Flipping your thoughts

A great activity to do is to interrogate a word or situation and brainstorm all of the thoughts, feelings and judgements that you hold. Identify whether each thought is empowering and positive, or whether it is negative and holding you back. The image shows some common thoughts/excuses/metaphors about money. If you hang out with the negatives, you might find yourself chasing money, in debt and never having enough. You might even feel guilty about having money. Reframing your attitudes is a really powerful way of flipping your mindset to a positive one.

Go back to your negative self talk exercise and try flipping the statements into something positive.

Examples:

Instead of: “I should be _____ by now.”  Try: “I could be _____ right now and I’m choosing to _____ instead.”

Instead of: “I’m an idiot.” Try: “I’m not understanding this right now but I know who can help me”

Instead of: “It’s all my fault.” Try: “I played a part in this, and know how to improve now.”

Instead of: “I shouldn't have…” Try: “If that hadn’t happened, I…”

I love how Brene Brene classifies the difference between shame and guilt. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behaviour. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.”  It's the difference between saying, "I am fat", as opposed to "I am carrying some extra pounds". Or "I'm sorry I made a mistake", rather than "I am a mistake". I am an idiot vs I did something stupid. Every time you take on the attribute you are shaming yourself. Try this instead...

So practice flipping your language and create some positive affirmations and notice the impact it has on you, your relationships and you successful outcomes.