By Jessica Flaherty, RD
Jessica is one of the dietitians here at Not Your Average Nutritionist. She helps people heal their relationship with food so that they can live their life to the fullest.
“I can’t do that”
“It would be too difficult”
“I’m not strong enough”
“I’m not smart enough”
“No one believes in me anyway”
Have you ever said these things, or something similar, to yourself?
It’s normal to have negative thoughts or doubts sometimes, no one is positive 100% of the time! However, do your negative thoughts overpower the positive ones? If they do, it may be time to reassess why and think about how you can shift your thinking.
Negative thoughts may be related to your body image, your capabilities at school, managing work, or many other things. Whatever you’re struggling with today, I want to emphasize that you can manifest what you think about to create a shift where your positive thoughts overpower your negative thoughts.
When that voice tells you negative things about yourself, challenge it. Maybe you can do this out loud and say something such as “No, I am strong, I can do this”. Or maybe you could say something similar in your head or write a journal prompt about it. Whichever method works best for you, challenge those thoughts in the moment to redirect your thinking to a more positive, worthwhile approach!
Consider this question: Those negative things you say about yourself, would you say them to your friend? Your answer was probably “no, never!”. Now, why would you say these things to yourself?! You deserve the same kindness that you give to others. Believing you are worthy is a difficult but important step in overcoming negative thoughts. Confide in someone you trust about the negative thoughts you are trying to combat for accountability, or use positive affirmations to remind yourself that these negative thoughts are not true.
Challenge limiting beliefs that have been given to you or that you have given yourself. Limiting beliefs are ideas, thoughts, or opinions that one believes to be the truth, despite actual reality. They usually tend to have an obstructive impact on one’s life that can stop them from enhancing and growing in life! For example, if a goal of yours is to wake up earlier in the morning to start your day but you constantly say “I’m not a morning person”, this is a limiting belief and not helping you in reaching your goal.
Try starting small; if you normally wake up at 10 am and your goal is to wake up at 7 am, don’t start waking up 3 hours earlier right away. First try waking up 15 or 30 minutes earlier than usual and increase the frequency and time from there. Creating realistic and attainable goals can help you challenge those limiting beliefs and before you know it you’ll be crushing those goals!
