Have you ever felt that sense of self-doubt, embarrassment, and failure welling up inside?
Have you ever been through a phase in your life where terrible things just keep happening?
Have you ever felt burned out, fearful, and like you’re beginning to question everything you’re doing?
Do you ever just want to go back to bed, pull the sheets up, and hide there until the world goes back to normal?
I bet you have.
In fact, studies show that most people – including HIGHLY successful people – feel like failures more often than not.
Here are a few real-life examples for you:
- You know Colonel Sanders, the guy who invented Kentucky Fried Chicken? He went door to door trying to sell his chicken recipe, and he was turned down 1009 times in a row before someone finally bought it.
- Steven Spielberg got rejected so many times by the University of Southern California that he gave up. (And it was only then that he became a movie director.)
- Thomas Edison, creator of the electric light bulb, created 10,000 failed prototypes before he succeeded (ten THOUSAND!)
- Sylvester Stallone was rejected 1,500 times before he sold his script ‘Rocky’, which is now one of the most popular films of all time.
- The illusionist David Blaine tried to break the world record for holding his breath underwater. He went through some incredibly embarrassing failures, in front of millions and millions of people on national television, over and over again, before finally succeeding (he held his breath for seventeen minutes underwater to break the record.)
- Sir Richard Branson launched 400 companies before he founded the breakthrough, Virgin Galactic.
All of these people have made MASSIVE, and in some cases literally death-defying, contributions to humanity.
And every single one of them went through crushing, humiliating, and publicly embarrassing failures before they made their breakthrough.
So here’s my point:
Failure is a normal, natural, and human part of success.
And feeling like a failure often means your big break is so much closer than you think.
That said, though, that burned-out, fearful, panic-stricken feeling of ‘being a failure’ is pretty crippling.
And I don’t want you to bog yourself down with toxic feelings and anxiety when there’s truly no need.
So here are 2 simple steps you can take, starting right now, to put the sparkle back in your life, recharge your batteries, and internalize on a deep gut level that your time to shine is so much closer than you think.
Here we go.
Step 1: Refuse to time-travel.
As a kid, I used to imagine monsters under the bed.
I was too scared to go to sleep, too scared to stay awake, too scared to go to the bathroom, too scared to MOVE.
And even though we’re grown ups now, many adults I know are still putting themselves through these ‘night terrors’.
So many of us terrorize ourselves with scary thoughts.
We dream up awful things that happened in the past, scary things that might happen in the future, and we keep juggling that scalding-hot potato inside our minds even though it’s burning us.
We drift off to sleep visualizing the worst, or imagining terrifying situations.
We wake up in the morning with a jolt of adrenaline, picturing the long, stressful commute to work, the crying children needing their breakfast, the Monday morning meeting with the boss we’ve been dreading all weekend.
We get a funny look or a weird comment from a colleague or the boss, and all of a sudden our palms are sweating and we’re worrying about getting fired.
Or in relationships: someone doesn’t return your email or phone call, and suddenly you feel unwanted, undesirable, unloved and unlovable.
We scare ourselves with terrifying thoughts.
And most adult humans think these kinds of dark, paralyzing thoughts over 900 times a day.
900 times! Imagine how much POWER those negative affirmations are putting out into the world.
So here’s what I suggest:
Refuse to be a time-traveller.
Next time you start picturing a terrible event, constructing a paralyzing thought, or getting sucked into evil memories, past mistakes, or crippling fears of the future, say these words to yourself:
“I have the right not to time-travel.”
Worrying about the past or the future takes you away from your reality and bogs you down with frightful thoughts about things that aren’t even HAPPENING.
You have the right not to time travel.
You have the right not to infect your reality with imaginary monsters.
There are no monsters under the bed.
All there is, is right NOW.
The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is the only gift you’ll ever have. That’s why it’s called the present.
Step 2: Change the Channel
If you find yourself constantly obsessing over negative thoughts, worries, anxieties, or future situations that might go wrong, change the channel inside your head.
Imagine a giant hand crashing down and switching channels on a TV.
Then find a picture of something beautiful – something pretty, something relaxing, something that makes every cell in your body relax and go AAAAAAH.
For me, it’s picturing my puppy wriggling and yipping and wagging her whole behind with happiness when I walk in the door.
For others, it’s a picture of the ocean.
Or a sunset.
Or the sound of raindrops hitting the window when you’re snuggled up under the comforter in your warm bed.
See, bad pictures inside your head can be crippling.
But YOU HAVE THE RIGHT not to let those pictures infect your reality with their poison.
It’s YOUR head.
That means YOU get to choose what channel you want to watch.
Just say to yourself, ‘NO! I don’t need to watch this channel right now. I’m changing it to the sunset channel.’
Or the ocean channel. Or the puppy channel. Or whatever your channel happens to be.
If you’re consistent with your channel-changing, soon it will become a habit and you won’t even have to think about it any more.
Your mind will easily, naturally become a relaxing, beautiful, happy place to be.
Your body, your heart, and every last one of your cells will feel the energetic change, and you’ll physically feel lighter, freer, more energetic.
And emotionally, you’ll free up so much positive energy (that you USED to spend on thinking evil, scary thoughts), and that good energy create vibrations that beam out of your head and call in MORE of what you truly love.
This is the cycle of energy. It’s how the Universe works. You can use it to your benefit.
So start today.
Refuse to time-travel.
And watch only the channels that YOU want to watch.
What about you?
Are you a perfectionist? Do you beat yourself up when you make a mistake? Are you worried about the future, questioning your life’s direction, wanting the answers NOW?
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