Let’s say you’ve thought it over carefully and decided to accept all the risks involved in expecting yourself to succeed. You’re ready (self-forgiveness waiting in the wings) to do whatever it takes to set your sights and accomplish your goal.

As each of your fears shows up (and you can bet they will) and states its case (threats like “If you do this, you’ll be sorry”), you square your shoulders, raise your head, look right at the threat, and say, “I am willing to take the risk.”
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(Success is much more a matter of courage than of ability.)
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The conversation might go like this:

The Threat: If you do this, you will only be making a fool of yourself.
The Response: I’m willing to risk it.

The Threat: If you do this, you are going to make someone very mad.
The Response: I’m willing to risk it.

The Threat: If you do this, you are going to hurt someone’s feelings.
The Response: (deep breath) I’m willing to risk it.

Now, here comes the tough part, the part that many will say is the greatest challenge: learning to acknowledge, reinforce, and even celebrate your progress. To meet this challenge, you may have to change your beliefs about yourself 180 degrees. No small matter.

Taking a Risk.

Make a list of the fears and threats you are likely to encounter when you take the risk of expecting success from yourself. Leave some space to add to your list as you become more aware of the threats.

– T Rutledge.

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At the end of our day when alone, we can take a piece of paper and pencil (or word processor, editor, have a journal etc), and think about the day. We can write down events, and how we could/should have reacted to them if we are not satisfied with what happened.

We need to put pride aside and we need to be very honest with ourselves.

We can look back at the events that we experienced in the past and how we reacted to what happened, and how we reacted to people.

We could ask ourself:

“Could I have done better?”
“If I had reacted in a different way would the situation have changed and worked out better for all?”

If we lost our temper sometime during the day, we can ask ourself, “If I had not have lost my temper, would the situation have changed for the better?
Would I have gained a friend instead of an enemy?”
“What should I have done?”

We can look at different ways to handle situations.
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Some people do this type of review of their day every evening. They do it to find out how they deal with the world and to discover if he or she had done something different, could the whole situation have changed for the better.

Visualization helps too. A person can remember an occasion where he or she was angry, loud, violent etc. Nothing good came from this. And we can quietly replay the event in our mind, but this time we react differently, and then we can see if it turns out differently, more positive, etc.

Once we are convinced that we could have dealt with the situation differently we can positively convince ourself that next time such a situation comes up we will react in the more positive way, and reap the rewards of a more positive reaction from others as a result.
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None of us is perfect, we are all works in progress. Some of us (like I discovered about myself in the past) are our own worst enemies sometimes. There is no harm in self correction, wanting to be a better person, better parent, better teenager, better son or daughter, better husband or wife, there is nothing wrong in wanting to be the best that we can be.

Our world improves as we improve our personal character. When we react to situations calmer, more in control, more able and capable, life becomes more and more enjoyable, and our confidence grows. And if we react to people in a calm respectful manner most will react back to us the same.
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The more positive and encouraging we keep the “self-talk” in our own mind, the better our day will be.

Try to be conscious of how you talk to yourself in your mind.
Please speak to yourself kindly.
Please give yourself a chance to change and improve, and please forgive yourself quickly.

Get used to giving yourself second chances, and saying things to yourself that will boost your confidence and will encourage you to try again.
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You deserve a good life, and like all of us you should have that life. Please try to remember that it is how you deal with people and how you react to the world that makes a big difference in how the world deals with you.
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If you keep a diary, journal, write things down, please keep it in a safe place. Your self improvement is a personal thing.

Please don’t let other people’s opinions, comments, negative attitudes, get you down. Just keep trying knowing that the result is a person that you will love and respect.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.