Seriously, who do you think you are? Look into a mirror & take mental notes of your first thoughts of yourself. Did you have admiration and respect for yourself, or were you not so nice? It’s easy to get stuck in a rut of negative thinking, and I’ll explain why. The human brain works similarly to a muscle, and just as repetitions strengthen muscles, continuous thoughts grow stronger and become more frequent too.
First, determine if your opinions are true, or if they're judgments you’ve convinced yourself to believe. Our brains aren't able to distinguish whether our thoughts are true or not. You can convince yourself of something even if it’s not true. An example would be thinking you have a headache over & over again until you truly believe your head hurts. In reverse, faking laughter will fool your brain into a happier state of mind.
Routinely encouraging positive thoughts will cause your mind to subconsciously repeat them more often. Even if you don’t believe in yourself at first, say “I’m worth loving myself as I would a friend or loved one”, “I’m proud of who I am”, or “I’m beautiful the way I am”. Purposely point out your positive attributes more frequently, and in just a short amount of time, you’ll notice a boost in your self-esteem and self-confidence.
I am very excited to share this blog post with you because I’ve personally experienced how life-changing this process is. It greatly helped to improve my self-confidence, self-esteem, and my social anxiety. I’m in a good mood much more often too. The negative thoughts that I used to pick myself apart are now completely replaced with self-love, encouragement, and optimism. I will explain many more simple techniques to improve your happiness in future blog posts. Share, like, and follow to be notified when I publish new posts. Thanks for reading!
Author,
Brooke Durkin