Imagine if, from an early age, you had committed yourself to a lifetime of rigorous exercise.

So determined were you to achieve great levels of success in this endeavour that you worked out every single day

Seven days per week.

Never once taking a break.

Never.

Not only did you work out every day but you worked out many times throughout the day.

Every chance you got, you worked out.

And as the years went by your commitment never once wavered.

And you constantly increased the frequency, duration and intensity of each workout.

And working out became so ingrained in your daily routine that it became autonomic.

It happened all by itself.

You didn’t have to do anything.

Just like breathing.

You didn’t have to do anything to have a complete workout.

Effortless.

And then one day you realized that you had spent all these years only working out one side of your body.

And not even the whole side.

Just one arm.

Your left arm.

Your had done tens, if not hundreds of thousands of curls with that arm, constantly increasing the intensity and always adding more weight.

Now imagine what your left arm would look like.

It would be massive, wouldn’t it?

And very powerful.

But what about your right arm? What would that one look like?

Pretty puny by comparison, don’t you think.

It would never happen, right?

You would never do that. It’s insane.

And you’re perfectly sane.

Or are you?

As much as we laugh at, and ridicule the absurdity of this entire discussion many of us have devoted our lives to doing just that.

Day we day, week by week, month by month and year by year we have worked hard at exercising negative, critical, devastating self criticism.

Many of us have spent a lifetime telling our selves how inadequate we are, how bad we are, how pathetic we are, how we are not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, tall enough and a host of other soul destroying statements.

And we have done this over and over.

We have become so good at this that it has become autonomic.

We don’t have to do anything.

It happens all by itself.

Just like breathing.

And we have successfully convinced ourselves of the truthfulness of all these self condemning thoughts.

We believe them.

And we are what we believe to be true.

We define ourselves by what we believe to be true.

So, much like in the first part of this story, we have successfully developed one side of ourselves.

But not the other side.

So we are completely out of balance.

And if we don’t change this we will fall over again and again.

So if anything written above resonates with you PLEASE, do this.

Take a pen and piece of paper and find a comfortable quiet place to sit.

If you are under eighteen and don’t know what I mean by a pen and a piece of paper, take your iPhone.

Make a list of what you would like to believe to be true of yourself.

Not a list of what you believe to be true of yourself but a list of WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE to be true of yourself.

The list can be as long or as short as you like.

There is no maximum number of items on your list.

There is minimum number.

One.

And once you have your list here’s what you do.

Read the list to yourself.

Now read it again.

And again.

And again.

And every chance you get.

And modify it as much as you want.

And keep saying it to yourself.

And say it as if you believed it – even if you don’t.

And say it loud.

And shout it out.

And get your whole body involved.

And walk around while saying it.

And pretend it all feels true.

And do it one more time.

Then once more.

Every day.

There will be days when you don’t feel like doing this.

Do it.

There will be days when you feel foolish doing this.

Do it.

There will be days when it all seems silly and phony.

Do it.

And, sooner than you think, there will be days when it feels good to do this.

Keep doing it.

And days when you feel you’re deluding yourself into believing this.

Keep doing it.

And days when you do believe it.

Keep doing it.

And days when you really do believe it.

Keep doing it.

And days when you really, truly do believe it.

Keep doing it.

And days when you do things that are now consistent with these new beliefs.

Keep doing it.

NEVER STOP DOING IT.

Here’s why.

If you choose not to do this, you will be doing it anyway.

You will be reaffirming all those negatives we discussed earlier.

They’re not going to go away without a heck of a fight.

So we must overpower them with a never-ending barrage of the good stuff.

So even when you don’t want to – you must.

Because if we don’t, then we’d just be exercising that same half of our brains we have spent our lives developing.

Which would make us half-wits.

And we don’t want that.

Do we?

Till we read again.

P.S. My book Life Sinks or Soars – the Choice is Yours remains at the top of the Self Connection Best Seller list. If you would like the folks at Self Connection to ship a copy to you please click here and then check your mailbox in a few days.

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