When’s the last time you gave yourself a pat on the back? Follow along with me. Go ahead and raise your right hand really high. Raise it high. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to bend your elbow to a 90-degree angle, so your hand is behind your head. Then I want you to rotate your palm so it’s actually facing the ground, and then I simply want you to pat yourself on the back.
That’s right, what I want you to do is give yourself a pat on the back. We’re often our own worst critics, right? We often criticize ourselves for the things that we’re not doing. The conversations we’re having in our own heads make us our own worst enemy. We criticize ourselves on the things we didn’t eat — or the things we did eat, probably more likely if you’re like me — or the tasks we didn’t do. On the whiteboard behind me, I have more things than I could possibly do all week, yet I’m hoping to get them done here today. Now, of course, I’ve prioritized them, because I’ve learned from my own mistakes, but I still have them there, and it’s easy for me to criticize myself, rather than pat myself on the back for all that I’ve already done today, or in the past.
So I’m going to ask you this question: What is it that you’ve done recently that you can give yourself a pat on the back? And I want you to write that down, and then I want you to think back, when was it another time? And I want you to come up with five, five ways that you should give yourself a pat on the back. You get bonus points if you come up with reasons for each of your Five to Thrive. This will give you a whole listed representation of why you should give yourself a pat on the back. What have you done? What obstacles have you overcome in your mind, in your body, in your soul, in your relationships, in your business?
If you’re a business owner, you definitely have obstacles in your business every single day, and obstacles in relationships, because business is about people, but also as a business owner, we’re often criticized for taking too much time away from our friends and family. So this is something you could think of, but I bet you’ve come up with ways around that, and ways to achieve success despite the obstacles in front of you. So I want you to write down these obstacles that you’ve faced in the past that you’ve overcome, and the more you can do, the better, because what you’re doing is you’re reinforcing your brain to discover wins, not losses, and that’s going to point you in the direction of winning, and winning more often.
Now, there’s a story that I’ve heard before, and I absolutely love, and I tell it often, is when you actually look at the ride on the 15 highway to Las Vegas, coming from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Now, you’re on that road, and it’s just desert for miles and miles and miles, and on that desert, there are telephone poles. These telephone poles are probably, I don’t know, 300 to 500 yards apart, or meters, internationally. They’re far apart, but yet, when accidents occur, if you look at this whole stretch, when cars veer off the road, more often than not, what happens? They hit a telephone pole.
Now, how is this possible? These poles are stretched so far apart that it would be so much easier to miss them, right? You would think statistically, you’d miss them. The problem is, is people hit what they focus on, and so if someone’s steering off the road, they’re veering, what they do is they look up at the obstacle in front of them, which is the telephone pole, and that’s what they’re focused on, and that’s where their car goes. Race car drivers will always tell you if you look just a little bit ahead of the track of where you’re going, that’s where you end up, and that’s how they’re able to zip around curves at lightning speed.
This is the same for people that have already become the authors of their own story. They can tell you that what you’re focusing on the right in front of you is what you’re going to hit, and oftentimes, we focus on the obstacles, not giving ourselves the pat on the back. So today, you’re going to flip that script, and you’re going to give yourself a pat on the back, and you’re going to discover and focus on your successes, and by doing that, you’re going to get even more. That’s it from me today. Remember, go out and be the Author of Your Own Story, share this with somebody that you love and you care about, and now, after you’ve given yourself a pat on the back, I want you to go out and earn another one by being the author of your own story and inspiring those around you. Take care and have a great day!
If you like these daily growth hacks, it would mean the world to us if you would take a moment to subscribe and review us on iTunes!
Loading...
