Negativity kills you slowly…steadily. It constantly works against you.
People think that negativity follows them around. But it doesn’t. You drag it around. That dark cloud is on a leash. On the other end of that leash, is your mind. And it’s your mouth.
I hear negativity out of people’s mouths all the time. I don’t understand why people are always putting it out there like that. I do it too. Well, I used to do it too.
I started a list of all phrases that I hear, that have real negative connotations. I’m not saying them anymore. This list is nowhere near complete…
The List:
“I can’t win.” Not with an attitude like that. You’re right, you aren’t going to win anything…ever.
“That’s impossible.” It’s only impossible if you believe it to be so. I hate to bring up the man-on-the-moon cliché, so I won’t…but even if you told someone in 1980 that a bank wouldn’t have to be open for you to get cash, most people wouldn’t have believed you.
“I’m trying.” Something you never hear, “I tried, and I beat that thing.” Or, “I tried and succeeded.” Try and fail go hand in hand. “I tried, but didn’t make it.” You hear that all the time. I learned this one from David Murray and Arizona Coleman (thank you both), two Urban Samurai members…and Yoda. “Do or do not. There is no try.”
“Life hates me.” No it doesn’t. Your negativity is causing you to attract negative things. Your negativity hates you. Life isn’t a game of magnets where opposites attract. Positivity attracts positive things. Ever meet a miserable person that bad things keep happening to? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In this case, it’s the chicken (or the egg, whichever stands for the person who is negative.)
“My parents screwed me up.” You know what? Maybe they did. But if you’re old enough to understand that, you’re old enough to be responsible for your own behavior. So stop blaming them and start taking ownership what you do. And guess what else? When you become a parent, you’re going to ‘screw up’ your kids too. Get over it.
“I could never get that job.” With hard work, you can seriously do anything. Anything. Probably less than 1% of all jobs require a person with significantly above average mental capacity. The rest are all about preparation, fearlessness, contacts, experience, desire, hard work. Those are things that all of us either have already or can acquire over time. And all career paths can be started at any age. Young and old.
“That guy is so lucky.” No he wasn’t. So few people are genuinely lucky in this world. There are millions of self-made millionaires. They took risks. They worked hard. They pushed themselves to the brink. It paid off. If you call that luck, then you should be so lucky too. Don’t wait on the ‘luck’ that you are referring to. Because that’s not luck, it’s a miracle.
“If I just get through these next few ________” We all go through hard times. They should not last for too long. If you set yourself up to be miserable for several weeks, you are going to be miserable for several weeks. If you set yourself up for several months or years…guess how long you are going to be miserable for?
“Life is hard.” Not really. You are choosing to make it hard. Our problems are not original. If you think yours are, Google them. There are a lot of people with your exact same life, living it easier than you. Yes there are a bunch of obstacles in life. Go over them and through them with a smiling vigor. Live life easy.
There are a million more. If you find yourself spewing negativity, alter what you say. That’s the first…and the easy change. Don’t put it out there.
To fix the root of the problem, you will need to dig deeper than that. And explore the emotions that get you to feel this way. Think about the causes and triggers for those emotions. You will need to find the root. That takes time.
But you can change what you say starting right now. This will get you to start focusing on being positve. That’s important. That’s the beginning. Eventually, you can start moving those triggers out of your life.