I’m going to keep this clean, but I feel compelled to start this post with a paroxysm of exclamations! Often that would turn into a string of expletives because it’s just so easy to use and seems to offer the most emphasis. I can’t call this a digression if I started with it, right? I would have had to start actually making my point first. Anyway…
I AM SO FIRED UP RIGHT NOW!
It is almost one year since I started Project 180, and while there have been some ups and downs along the way, this has truly been nothing short of a complete one hundred eighty degree turn around in my attitude and my outlook on life and my future. Coming back to the ups and downs briefly, before I keep the focus entirely on the ups, I want to mention why that is completely normal. When I started my upswing, I felt like it was suddenly coming together. Now, I didn’t want to get too excited and then let down, but the fact is that life has challenges and sometimes things don’t go the way you hope or desire. Nevertheless, when it started turning on me, I very nearly let it all go and returned to the bad place, but it actually wasn’t even as bad as usual anyway. Fortunately, I noticed this, and kept on keeping on, and boom goes the dynamite, I was back.
Let me just say, there was a period a few months ago, when after all my new efforts and motivation, and all the action I started taking with renewed vigor and gusto, that it seemed like literally everything was going wrong. Actually, it didn’t seem like it, everything LITERALLY (quite literally) WAS going wrong! I had to stop myself and think, “why did I bother chasing a dream, this sucks, I should have just kept my head down and suffered and stayed mediocre.” Of course, I had to stop myself from thinking that so fast.
Didn’t I say that I wanted to “briefly” go back to that? Tsk tsk, Vida, well now at least I can say that I digressed that time. What I really decided to write about today is how ridiculously awesome everything is, and much as anything in life worth fighting for, sometimes you have to go through darkness to get to the light. Let the cliches fly. It’s always darkest before dawn. If you haven’t had challenges, you haven’t done anything worthwhile. As I wrote to my business partner, “After overcoming adversity, and not giving up, this is where we show our true quality.”
I’ve spent the last year filling my head with positive thoughts, motivation and inspiration. Zig Ziglar keeps saying that he’s going to repeat many of the statements he makes, and that I have to listen to them over and over again until his words become my words. When those thoughts and ideas become my normal self-talk, this is when the true corrective brainwashing really starts taking effect. Ready for another? Fake it ’til you make it. That’s probably one of the best, because it’s so almost insincere, if you try it, you feel like a phony at first. And really, who are you kidding, right? Just smile even if you’re crying on the inside. Ha! Okay, now seriously, DO IT, because it actually does work. Look it up, it’s a fact. Physically smiling actually makes you feel happier. And repeating positive statements, whether you believe them or not, actually makes you start believing them. And why shouldn’t they? You fill your head with rubbish about how bad things are or how inept you are in whichever way, and you start believing those lies!
Start tricking yourself into believing something worth believing in. You are much stronger than you think you are. You are ambitious, intelligent, charismatic, and confident. People like you because you are friendly and you make them feel good about themselves. You are capable of achieving great things. You will accomplish whatever objectives that you set your mind to achieve. You got this.
Look up Zig Ziglar’s 30 day affirmations card so I don’t have to regurgitate the whole thing. Surely, you’ll all cliche-ed out by now. I’m trying not to fool myself, I have over 30 years of questionable programming (not from my family that was completely supportive of me, but from my own worst enemy — me) and negative self-talk to reverse. If this takes several more years before I get it completely under control, I’m going to do it, because I’ve already proven that it’s worth it. I am worth it. And I’ll tell you what, it feels good.