Thinking...

“Change requires action, not reflection; motivation, not passivity; desire, not apathy; and a willingnes to see the truth rather than fiction. But most important, change requires that you recognize that no one and nothing is going to change you- except you.” –Joseph J. Luciani

As I am working through how to personally grow and work towards a life where I am working in the personal development industry I know that working and growing myself will always be something I concentrate on. I have been doing this type of work for almost 20 years. I liked Self Coaching – I liked the book because I know that for me what so many things boil down to, is my thinking and my self talk. Much of my thinking is unconscious; however as I have focused in on my self, I seem to be getting to a place where I am starting to become much more conscious of my thinking. I know that as I grow and think about helping others do the same I believe one key is to start hearing and knowing the throughts that are going through my head. I am often really hard on myself and haven’t recognized it. Now that I am recognizing it, it hurts. I have felt sadness over this and some anger – anger at circumstances that helped form this; but then there is realization that I have control. I have full control to change myself and my thinking so that I can get to the place I am trying to reach. Circumstances and things in my life are just that; I can choose to accept them and learn to realize that I don’t have to continue reacting the same way to them. I choose to step out and make the necessary changes to myself that will allow me take my life where I want to go.

One thing that this book said that I resonated with is that negative self talk, thinking and self sabatage is a habit. It is something I started doing very young and have really learned to do very well. I am an expert at it; so expert, that it has become natural. This book has taught me that I need to break these habits. There are habits of guilt that arise from thinking that I should do this and that I should do that. There are habits of not supporting myself; feeling deep down that I can not succeed at something that I really love; or that I may not be worthy of the success.

It isn’t that I haven’t had success – I have been very successful at many things in my life; however – as I strive to achieve the goal of working my passion I seem to stop before I try; I keep changing directions and having too many things to do and not taking enough action.

To me, Self Coaching suggests to first recognize that the struggling of life is due to the habits that we have formed as we have tried to control life. It suggests working on identifying the faulty thoughts that we think about things and to separate fact from fiction. The next step is to realize that you can choose to flip a switch and change the faulty thinking and turn the self talk to truths and see and believe the positive side of things. Then, it suggests to let go. Just let the thoughts that are sabatoging our life float away, like a balloon caught in the air drifing away. Then you need to ensure that you are working to believe the positive aspects of your life, having positive thoughts alone will not work, there needs to be a point where you BELIEVE the positive aspects of life. As this happens and successful challenges can be met, you will gain some energy that will allow you to keep up with the new way of doing things so that over time, the old habits of faulty thinking will be changed to a new habit of thinking and seeing the reality of life. That there is always a way to work your way out of any hole. You can do it.

Luciani pointed out that there are three truths:

• Let Life Unfold, there are no dead ends; only obstacles.
• Trust that your instincts and intuition will serve you
• Know that every problem has a solution although it may not immediately appear.

“Motivation isn’t mysterious. It’s the energy you feel when you are willing to risk believing that you can change your life.” – Joseph J. Luciani

I am willing to risk this belief, anyone with me?