Do you ever find yourself having negative thoughts about how you might seem to other people, things you feel you’re bad at, mistakes you’ve made in the past that haunt you? Let me tell you – you’re not alone! I know thoughts like that can have a huge impact on how you feel, what you think you’re capable of, and how you make decisions.

 

But I have some news for you – those thoughts are not facts! They may have no basis in reality and they don’t have to control how you live your life.

 

Take my human, Annie, for example. Back in her last office job, she was tasked with running a huge training programme that would mean she’d have to travel round the various offices of the company, delivering presentations to the most senior staff members. And she was terrified of public speaking. She felt wholly inadequate to the task and really wasn’t looking forward to having to do it.

 

Fast forward eight years and she’d been delivering the training regularly throughout all that time. But, whenever it came time to plan another round of visits, she would think, “I’m no good at delivering presentations. I hate doing it and it’s going to go really badly.”

 

For eight years, she’d been giving the training and having a lot of fun doing it. And people always cam up to her after her presentations to tell her how great they were, how helpful they’d found the information, and how brilliantly she had delivered it.

 

But Annie still felt like she had when she’d first started out – scared, unprepared, and thinking she was no good.

 

That’s because the stories we tell ourselves in our heads are often rooted in very outdated information. We get ideas stuck in our minds about what we can and can’t do, and those ideas persist, even after years of evidence suggesting the opposite.

 

So, next time you think you can’t do something, or you’re going to pass up an opportunity because you think you won’t enjoy it or be any good at it, stop and consider this. Can you find any factual evidence that supports what you’re thinking? Or is there actually a lot of evidence to show that what you’re thinking may not be true?

 

Your thoughts are not facts. So challenge them with knowledge and experience that is based on fact. You may be surprised at what you learn. And that may give you the chance to discard those thoughts and introduce some new ones that better support where you currently are in your life and how you want to develop in the future.

 

Don’t forget to let me know how you get on – or if there’s anything you’d like me to talk about in an upcoming blog post!

 

You can email me at wisebearstanley@gmail.com

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