastinating.”
Tip 1:
Take a look at other people around you who are doing what they set out to do and living the life they were meant to live. Do they actually have better skills than you? Have they been given opportunities that you haven’t?
Probably not, at least initially. What they have is a belief they can do whatever they want to do. They tell themselves they can accomplish their goals and dreams, and then they set in place a plan to achieve this.
Key Points
Turning your dreams into reality requires solid planning and lots of work and effort. To start the process, however, you need to believe in yourself and your ability to actually do it.
Self-sabotaging behaviour cuts this belief off at the knees. Negative self-talk is an easy pattern to fall into and a difficult one to break out of. But by being aware of negative self-talk, you can ward off the effects of self-sabotage before it wears away your self-esteem. Start today, by tackling your sabotaging messages and behaviours, and put yourself on a path toward greater satisfaction and fulfilment.
This statement is soo true ” Negative self-talk is an easy pattern to fall into and a difficult one to break out of.”