by Linda Prejean
You can achieve your wishes and desires. You can have what you want and make your dreams come true. Failure doesn’t have to be painful and can even raise your odds for success. All you have to do is change your mind.
Known as cognitive reframing, when you dispute a negative experience you are presented with positive alternatives. Your self-esteem isn’t based on externals like winning or losing, but on how you value yourself.
Dr. Carl Rogers, Co-founder of Humanistic Psychology, says we need to create a nurturing environment to promote growth and a state of congruence which is the alignment of your ideal self with your self-image. He said, “The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.”
Rules for the good life:
1. Stress is neutral. Your body responds to your perception, not to an actual event. Positivity creates a shift in your brain that releases tension and halts the stress-hormone, Cortisol. The fight or flight response was never meant to be turned on 24 hours a day.
2. View failure as developing resiliency, humility and discernment. Congratulate yourself for taking risks and charging forward in spite of setbacks. You are willing to do what others are not willing to do – the definition of success.
3. What are you thinking? Just notice. Resisting failure takes energy and is a waste of human potential Accept it and transcend it. Soon the sting of failure will no longer affect you in the same way.
4. Many of us require more than one skill set professionally. Reinvent yourself throughout life. Encourage yourself to improve as a person. Set mini-goals that reward you daily with a positive feedback loop. Think growth, not loss.
5. Respect your greatest capital and your true bottom line – Yourself. The success you seek is within. Nurturing yourself does not mean lowered standards or less ambition. It helps you to thrive and be your best self.
6. Pick up a thread and follow it. What is right in front of you? Be here, now.
7. If you’re given the test it’s because you can handle it. Appreciate the blessings inside the burdens. It will spark the creativity that disrupts the status quo and fans the flame of innovation.
Finally, take a deep breath and surrender. Let those balls in the air bounce around you and let go. You’ll reach an internal guidance and strengthen your spirituality. It often takes the hard times to turn inward, but that’s where you have easier access to miracles.
Linda has a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, starting in the field of Marriage/Family Therapy and transitioned to a Life Coach with a private practice in Temecula and San Diego. For more information, call 1-800-491-0830. A former principal in a large Career Counseling firm, two of her books are published on Amazon for Kindle as part of a 10-book series, “Your Ten Powers.” She is writing “Here Goes My Heart, How to Find Love and Romance After 50” with Dr. James Vevaina of LaJolla.