How to start believing in yourself again

I’ve been stuck in a bit of a rut lately.

And I’ll admit, I’ve been really wallowing in it… feeling sorry for myself, and letting old negative thought loops take over. You know the ones… 

“I can’t do this.” “It’s all too much.” “Why is everything so hard?” “Poor me.”

My wallowing led me to an afternoon (and evening) in bed, with pizza and wine and chocolate, re-watching Ted Lasso episodes. And I guess everything really does happen for a reason, because his speech on Belief was EXACTLY what I needed to hear:

“(The) problem is, we’ve all got so much junk floating through us, a lot of times we end up getting in our own way. Crap like envy, or fear, or shame.

I don’t want to mess around with that shit anymore… You know what I want to mess around with?

The belief that I matter, regardless of what I do or don’t achieve.

Or the belief that we all deserve to be loved, whether we’ve been hurt or maybe we’ve hurt somebody else.

What about the belief of hope? That’s what I want to mess with.

Believing that things can get better. That I can get better…

To believe in yourself… that’s fundamental to being alive.”

-Ted Lasso

The reality is, when we get tired and stressed and overwhelmed, and stuck in negative thought loops, we ARE getting in our own way.

We tend to overcomplicate everything, and over analyse everything. We let fear and self criticism take over. And it’s so easy to forget that it’s the little things that make a big difference, and we forget that we get to choose our reality.

“Our thoughts create our beliefs, and our beliefs create our reality.”

Here’s the thing: our minds take on whatever we tell ourselves on a regular basis, and then go looking for evidence of that to prove us right.

In other words… we see what we are focused on.

So if we are focused on all the negative things in our life, we’ll find more evidence of more negative things… because that’s what we are training our mind to look for.

If we are constantly saying “I’m too busy. I haven't got enough time. There's too much going on." Then we are reinforcing the belief that we don't have enough time in the day, that we've got too much stuff going on, and that we don't have enough time to get it all done. 

And so what that does is creates a reality where we're always feeling stressed and overwhelmed because we're focussed on the evidence that there's too much going on and we're too busy. And when someone asks us how we are, we say “I'm soooo busy”. Again reinforcing that belief that we don't have enough time.

So we feel more stressed and more overwhelmed, we feel even busier because we really believe that we don't have enough time, and we feel more stressed and overwhelmed, and it's a really vicious cycle that just keeps getting worse. 

Argh!

But, here’s the good news… We can choose to break the cycle.

If we instead start to practice feeding our mind positive thoughts, then our mind will look for evidence of positive things, because that’s what we are training it to look for.

So if we choose to say to ourselves on a regular basis: I'm calm, I'm confident, I'm in control”

Then our mind will start to look for evidence that we are confident and in control, and that we can calmly get through our days. And so then when stuff does come up, we're like "oh, wow, I handled that really well... I am confident and calm and in control."

And so then that reinforces our belief that we can calmly get through our days. And then we see even more evidence that we're easily able to deal with whatever comes up. 

"Yeah right, it's not that easy" says that negative voice.

"But what if it is?" says the positive one. Isn't it worth trying?

It's definitely worth trying!

What works for me is going back to basics... starting my day by feeding my mind positive thoughts: listening to a meditation or positive affirmations, and journaling... focusing on appreciation and what IS working in my life.

I've found that just taking 15 minutes in the mornings for me puts me in a more positive headspace, so that I continue to notice things to be grateful for throughout the day; and I'm more easily able to notice and reframe negative thoughts into positive ones.

How to create better beliefs:

1. Awareness - Start to notice + acknowledge negative thoughts or comments as they come up, without judgement. 
2. Get curious - Hmmm… that’s a bit negative… is that actually true? Or is it just an opinion? Is there another way of looking at things?
3. Practice choosing more positive thoughts… Ask yourself: What would my kindest friend say?

By practicing awareness, curiosity, and choosing more positive thoughts on a regular basis it becomes easier; and then it becomes a habit, and then it’s just what you do and who you are.

It really is just a practice.

xx