We all talk to ourselves all day long. (Let’s use our inside voices, please.) If it’s a constant stream of negative can’ts, shoulds, and nevers It’s hurting your mood, performance, and success. If you can make those voices in your head work for you, that would be pretty sweet wouldn’t it?

Don’t listen to yourself all day – talk to yourself.

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Greg, this isn’t going to be one of those deals where you tell me to meditate to spa music, think positive thoughts and then I’ll ride a unicorn over a rainbow and end up at a pot of gold is it? Because I tried that once and ended up living in my mother-in-law’s basement eating Cheetos and playing Xbox all day. (Actually, I was fine with it, but my wife and kids weren’t thrilled.)

Good question. I like where your head’s at (except for that living in the basement part). This is not one of those deals. This isn’t “think positive and success will manifest.” This is one of those “use your self-talk to keep you motivated to do the behaviors you need to do to achieve the success you want” deals…

Your self-talk matters. Hey, there’s a reason cheerleaders don’t chant how much their team stinks. There’s a reason the home team with supportive fans often beats a superior club. Why not use that in our real lives?

Be Nice to Yourself

Do you ever say things to yourself you would never let anyone else say to you?

Things like:

That was a really stupid thing to do.

You will never be good enough to get that job.

You’re not smart enough to start your own company.

Nobody would ever pay YOU to do that.

You’re such a failure. If you wouldn’t let someone say it to you, why are you saying it to yourself?

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Let’s work on making your self-talk work for you.

Rational Emotive Therapy

Psychologist Albert Ellis was the founder of something called Rational Emotive Therapy. He did a lot of work on how our thoughts determine our moods and behaviors. His contention was that it’s not what happens to us that determines how we feel and act. It’s how we think about what happens to us that determines how we feel and act. He saw it happening in an A-B-C pattern.

A – An Activating event in your life that triggers negative or positive thoughts. It could be something small like stepping in a mud puddle in your brand-new shoes or something big like the death of a parent.

B – The Beliefs or thoughts you think about the event.

C – The Consequences, feelings, and behaviors that come from your beliefs and thoughts.

It is not the activating event that determines your feelings and behaviors, it is your beliefs and thoughts about the activating event. Two people can experience very similar events but respond with totally different feelings and behaviors. The difference wasn’t the event, it was the way each of them chose to think about the event.

My wife, Anne, was getting dinner for my girls the other night at Chick-Fil-A. She was in a hurry and couldn’t believe the crowd. The line wrapped around the inside of the building. She was in a hurry, frustrated and almost left.

Then someone told her that it was a fundraiser night for a little boy with cancer. Anne saw the boy’s parents taking pictures of the crowd. She saw the boy’s friends and family so happy and appreciative of everyone who came out to give them support.

Suddenly, she wasn’t frustrated anymore. She didn’t mind the wait. She said a prayer for the boy and a prayer of thanks for the health of everyone in our family.

Nothing about the situation changed except how my wife thought about it.

Ellis pointed out that we often have thoughts that lead us to negative feelings and beliefs. If a boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with us we might think, “I’m unlovable. No one will ever want to marry me.” If we get fired we might think, “This is the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I’m going to lose my job and end up on welfare.” The thoughts may be irrational, but the more you tell yourself these things the truer they become for you.

However, if you can catch yourself thinking these irrational thoughts, stop them and change them to more positive thoughts, then those new thoughts become true for you. Replace the thinking in the above scenarios with new thinking.

“It’s good we broke up now. We weren’t a good match. Now I’m free to find my future husband.”

“I wasn’t planning on getting fired. There will be some things I have to work out. But I knew this wasn’t really the job for me. I’m going to focus on getting a job I’m passionate about and can excel at. This could actually be a good thing for me. Maybe I’ll even use this time to start my own business. I have savings that can keep me going until I find my new source of income. I’m going to be fine.”

Let’s go a bit deeper on this: Most of us think irrational thoughts and ask ourselves irrational questions every day. When something goes wrong in your life do you ask negative questions like, “Why does this always happen to me?” or, “Why do I always fail?” or my personal favorite, “How could I be so stupid?”

These questions won’t help you. They’re irrational and based on false premises. Honestly, does “this” always happen to you? Do you always fail? Are you truly stupid, or did you just do something you wish you wouldn’t have? Do only bad things happen to you everyday? Of course not. Men are disturbed not by events, but by the views which they take of them–Epictetus

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Action Steps:

1) When you notice you’re asking those types of negative, false questions, stop it. Yell, “Stop!” out loud. (Or in your head if you don’t want to take a forced van ride to a place where they make you take pills and play ping pong all day.) Scratch those records you keep playing in your head so you can’t hear them anymore.

2) Start asking positive questions like, How can I use this challenge for my good? or What can I learn from this experience and act on right now? How can I improve my outcome next time?

3) Practice changing how you view activating events in your life. Reframe them in the best way possible. Think positively about the best way to handle every situation that comes your way.

4) Put the Cheetos away! (Ok, I think that’s just my problem.)

Try this out in your life and see what happens. This doesn’t mean you will never feel sad, angry, or upset. It just means you will not overreact and put yourself into such a negative place that you can’t make rational decisions to move forward with your goals.

Question: Have you ever experienced a situation where your self-talk hurt you or helped you? 

I just launched Season 2 of “Find Your Purpose – Live Your Passion – Don’t make a New Year’s resolution until you hear this!”

Hope you enjoy! Comments and questions are welcome.

You have big dreams and big plans. You have educated yourself, set your goal and worked towards it. But, you see some obstacles in your way and you want to make sure everything is just right before you act, right?

That’s how we all get sometimes. It is good to plan, but there is never a time when everything is just right. If you wait for that moment, you will never take action.

But, Greg, what if I go for it and fail? What if I’m not good enough, or smart enought? What if I’m rejected? What if I lose my job, my money, my house and then my spouse leaves me?!

Well, that spiraled out of control quickly. Easy, Tiger. Take a couple of deep breaths. We all feel like that at times. But this is where we remind ourselves the simple truths that we often forget. If you never take action, aren’t you failing already? If you learn from a failure or a rejection, can’t you just take action again in a better way that has a greater chance of success? Isn’t taking action how you have achieved your success so far?

Has there ever been a time where all the worst things you can think of actually happened to you? No? Then, what are the odds that’s going to happen this time?

Aren’t all these objections to taking action really just a way we hide from our fear?

I just met a new friend yesterday who reminded me of how I wasn’t taking action and was giving in to fear. I have so many things I want to launch, but I find myself waiting until everything is just right.

He asked about how I got started in radio and I remembered – I took action.

He asked how my show became nationally syndicated and I remembered – I took action.

Then I started remembering how I wrote my book, started my blog and started speaking – I took action.

Everything wasn’t even close to being just right. There were obstacles in my path that I wasn’t sure how to get over. But, by taking action, things started to come together. I met people who helped me. I learned things that helped me. I gained momentum and confidence and kept taking action.

My new friend hit me with it hard when we were talking about how I could increase my speaking business. He said, “You should see if you can work with Dave Ramsey. He endorsed your book and you would fit in great with him.” I told him I agreed.

“Then why don’t you call him and ask — today?”

Great question.

So, I did.

I also wanted to set up a speech at a friend’s business, so I called and asked him. I took action.

It was a little scary, but it felt great.

What have you been thinking about doing but you’ve let fear stop you? Take action.

Ask.

Do.

Go!

You will be surprised how fast fear falls and miracles happen.

When you face an obstacle:

1. Remind yourself WHY you are doing this.
2. Create a plan and take some action right away. You don’t have to do it all today, but you need to do something. Get some momentum going.
3. Continue to take action to overcome your obstacle – Do you need to read a book on it? Do you need to meet someone to get their help or advice? Do you need to schedule time to do the work? What action must you take to overcome this obstacle?
4. Do something every day.

“When obstacles arise, change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.” – Zig Ziglar

Questions for comment: What have you been planning but not doing? How did you take action? What happened when you took action?

Are you searching for your Passionate Purpose? Start with my free gift, 5 Steps to Finding Your Passionate Purpose.

Why am I here? What are my passions? What is my purpose? How can I make a difference? What gives my life meaning? What am I really good at? When am I going to stop talking in questions?

We all want answers. If you’re like me, you tend to do a lot of looking for them “out there.”

You tell yourself, maybe the answers are in a book, or a personality or aptitude test. Maybe there’s a guru out there who can guide me. If I find the right seminar to attend or course to take, I’m sure I can find the answers.

Hey, It’s great to research and learn from other people. I’ve gained a ton of knowledge from books, seminars, courses, videos, and more. But if you’re not careful, you’ll never stop looking for the answers in the next book or the next seminar or the next course.

You might also find a lot of those books and tests are wrong…for you.

Eventually you realize the answers aren’t “out there.”

The unique answers for you are inside you. You have to get quiet, turn inward, and truly listen.

Have you ever experienced a time when you just knew you should do something? A time when a small, quiet voice in your head told you, “Don’t take that job,” “Buy that house,” “Ask him if he needs help,” “Volunteer there,” “Pursue being a teacher,” “Marry her.” That’s the voice we’re looking for here. (We’re not looking for the voice that told you to put it all on red at the roulette wheel in Vegas. That’s a different voice that you might need to seek professional help for.)

This voice goes by many names. For me, it’s the Holy Spirit. For others, it’s their conscience, or their inner voice, or the universe, or a higher power. But we’ve all heard from it at some point in our lives. It’s really always there, waiting for us. We have to get quiet enough to hear it. The more you listen for it, the louder and stronger it becomes. The more we ignore it, the harder it is to hear. For most of us, it isn’t an audible voice at all. It’s a feeling or a thought that pops in our heads. But we tend to know it when we “hear” it.

There were times in my life I pushed it away so hard that I lost it. I thought I knew everything. I was in charge. I didn’t need any guidance. I couldn’t hear the voice if it was shouting at me because I didn’t want to hear it. Those are the times I made some of the dumbest decisions of my life. Have you ever been there? Have you ever heard it?

It’s not easy to get quiet enough to hear this voice. In the history of the world we’ve never had so many distractions. How many minutes a day do you sit quietly and think? For most of us, we rarely, if ever, do this. After working hard all day, we get busy doing “stuff.” We are bombarded by the TV, Internet, email, video games, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, DVDs, movies, sporting events, texting, smart phones with data plans, Angry Birds, Candy Crush …

My friend, Tim, limits his son’s video game time. When his son goes down to the basement to play his games, he sets a timer. When the alarm goes off on the timer, it’s time to turn off the game system. One day his son was playing his games while the rest of the family was upstairs. After a while the timer went off. The alarm was so loud that everyone in the house could hear it—everyone except the boy playing the video games. The alarm kept going, and going, and going. Tim said to his wife, “Let’s see how long it takes for him to turn it off.”

After five minutes Tim finally went downstairs and said, “Hey, Son, don’t you hear the alarm going off?” His truthful response was shocking.

“No, Dad, sorry, I didn’t hear it.” He was so zoned out with his video game he couldn’t hear the blaring alarm five feet away from him. (Of course, if they had called him up for dinner, he would have heard that.)

How many times have we ignored our inner voice when it’s trying to help us make the most important choices in our lives? How can we hear it if there is so much noise and junk around us covering it up?

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.

–Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher, writer

If you can find a book, course, seminar, or method that helps you on this quest to hear what’s inside you, so much the better.

When’s the last time you did a life check by taking the time and silence to turn inward?

It’s powerful.

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

–Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist, author of On Death and Dying

If you need some help getting started try my free gift, 5 Steps to Finding Your Passionate Purpose.

I would love to know what you found out. Let me know.

Let’s GO!

No one keeps New Year’s Resolutions, so what’s the point, right? Well, actually, some people DO keep their resolutions. Research shows a HUGE rate of success!

Ok, not huge…

Ok, tiny…

Ok, 8%

What?! Why bother?

Hey, why can’t you be part of the 8%?

What if there are ways to greatly increase the chance that you are in the 8%? What if it could put you on a path to Your Best Life?

Another year is going to go by whether you change your life or not. One year from now will you look back at how much better it is, or will you be exactly where you are right now?

Resolutions – good resolutions, anyway – are just another way of saying goals. So why not set some goals – the right way – that could change your life?

Here’s what works:

1. Believe you can: Common sense and research shows if you don’t believe you can be one of the 8% you won’t be. Hey, someone has to be, why not you?
2. Start small then go big: Pick the top 2 or 3 things that are most important to you. Long lists will sabotage your success for any of them. We can only change so much, so fast.
   You can do anything, but not everything – David Allen

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3. Be Specific: Come up with exactly what you want. No generalities or estimates allowed.
4. Create action plans to get there: Start with the finished goal. Then, plan backwards what you need to do to each month of the year to achieve it. Create daily action plans to get there.
5. Make it real easy to measure your success: Definite and measurable goals are what work.
6. State your goals in the present tense: Your subconscious responds best to the present tense. There should be no doubt that you are going to reach your goal. So write it, think about it, and talk about it as if you already have it.
7. State your goals positively: Your brain doesn’t do well with negative commands. Quick—DON’T think about a flying purple elephant. Hey, I told you NOT to think about it. It’s impossible now, isn’t it? That’s how our brain works. So phrase your goal in the positive. Say what you want, not what you don’t want. Your mind responds positively to what you think about all day long.
8. Give yourself a deadline: Figure out how long it should take to reach your goal and then set the deadline. It will keep you focused.
9. Actually write your goals down: (otherwise they’re just dreams) There’s something almost magical about writing your goals down. Writing helps you organize and prioritize your thoughts. It helps you filter out the fluff and get serious. It helps make your goals real to you in a way that just thinking about them can’t. Post your goals in your bathroom. Put them on 3 x 5 cards in your wallet or purse. Read them every morning and every night. Think about them all day.
   A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline – Harvey Mackay

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10. Get Accountable: Find a trustworthy, supportive friend and agree to be each other’s accountability partners. Check in at least once a week with each other to make sure you’re staying on track.
11. Celebrate: Set up mini-goals and celebrate every time you hit one. Refocus on why you’re doing this and keep going. That’s how you start small and then go big.

Before you start, you need to know exactly what you want. What’s most important to you and why? Here’s one way to start figuring it out.

Your mission tonight… if you choose to accept it. 

Spend one half hour of your limited time writing down what your best life would look like. Done correctly, this is an extremely uplifting exercise. Just organizing and prioritizing your best life can increase your happiness, optimism, and belief that you can accomplish your goals.

When you answer these questions, remember, you’re in Fantasyland. No limits. That’s when our best ideas come.

If you had all the money in the world, how would you spend your time?

What would your perfect day look, feel, sound, smell, taste, and be like? Describe it in as vivid detail as you can.

What activities set your soul on fire?

What would you do if it were impossible to fail?

What would your career be?

What would your marriage be like?

What would your income be?

How much free time would you have?

Where would you live?

How many people could you help?

What would you do even if you didn’t get paid to do it?

What type of relationships would you have with your children?

What would your relationship be with God?

Where would you travel for vacations?

How many vacations would you take each year?

What would you have crossed off your bucket list?

How much would you give away to charity each year?

What would your spiritual life be like?

Where would you volunteer?

How much would you weigh?

What would your physical health be?

Would you play an instrument, speak a foreign language, or know how to dance?

What groups would you belong to?

How would you treat people?

How would people treat you?

These are just some questions to get you started. Come up with some of your own and design your best life.

Question for comments: What questions do you need to ask yourself to get to your best life?

Are you searching for your Passionate Purpose? Start with my free gift, 5 Steps to Finding Your Passionate Purpose.

Uh, Greg, not sure if you missed this, but being selfish is bad. And, Christmas is right around the corner. You’re supposed to be generous. What’s wrong with you?

Normally, I’d agree with you. But, what if being selfish is the best way to help other people? Can you be selfish and serve others at the same time?

YES!

It goes right to what a friend said to me, “Greg, I get what your saying on how great your life can be when you find and pursue your Passionate Purpose, but isn’t it kind of selfish to focus so much on ourselves?”

It all depends on what you mean by, “selfish.”

When I was nine years old I flew on a plane for the first time. Everything was brand new and thrilling. But, one thing puzzled me. The flight attendant told the adults that if the plane depressurized they should put the oxygen mask on themselves before they put it on their child. Wait…what? Don’t they care about us kids?!

My mom explained to me that the adults might pass out if they tried to take care of the children first. Then, no one would be able to help the kids. Being “selfish” would allow the adults to help the little ones who couldn’t take care of themselves.

It’s the same with finding your Passionate Purpose. If you don’t figure out what you’re here to do, how can you do your best to help others?

Once you find it and start pursuing it, you begin to do the best work of your life. Yes, it will be good for you, but it will also be the best thing you can do to help everyone else.

It’s the same thing with your family. You need to be selfish in your marriage. Take all the time and energy you need to keep it strong and grow it. Then, you can serve your children through that strength.

How about for your career? If you’re not selfish with your sleep and taking breaks from a busy schedule, you will wear down, burn out, and do less than your best work. No one wins in that scenario.

Question for comments: Where do you need to be more “selfish” in your life so you can serve others more?

Let’s GO!

Are you searching for your Passionate Purpose? Start with my free gift, 5 Steps to Finding Your Passionate Purpose.