Our negative thoughts, emotions, and attitudes can
threaten to keep us from achieving all that we're capable of. Here bestselling
author and speaker Brian Tracy and his daughter, therapist Christina Tracy
Stein, provide a set of practical, proven strategies anyone can use to turn
those negative frogs into positive princes.
BY: Brian Tracy and Christina Tracy Stein
Be the Best You
Can Be By Brian Tracy and Christina Tracy Stein, Authors of Kiss That Frog: 12
Great Ways to Turn Negatives into Positives in Your Life and Work
Mental fitness is like physical fitness. You develop high
levels of self-esteem and a positive mental attitude with training and
practice. Here are the seven keys to becoming a completely positive person:
1. Positive self-talk: Speak to yourself positively;
control your inner dialog. Use affirmations phrased in the positive, present,
and personal tense: "I like myself!" "I can do it!" "I
feel terrific!" "I am responsible!" We believe that fully 95
percent of your emotions are determined by the way you talk to yourself as you
go throughout your day. The sad fact is that if you do not deliberately and
consciously talk to yourself in a positive and constructive way, you will, by
default, think about things that will make you unhappy or cause you worry and
anxiety. As we said before, your mind is like a garden. If you do not
deliberately plant flowers and tend them carefully, weeds will grow without any
encouragement at all.
2. Positive visualization: Perhaps the most powerful
ability that you have is the ability to visualize and see your goals as already
accomplished. Create a clear, exciting picture of your goal and your ideal
life, and replay this picture in your mind over and over. All improvement in
your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures. As you
"see" yourself on the inside, you will "be" on the outside.
3. Positive people: Your choice of the people with whom
you live, work, and associate will have more of an impact on your emotions and
your success than any other factor. Decide today to associate with winners,
with positive people, with people who are happy and optimistic and who are
going somewhere with their lives. Avoid negative people at all costs. Negative
people are the primary source of most of life's unhappiness. Resolve that from
today onward, you are not going to have stressful or negative people in your
life.
You need to recharge your batteries on a regular basis,
especially when you are going through periods of stress or difficulty. Vince
Lombardi once said, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." Some of the
factors that predispose us to negative emotions of all kinds are poor health
habits, fatigue, lack of exercise, and nonstop work. Seek balance in your life.
4. Positive mental food: Just as your body is healthy to
the degree to which you eat healthy, nutritious foods, your mind is healthy to
the degree to which you feed it with "mental protein" rather than
"mental candy." Read books, magazines, and articles that are
educational, inspirational, or motivational. Feed your mind with information
and ideas that are uplifting and that make you feel happy and more confident
about yourself and your world. Listen to positive, constructive CDs and audio
programs in your car and on your MP3 player or iPod. Feed your mind continually
with positive messages that help you think and act better and make you more
capable and competent in your field. Watch positive and educational DVDs,
educational television programs, online courses, and other uplifting material
that increases your knowledge and makes you feel good about yourself and your
life.
5. Positive training and development: Almost everyone in
our society starts off with limited resources, sometimes with no money at all.
Virtually all fortunes begin with the sale of personal services of some kind.
All the people who are at the top today were once at the bottom, and sometimes
they fell to the bottom several times. The miracle of lifelong learning and
personal improvement is what takes you from rags to riches, from poverty to
affluence, and from underachievement to success and financial independence. As
Jim Rohn said, "Formal education will make you a living; self-education
will make you a fortune." When you dedicate yourself to learning and
growing and becoming better and more effective in your thoughts and actions,
you take complete control of your life and dramatically increase the speed at
which you move upward to greater heights.
6. Positive health habits: Take excellent care of your
physical health. Resolve today that you are going to live to be eighty, ninety,
or one hundred years old and still be dancing in the evenings. Eat excellent
foods, healthy and nutritious, and eat them sparingly and in proper balance. An
excellent diet will have an immediate, positive effect on your thoughts and
feelings. Resolve to get regular exercise, at least two hundred minutes of
motion per week, walking, running, swimming, bicycling, or working out on
equipment in the gym. When you exercise on a regular basis, you feel happier
and healthier and experience lower levels of stress and fatigue than a person
who sits on the couch and watches television all evening. Especially, get ample
rest and relaxation.
7. Positive expectations: Having positive expectations is
one of the most powerful techniques you can use to become a positive person and
to ensure positive outcomes and better results in your life. Your expectations
become your own self-fulfilling prophesies. Whatever you expect, with
confidence, seems to come into your life. Since you can control your
expectations, you should always expect the best. Expect to be successful.
Expect to be popular when you meet new people. Expect to achieve great goals
and create a wonderful life for yourself. When you constantly expect good
things to happen, you will seldom be disappointed.
Re-printed from the book "Kiss That Frog!" with
the permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012