Tell That Negative Voice In Your Ear to Shut up!

Sometimes staying positive can be tough, especially when you’re still in the building phase of your career.   When you are trying to be brave, have courage, or put yourself out there, you are going to need some confidence. Unfortunately, you won’t always have a cheerleader in your corner and those times can be both lonely and humbling.  These building or growth phases magnify the effects of self-doubt.

The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them.  The most ridiculous part of this exercise in futility is that most of our negative thoughts are just that -- thoughts, not facts.  When your blood pressure starts to shoot up and you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it's time to stop and write them down.  

Literally stop what you're doing and write down what you're thinking. Once you've taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in separating the crazy jerk thoughts from facts.

Usually, the jerk in your ear highlights past failures and makes every effort to kill your self-confidence.  Take a minute and remind yourself that you need to experience failure to succeed. If you aren’t careful, failure can erode your self-confidence and make it hard to believe you'll achieve a better outcome in the future. Most of the time, failure results from taking risks and trying to achieve something that isn't easy. When kids learn how to walk, how many times do they fall when they are learning how to walk?

Real success lies in your ability to rise in the face of failure, and you can't do this when you're living in the past. Listening to that jerk in your ear recite all of your belly flops is simply a recipe for squashing positive momentum. Anything worth achieving is going to require some risks, and you can't allow failure to stop you from believing in your ability to succeed. When you live in the past, that is exactly what happens, and your past becomes your present, preventing you from moving forward.

That jerk in your ear is a mean bully who isn’t your friend.  Don’t listen to the nonsense. Eventually the jerk in your ear will disappear when there is no attention paid to it.