Everyone is familiar with the concept of “beating oneself up” in the wake of a tragedy. All too often, when faced with an unhappy event we will brood and reinforce its impact through negative thoughts and victim complexes; If it happens enough times, one can even develop learned helplessness and completely lose faith in things changing for the better. So how do we prevent ourselves from falling down that path and turn our negative thoughts into positive ones?
I recently hosted another successful workshop for Chief, titled “Transform Your Inner Critic Into An Inner Coach.” I’m glad that I was able to share my tips to empower others in their journeys to find their dream jobs. I strongly believe those tips were not only useful for career transitions, but also for life in general.
At the start of the workshop, I told two true stories about two different people who faced hardships. The first, a 25-year-old young man, was tall, strong, and healthy. He had an empowering job that secured him with a stable income and in turn a loving family. However, because he was a man, as per traditional Chinese culture, he was very pampered by his mother and older sister. The second character, a 25-year-old college student, grew up as an orphan. She was short, thin and weak from malnutrition. She lived off of government welfare and had no income of her own.
Out of those two people, who do you bet would be living a successful, fulfilling life just 5 years later? Probably the first, but you would be mistaken.
That first character is my great uncle. He worked as a bus conductor collecting fares from passengers. Being a conductor was a well sought after job back in the ‘50s. One day, he realized that he lost all of the fares he collected from his passengers. He searched everywhere, but just could not find the bag of cash. He had to pay back the bus company with his own money, which plunged him into a deep sense of despair. He wouldn’t stop telling everyone around him that his life was ruined – that he lost. Eventually, he caught a cold that progressed into typhoid fever. Within a month, he passed away.
The second character is my mother. When she was just a baby, her father joined the army to fight the Japanese invasion in 1938. He never came back. He died as a hero on the battlefield in 1942. At the time, the Pacific War of WWII had only just begun and showed no signs of ending. My maternal grandmother died in the same year from a mix of starvation, poverty, and sickness. By the age of 4, my mom was an orphan. A lot of people doubted whether she would survive the war, but to their surprise, she beat the odds and survived both WWII and the Chinese Civil War. In time, she went on to be a high achiever in her career as a physicist and led a happy life with my father. Fast forward to today and she’s now 84 years old and enjoying a peaceful retirement in the U.S.
I have wondered many times just how my mother was able to stay strong and move forward in life despite facing so much tragedy. She would often say to herself, “Nothing can beat me. My parents sacrificed their lives for me. I will live.” She had no choice but to stay determined and commit herself to surviving the wars and any hardships that followed. Her favorite advice to give to others was, “Be optimistic and everything will be fine.” Over the years, she used positive self-affirmations to strengthen her spirit and overcome life’s many challenges. Though it came from a place of inner strength, she had to put a lot of practice into this ritual over the course of her entire life for it to remain effective. After all, it’s easy to love oneself when everything’s going smoothly.
The moral of these stories is that we should always try to positively reinforce our self-images – to talk to ourselves like we’re winners, even if sometimes we feel like losers. Self-criticism, self-hatred and self-victimization will only send us down into a perpetual negative spiral. We cannot control what life throws at us, but can always control our reactions to it. My mom chose to respond to her suffering with a positive attitude and got through it, whereas my great uncle gave in to the hardship and adopted a victim’s mindset.
Here are few tips to help you build a habit of continuous self-affirmation:
Acknowledge that you are in full control of your emotions and your actions. Your responses to life will influence its outcomes.
Be vigilant for negative thoughts and counter them with positives.
Talk to yourself as if you are a winner. When you talk like a winner, you will act like a winner, and then you will become a winner.
As a coach, I train my coachees to build up a habit of positive self-talk no matter what happens in their lives. Negative thoughts harm one’s mental and physical health and create roadblocks in the paths to one’s life goals; positive thoughts bring health and success. I also have useful toolkits to help people build up their self-image and confidence. Whoever you are, know that you have the inner power to overcome life’s difficulties, whether you are pursuing a more fulfilling career or simply a happy lifestyle. I’m here to help you achieve your goals. Please visit my website, GiftedCoaching.info, and contact me at Lucy@GiftedCoaching.info for more information.