I have to start by confessing that I’ve spent the majority of my life telling myself very negative things. Often times these thoughts revolved around being too much… too loud, too intense, too dramatic, too emotional, too fat… Sometimes my internal talk track was around being too little… not smart enough, not talented enough, not pretty enough etc… Sound familiar?  I know I’m not alone here because I meet with people every week that are wrestling with these same thoughts and emotions.

In addition to telling myself abusive thoughts on a daily basis I also operated from a place of fear. Often my fear drove me to stick with things well beyond their expiration simply because I didn’t want to face the failure. For example, I spent about twice as long in corporate America because I didn’t want to admit to the world that I just wasn’t cut out for it and didn’t love the repetitive grind selling products I really didn’t care for myself. It was soul crushing but I continued to do it for about eight years longer than I should have out of fear and lack in confidence that I have the qualifications to do something else.

As part of my journey to breakout of these negative cycles I began researching and reading all kinds of self help and business books. I kept coming across the idea of positive affirmations. Honestly, I could never see myself doing this because it just seemed so cheesy and fluffy. The idea that you could just write things down and then one day it would magically all turn out to be true just seemed like the biggest pile of BS.

The science behind it is called neuropsychology…the study of the structure and function of the brain as they relate to specific psychological processes and behaviors. Basically, the study of how your thoughts create your beliefs, which in turn fuel your actions, and the idea that these can be reprogrammed throughout your life. Your brain doesn’t have the ability to tell fact or fiction so if you tell it something enough it eventually develops into a belief. All our actions are derived from our beliefs so we will start acting in accordance with our new beliefs. Pretty cool, huh? I’m analytical by nature so knowing that there’s a specific field of study dedicated to this gave me enough validation to go ahead and try it myself.