Practice Makes Perfect

Our emotions are initiated and escalated by what we say to

ourselves about our parents, our spouse, our experiences, the
past, the future, even God. The more emotion attached to an
event, the more we tend to remember about it. The memory
section of our brain comes into play here. Repeated self-talk,
over time, turns into attitudes, values, and beliefs. Most of that
comes from memories. And some self-talk comes by way of
pictures flashing on our mind.
You may be thinking, Norm, you’ve already said this. You’re
just repeating yourself.
That’s correct. And I’ll keep doing that. I’m practicing an
important principle in learning and change. It’s called
repetition. Without repetition and practice, there won’t be any
changes.
Do any of these statements sound familiar?
“You can’t do anything right.”
“You’ll never be attractive—you won’t find a mate.”
“You never were much good.”
“You’re fortunate you got any kind of job.”
“You’ll always be a failure.”
“Don’t plan on college. You’ll never get in.”
These voices are your enemies. They’re deceitful. They
distort reality. They’re nothing but lies. And they may be
coming from you!
Unfortunately, if you said these once, you probably said or
thought them hundreds of times. You used repetition to make
these a part of your memory banks.
Now you can learn to use repetition in a positive way.
Go back to those messages. If any of those sound familiar,
analyze them. Ask yourself about each:
1. Where is the evidence? What could show
this belief is true? If I asked three of my
friends, would they agree that this negative
statement about me is true?
2. Is there evidence to the contrary? List things
that show that the core belief is false.
3. If the belief really is true, what do you want to
do to correct it?
Perhaps your core belief is that you can’t do anything right.
Try spending tomorrow telling yourself you can’t do anything
wrong. It may feel ridiculous to tell yourself that. But is it really
any more ridiculous than the assumption that you can’t do
anything right?
If your self-talk often hammers you with “I can’t do anything
right,” consider repeating to yourself instead: Sometimes I
don’t do things well. But most of the time, what I do is quite
good.
You may tend to tell yourself: You’ll never be attractive—
you’ll never find a mate. Instead, tell yourself: Some days I look
good, and some days so-so—sort of like everyone else—and
there are people interested in me.
The negative “You never were much good” could be flipflopped
to “I’m not perfect, but I have a number of positive
qualities. God knows me, loves me, has sacrificed for me, and I
am worth his attention. In his sight, I am really somebody.”
“You’re fortunate you got any kind of job” could be
changed to “I’m grateful for having a job, and I am qualified for
a number of jobs.”
“You’re a failure” could be changed to “Mistakes are
learning experiences. They create valuable lessons. I may fail at
some things, but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure as a person.”
Get the idea? Talk back to the old messages, those old lies.
You may be thinking, It won’t work. Well, I’ve seen it work.
Your negative self-talk may be screaming, I can’t do it! Yes,
you can. You can learn, practice, and change.