We all make mistakes and we all fail from time to time. It is only natural that sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Some people believe in a sense of karma, or in ‘yin and yang’ – whereby everything is balanced. So, for every bad thing, something good will surely happen to redress the balance. While this is a lovely theory, it can be tough to believe if you think that you are on a run of bad luck! Bad luck, or a set of negative circumstances can make you feel that you are a failure, or even that you are not worthy of good things and success. However, such self-defeating and negative thoughts can be bad, not only for your future progression, but also for your health. Instead, it is far better to try and reframe any negative occurrences as best you can, and look to the positive things in your life. It is important to also love yourself as a person, and believe that you are fine, that good things do and will happen, and that you deserve them too!
It may seem slightly odd that your self-perception can have an impact on what happens to you, but in some ways it can. If you spend all of your time thinking that you are a failure it will affect how you present yourself to the world, and thereby how you are seen and treated by others. Why would other people show respect for you if you don’t show it for yourself?
Instead of seeing your mistakes as failings, see them simply as things that happened which give you the chance to learn and grow. The same could be said of the good things that happen to you – they are simply things that happened in your life that allowed you to learn something and develop as a person.
You might want to imagine that you are walking along a path, and sometimes it may be difficult going. Perhaps there is a fallen tree or some other obstacle blocking your way. It may be difficult to get past this obstruction, but once you do, you will have gained some experience, even giving you some knowledge of how you might overcome a similar obstacle in the future.
At other times your path will be easy to move along and you will be enjoying yourself. Time will fly and you will seem to be moving effortlessly towards your goals. These times are also all an experience which can teach you something.
At the core of this you should monitor your thoughts, and try to banish any negative of self-defeating patterns you fall into. If you have a habit of saying to yourself that you are not worthy of something or other, then you need to change those.
Instead of beating yourself up, write down positive things about yourself. Things that are good, and that you are proud of. You should also try to change any negative thoughts into a positive, replacing them with a positive thought that you can repeat in your head, or even write down and look at each day.
You might want to try something like, “Every day I get better and grow as a person, and each day I get closer to showing the real beauty of who I am.”
Alternatively, you might want to go with something powerful like, “I am wonderful and deserve great things to happen to me. Each day I get better and allow more wonderful things to happen to me.”
Making these sort of statements to yourself can seem a bit odd, but they can have an amazing effect on your life as you begin to lose the habit of blaming or feeling down about things. Even if you don’t quite believe what you are saying to yourself to start with, you can actually trick your own mind.
Find somewhere quiet, where you won’t be overheard, and just try saying something like, “I am wonderful, blessed, and beautiful” to yourself. Repeat it with meaning a few times, allowing yourself to feel the words, and you can bet you will start to feel even just a little bit better about yourself!
Remind yourself that you are original, unique, and special. There is nobody else in the world exactly like you, and as such you are the perfect version of yourself at this moment in time. Of course, you are also working to get better as you go through life having different experiences, but your path will be different from everyone else’s so enjoy the experience and what it teaches you each day.
“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
