WHAT CAN I DO?

As I am working with people who are trying to change their life and lose weight, improve their finances, organize their lives, or just get healthy, I find one common thread...they are very down on themselves and quite negative.  Even some people who appear very happy and cheerful on the outside when they start talking about their issues they are very negative about themselves.  It made me think about myself and where I've come from.  I told myself some pretty awful things for years.  I wasn't good enough, I didn't do _____ as well as others, I wasn't as thin as I should be, I wasn't as funny, as kind, as good of a wife, or mother, you get the idea and you can fill in the blanks because I told myself many negative things over the years.  Then one day I surrendered to God and begged for help and told HIM if he would show me the light I would do everything I could to make my life a blessing to others.  He has led me down a pretty amazing path!  I am growing and learning everyday.  A few things I've learned are:
1. STOP the negative self talk.  As soon as a negative thought pops into your head STOP and replace it with a positive one; IMMEDIATELY!  for example:  If I thought "What makes you think you will be successful, you've been on many diets over the years and have never been able to keep the weight off before." I would immediately tell myself; YOU CAN DO THIS, YOU ARE DOING THIS!  I also had sticky notes around the house; the refrigerator, pantry, bathroom mirror, near my bed, even on the steering wheel of my car, with inspirational notes, bible verses or quotes to remind me how great I am.
2.  Each morning (or evening) make a list of at least 10 things you are grateful or thankful for.  I prefer to do it in the morning because it sets the mood for my day and then reread them at night before I go to bed but you can do it to fit your lifestyle.  In the beginning some days it was REALLY difficult to come up with 10 so I would write things like...I am grateful it is not raining, I am grateful I have a roof over my head, etc.  Now I can write pages of things I'm grateful for.  What I found out is that the more we focus on positive the more positives we have and the more we focus on negative the more negatives we have.
3. This leads to another VERY difficult topic for some of us, negative people in our lives.  I'm not going to tell you to get rid of people from your life but I will tell you in the beginning when you are trying to make changes it is very important to look at who you are spending time with and if they are toxic to you it is very important that you limit your exposure to them.  As you are trying to change and get better you need as much support as possible.  If you are trying to lose weight you clean out the house of any tempting food so that you don't eat it in a moment of weakness, the same is true for toxic people.  You need to stay away from them or limit the time you spend with them until you are stronger and able to handle the toxicity better.  You may find you don't want to be exposed to that type of toxicity at all and that is fine too but either way it is YOUR choice. That leads us to our next topic.
4. You make choices everyday and that is what decides what type of life you will have.  Making choices is the major difference between success and failure in anything we try to do.  You can make a positive choice or a negative choice for you.  You can live with excuses and I can't(s) or you can turn it around and ask yourself What CAN I DO?  Maybe you cannot clear out 15+ years of clutter in one day but YOU CAN clean out one drawer in the kitchen or go through one box and get rid of stuff.  If you do this everyday pretty soon that overwhelming mess starts to disappear and you feel empowered and successful.  Start turning your thought process around...every time you catch yourself thinking or saying I can't STOP and say what CAN I do?  Then do that.  It is amazing what an impact this one step can have in every area of your life.
What are you looking for on a daily basis?  Are you looking for the positive?  What you can do? How you can make a positive impact on your own life or are you looking for excuses to keep doing what you've always done because it's comfortable?  All you have to do is compete with yourself and make yourself better today than you were yesterday and you will see a huge impact on your life!!  It doesn't matter what anyone else is doing or how well they are doing.  YOU ARE ENOUGH!!
God Bless,
Nena