If you don’t do the inner work, your limiting beliefs will control every decision that you make in life.

A lot of people shy away from inner work, for fear that facing it, will be painful.

Growth can be difficult, but it can also be transformative. Research shows that many people report psychological growth as a result of experiencing highly stressful events.

Now is the time to release yourself from the past, recondition old belief patterns, and re-write your story. Are you ready to learn 3 ways that you can transform your negative self-talk?

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Inner work sounds daunting, but it doesn’t have to be.

It’s all a matter of perspective. We all know how powerful beliefs can be. The mind believes what it wants to believe. If you think that inner work is hard, that’s exactly what it will be. However, if you are able to reframe your experience and view self-growth as an opportunity to become a better version of yourself, the game changes. As Tony Robbins says, “Whatever you hold in your mind on a consistent basis is exactly what you will experience in your life.”

Don’t get me wrong… inner work will challenge you to your core. The process will force you to go inward and look at yourself and your life in unfamiliar ways. If you aren’t willing to drop your ego, be vulnerable, and face your fears, there will be resistance. However, if you can open yourself to the experience, you will set yourself up for a massive internal win.

I always say that anything of value is hard work. On the other side of inner work is purposeful living and it feels damn good. There is nothing more rewarding than stepping into your power and finally living in alignment with your true self.

How do I know? I’ve been on both sides of the coin.

When I was younger, I was a shadow of my true self. I was a shy, anxious, depressed kid. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly living the high life. Studies have linked negative self-talk with higher levels of stress, lower levels of self-esteem, and depression. I can relate to these toxic effects.

My negative self-talk was like a bad song that I played on repeat in my head. It’s fair to say that the image I held of myself was below average. One day, I looked myself dead in the mirror and I said, “Never again will I allow myself to feel less than.” I knew that the only person that was going to change me, was me. In short, I hit my emotional threshold. 

I was tired of playing small, so I made the decision that I would no longer stay stuck in one place. Living each day as if I was merely surviving didn't feel good. I was ready to thrive. The core of my inner work revolved around my beliefs about who I was. My journey from feeling like a nobody to being a somebody has had its fair share of highs and lows. However, what I have learned about myself throughout the process has been life-changing.

To this day, I continue to learn and grow because life is always changing and so am I.

I’m not perfect. I still experience moments when I feel down or experience self-doubt. However, because I have conditioned my mental muscle on a daily basis, I am now able to shift my state, almost instantly, from one that is disempowering to empowering. This is how I have overcome my shyness and social anxiety. One thing that I know for sure is that doing the inner work is the only thing that has allowed me to become the person that I am today.

I want to share with you 3 ways that you can transform your negative self-talk. I have personally used these strategies in my own life and they have allowed me to create a success-oriented mindset.

1. Become Mindful of the Words You Speak

You are where you are today, in part, because of what you have been saying to yourself. If you tell yourself that you're not enough, you will act from that belief system. Your words are strongly connected to your future self. If you think negative thoughts and speak them out loud, you attract that same energy into your life.

You can't talk about how much you lack and expect to have abundance. Eventually, this negative state of mind becomes a part of your reality. This is how the Law of Attraction works. Keep in mind that, just because a negative thought pops into your mind, it doesn't mean that you have to believe it. Don't allow negative words to prevent you from becoming the person that you were destined to be.

If you want to live a positive life, you need to think positive thoughts. This starts with learning how to reprogram your mind for positive thinking. The best way to foster a more loving relationship with your inner self is by practicing positive affirmations. As you start to speak empowering words out loud to yourself, over time you start to believe these things to be true. This is how I have been able to master my psychology. 

2. Reframe Your Thoughts 

Have you ever wondered how some people thrive through life, while others constantly struggle? It comes down to how they interpret their life's challenges. Successful people are able to effectively reframe their experiences by replacing unhelpful thoughts with more positive and adaptive ones. You may not be able to control what happens to you, but you can always transform how you feel about something.

In their book, What Went Right: Reframe Your Thinking for a Happier Now, Michael Wetter and Eileen Baley suggest that, by changing your thinking, you can unlock self-affirming feelings and actions that are needed in order to create a more empowering life story.

The next time that you find yourself spiraling into self-deprecating behaviors, stop yourself, shift your narrative, and reframe your thinking. For example, “I hate my body” can be reframed to “Yes, I may not be happy about the current state of my health, but I know that if I commit to eating healthier and going to the gym, I will get the body that I want.”

If you want to change something about your life, you've got to start by changing your beliefs first. By shifting your thoughts, you automatically put yourself into a more empowering state of mind.

3. Be A Better Best Friend To Yourself

Do you treat yourself like you would treat your best friend? A lot of people spend so much time being present for others, but they forget about themselves in the process. Instead of celebrating their wins, they beat themselves down and are overly self-critical about everything that they do. 

If you can relate to these behaviors, now is the time to change the view that you have of yourself and start appreciating the amazing person that you are. The next time that you catch your inner critic getting the best of you, check-in and stop this negative voice dead in its tracks. Ask yourself, “Would I speak to ____ in this way?” If the answer is “no,” then you certainly don't deserve it.

The most important relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself, which is why it's critical that you make it a priority to put yourself first. Being a better friend to yourself means showing yourself unconditional love and compassion. It's about learning how to love your own company. I encourage you to create a self-love ritual where you take some time every day to celebrate who you are and how far you've come.

Are your ready to start paying attention to your inner self?

Only you can begin this work. It starts with making the decision that you will no longer allow your negative self-talk to control your life. There is nothing or nobody that can give you what it is that you are seeking. Yes, inner work can be challenging, but the person that you become on the other side is well worth the journey. You will start to embody your true power and begin the process of embracing all parts of yourself.

In the words of Helen Joy Butler, “Even though this work may look and feel messy, there is so much beauty in the mess. It's incredibly liberating and life-changing if we have the courage and strength to go there.“

There is nothing that you cannot do. Do not fear the journey of self-discovery. Commit to showing up for yourself and do the work to shift your narrative. Life will take care of the rest.

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Self-compassion is a quality that a lot of people struggle with because they don't know what it actually looks like.

It's way easier to be compassionate towards others. It feels more selfless and empathetic to be kind to those in need. Wait a minute… what about you? You matter too. Unfortunately, society has conditioned us to believe that being hard on ourselves is a good thing. We aren't taught self-compassion.

Kristin Neff, a pioneer of research on self-compassion, believes that our society’s emphasis on achievement and self-esteem lies at the heart of much unnecessary and even counterproductive suffering.

When people fail, they end up beating themselves up and allow their inner critics to take over. They say things like, “I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm a failure.” These thoughts are a recipe for disaster.

Are you ready to learn about the 4 myths of self-compassion? When you know what self-compassion isn't, you will feel empowered to show yourself more love and kindness.

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Do you know what self-compassion is?

In this book, The Mindful Path To Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself From Destructive Thoughts and Emotions, Christopher Gremer refers to self-compassion as “simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others.”

Sounds easy, right? Not for everyone.

Self-compassion is a foreign idea for many people because they don't know what it is, much less what it means to practice it. If you struggle with it, don't worry. You aren't alone. In a world that is obsessed with achievement, we have been trained to become our own worst enemies.

Scientific data shows that self-criticism makes us weaker in the face of failure, more emotional, and less likely to assimilate lessons from our failures. There is a much healthier alternative to self-criticism, and it's called self-compassion. In the words of Kristin Neff, “Unlike self-criticism, which asks if you are good enough, self-compassion asks what's good for you.”

Too often, many of us take the relationship that we have with ourselves for granted. When our negative self-talk goes into overdrive we end up feeling insecure and fall into a negative cycle of self-sabotaging behavior. Sit back and ask yourself – “Would you ever speak to your friend or someone you love like you talk to yourself?”

If your answer shocks you, it's time to start showing yourself more love and kindness.

Think about someone that you've met who exudes an enormous amount of self-love. How do they act? What do they say? Moving from self-criticism to self-compassion is a process that doesn't happen overnight. It can be challenging to change conditioned patterns of thinking, but it is possible.

Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have, so I encourage you to learn how to love yourself unconditionally every single day, even when you don't feel like it.

Research shows that people who have self-compassion have greater social connectedness, emotional intelligence, happiness, and overall life satisfaction. If self-compassion is correlated with psychological well-being, then why is it such a hard sell? 

Sometimes it comes down to not knowing what self-compassion actually is. I want to share 4 myths that people tend to buy into. If you agree with any of them, I encourage you to change your thinking.

1. Self-compassion is selfish 

Many people think that self-compassion is selfish. If we put ourselves first, that means that we are a bad person. Wrong. Taking care of yourself is about honoring what it is that you need. If you don't give yourself love, how do you expect to give it to anyone else?

When you give all of your compassion away and don't leave any for yourself, not only are you left feeling exhausted, but you can also become resentful of the people in your life who take from you. Some people are raised by their parents to believe that they need to put everyone else's needs before their own. That becomes the “how to achieve happiness and fulfillment” card, which is far from true.

It takes a lot of strength to actually make yourself a priority every day. It's a lot easier to fall into the trap of responsibilities, to-do lists, errands, work, and emails. Taking the time to fill ourselves up and focus on what is important to us is the most selfless act of love. It allows us to get grounded and connect to our inner self.

This is especially important for mothers who tend to drop into guilt mode when they set aside time to do anything for themselves that doesn't involve their children. The demands of motherhood make many women feel that their own needs don't matter IF they want to be a perfect parent.

2. Self-compassion is self-indulgent 

Being self-compassionate doesn't mean that you are lazy or self-indulgent. We can be so hard on ourselves. When we criticize ourselves we are only left feeling depleted. Just because we failed or didn't get the outcome that we hoped for, that doesn't mean that we aren't good enough. It simply means that we have more to learn.

Self-compassion is a mindset. It's about reframing a challenging experience as an opportunity for growth and acknowledging that highs and lows are a normal part of life. Think of self-compassion as a loving friend who is there to inspire and encourage you to be kinder and more forgiving to yourself.

Perfection doesn't exist, so the next time that life doesn't go your way, look for the positive and celebrate your successes, instead of ruminating on your faults.

3. Self-compassion is self-pity

Individuals who become so obsessed with their own emotional drama wallow in self-pity. As a result, they lack empathy and compassion because they assume that they are the only people on the planet that are suffering.

People who display self-compassion acknowledge that individuals share similar experiences to one another, and strive for connection as a way of leaning on others' for support. They realize that human suffering is a universal condition.

They are still able to look outward and see the bigger picture, whereas an individual who drowns in self-pity complains, in an unconscious attempt to get from others that which he/she needs in themselves. The result? A vicious cycle of victimhood that only leaves someone feeling helpless and feeling like they don't have any control over their lives.

4. Self-compassion is a sign of weakness 

Practicing self-compassion doesn't make you weak or helpless. Rather, it makes you feel powerful and unstoppable. Showing up for yourself every day means that you have made the conscious decision that you are the CEO of your life.

Self-compassion is closely tied to effective coping skills. Research has found that self-compassionate individuals are less likely to use avoidant ways of coping, such as being in denial or defensiveness, and are more able to tackle difficult situation head-on.

By showing yourself love and compassion through adversity, you will be more likely to bounce back from difficult times and come back stronger than ever before.

Self-compassion is a work in progress.

We are human. We all have bad days. However, when we can live from a place of knowing that we are enough, we experience the ultimate form of self-love.

If self-compassion isn't all of the above things, then what is it? In her book, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, Dr. Kristin Neff says that self-compassion consists of three parts:

Self-Kindness – being understanding and forgiving towards ourselves when we fail or make mistakes.
Common Humanity – the recognition that suffering is a part of the human condition.
Mindfulness – observing negative emotions from a place of openness and clarity.

Creating a morning ritual has been one of the most powerful ways that I have been able to show myself unconditional love and kindness. How you spend your mornings determines how your day will unfold. If you start your day by rolling over, hitting the snooze button and then trolling on social media while slamming a coffee, you aren't giving yourself the space to honor YOU.

The morning should energize and empower us, not leave us feeling anxious and overwhelmed.

I encourage you to start your day with a meditation, listen to an uplifting podcast while doing some exercise, start a gratitude journal, or go for a walk and do some deep breathing exercises. These are all self-compassion practices. It comes down to making the effort to treat yourself like you would a good friend – with love, respect, and kindness. Spending quality time with yourself allows you to pay attention to what matters to you.

My morning ritual is non-negotiable. Without it, I don't feel whole. It has become a part of who I am. I need it. I yearn for it. Most of all, it has become the vessel by which I have been able to crush all of the limiting beliefs that I used to have. By making myself a priority, I now have the confidence and self-belief to know that, no matter what happens, I can handle it.

That is the power of having a morning ritual.

Everything that you have gone through, the good and the bad, has made you who you are today. You deserve the love that you so freely give to others. The next time that your inner critic shows up and tries to tell you otherwise, do something good for your soul and remind yourself how far you've come.

Don't buy into the myths of self-compassion. We are all beautiful works in progress. Wake up every day and engage in a practice of showing yourself kindness, love, and compassion. In the words of Christopher Germer, “A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day. A string of such moments can change your entire life.”

How will you show up for yourself today?

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Are you ready to overcome adversity? Hard times don't have to last forever.

When life knocks you down, what do you do? Do you dust yourself off and keep moving forward, or do you curl up in a ball and give up? Adversity takes many forms and effects each person differently. What matters most is how you choose to react when adversity strikes.

If you want to master your life, you need to learn how to overcome adversity and hard times. How do I know? I've been faced with some big challenges in my life that have tested my strength. By making the choice to overcome adversity, I was able to make room for healthier relationships, financial abundance, greater confidence, and a heightened level of personal fulfillment and joy.

You may not be able to see it now, but adversity is actually a blessing in disguise. It is an opportunity for you to prove to yourself how strong you really are. In the words of Barbara De Angelis, “We don’t develop courage by being happy every day. We develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.”

Are you ready to learn 9 strategies for how to overcome adversity and hard times?

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When you overcome adversity, you change your life. 

Yes, hard times can be difficult to bare and can leave emotional scars that are difficult to let go of, but we always have a choice. You don't need to possess superhuman strength in order to bounce back from adversity. The secret to learning how to overcome adversity and hard times is resilience.

You may be wondering, “What does it mean to be resilient?” Resilience is the process of thriving through adversity, trauma or stress. It is not something that you are born with. Rather, it is a trait that can be developed over time.

In her book, Supernormal: The Untold Story of Adversity And Resilience, Meg Jay says that, “What I like about the word ‘supernormal' is it hints at how heroic that is — that it takes a lot of courage to go out there and rise above your circumstances or rise above the events that have happened to you.”

It's not the events of life that matter, but rather the meaning that we create from those events. Whether or not you create an empowering or disempowering meaning from hard times in your life is entirely up to you. Two different people can experience the same event but take away an entirely different meaning from their experience.

Resilient people don't focus on how hard times broke them in the first place. Rather, they pay attention to and embrace the actions that they took in order to get through the difficult times. They wake up every day and consciously choose growth and focus on what they can control.

Researchers have discovered five particular areas of growth that often spring from adversity: interpersonal relationships, the identification of new possibilities for one's life, personal strength, spirituality, and an appreciation of life. This phenomenon is referred to as post-traumatic growth. Each of us has the power to channel our pain into productive ways of living.

If you struggle with adversity, today is a new day to reclaim your power. You no longer have to drown in the ocean of despair. Now is the time to be your own anchor and ride the storms of life, with grace and ease. I want to teach you 9 strategies that will help you overcome adversity and hard times once and for all.

1. Believe In Yourself

Don't let anything or anyone make you question your belief in yourself. When adversity hits, it's easy for our self-esteem to take a massive blow, but you need to realize that you are NOT defined by your challenges. Adversity isn't a part of your identity. It's merely an experience.

Trust that you have the ability to take back control of your life when everything feels like it's falling apart. Acknowledge the adversity and hard times that you are experiencing, but know that you will overcome anything that stands in your way of success.

Don't allow your inner critic to rope you into the story that you aren't strong enough to get through tough times. Think back to all of the times in your life when you rose back from the ashes, and use those experiences as reminders of how strong you are.

2. Drop Negative Self-Talk

What you think and say about yourself will create your outcomes in life. When adversity occurs, be aware of how you talk to yourself. If you focus primarily on the negative aspects of a stressful event, then you will be more likely to replay those negative thoughts in your head. Your inner critic will feed off the negativity, further diminishing your self-esteem.

Words are powerful. Resist saying things like, “I can't do this” or “This is tough.” Don't let the story that your inner critic is trying to tell you to dictate your choices. Instead, focus on language that is empowering, positive and that inspires you to take action to change your life.

3. Practice Self-Compassion 

When life knocks you down, showing kindness and compassion towards yourself can go a long way. Studies show that self-compassion is a key piece in peoples' ability to overcome adversity and hard times. Let's pull upon research to support this point of view.

Kristin Neff, Ph.D., a pioneer in self-compassion research, says self-compassion has three main components: (a) Self-kindness – replace harsh self-criticism with kinder, gentler words, (b) common humanity – acknowledge that suffering and personal failure is a universal experience; and (c) mindfulness – observe your negative emotions without focusing on them or suppressing them.

Mistakes will happen in life. Don't be so hard on yourself! If you dwell on the negative, you will never be able to move forward. When you are recovering from setbacks, do you speak to yourself like you would to a good friend that is going through hard times? If not, it's time to show yourself some more self-compassion.

4. Change Your Response

Whenever adversity looms its ugly face and tries to take you down, how do you respond? Your response is what will determine how fast you are able to bounce forward from adversity. It's not what happens to you that matters. Rather, it's what you choose to do with that negative experience.

Resilient-minded people are always growing and seeking new to ways to learn from life's experiences. When we respond to a negative event in a positive way, positive results unfold. At the end of the day, life is all about choices. We can't always choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we will respond.

Don't react. Rather, be proactive, take ownership of your problems, and eventually, you will find that adversities and hard times are just obstacles that you can and will overcome. Robert Collier said it best – “In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time.”

5. Take Responsibility For Your Life

It’s not easy to take responsibility for your circumstances, especially when they are out of our control. However, by playing the victim and taking a back seat to your life, you are disempowering yourself, leaving you feeling powerless and unable to take control of the situation.

It comes down to accepting that life is a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows. And in order to enjoy the ride, you need to appreciate the duality, without any resistance to the process. Sometimes when we are dealt an unfair hand, we assume that life is working against us.

However, every experience of adversity is designed to help us become better versions of ourselves. When you take responsibility for your life and your circumstances, you are better able to embrace the hard times that life can bring.

6. Ask For Help

When adversity and hard times strike, don't be afraid to ask for help from colleagues, friends or loved ones. Oftentimes when we feel deeply wounded by hard times, it is easy to feel like we are alone, but you aren't. The fear of looking stupid or weak stops many people from reaching out for help. These limiting beliefs are created from years of societal conditioning that teaches us that vulnerability equates to weakness. This is far from true. Asking for help is one of the most accurate measures of strength, so don't be afraid to share your story and express how you feel.

7. Find The Silver Lining 

Every adversity presents an opportunity for growth. Think back to some of the most difficult times in your past. What did you learn about yourself and how did your life change as a result of that experience? Resilient people always look for opportunities in adversities and hard times.

Do resilient people feel pain deeply? Of course, but they don't dwell in self-loathing and victimhood. They recover from the blows of life and find the silver lining that allows them to become more.

It may seem impossible to look for the good when you are in the throws of a negative situation, but a positive attitude is what will allow you to get back into the game of life much faster. In the words of Marilyn Monroe, “Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.”

8. Create A Game Plan 

If you want to change your life for the better, you need to create a game plan and take positive action. You create your reality. You can either choose to dwell in negativity or rise up and take back your life. Don't wait and hope for a better tomorrow.

Hard times can knock us down if we allow them to. We always have a choice to transform pain into possibility. Don't be limited by adversity and hard times. Know your strength and believe that you are capable of doing anything. If you are willing to persist, despite the odds, and rise above your circumstances there is nothing that will stand in your way of success.

9. Adopt An Attitude Of Gratitude

What if I told you that a simple change in your attitude could help you overcome adversity of any kind? This is where the power of gratitude comes into play. This is a state of mind that helps us see everything in life as a gift. In the face of hard times, gratitude is what helps us cope and gives us hope.

I believe that everything in life happens for a reason, and that negative experiences are designed to serve our higher self in some way. It's our job to find out what that is. I'm so grateful for all of the hard times I've been through. In fact, I celebrate them. Everything that I've gone through in my life has made me the person I am today.

Some of the biggest breakthroughs that I've experienced in my life happened right after I was able to overcome massive adversity. To this day, when something negative happens, I always ask myself, “What's great about this experience and what can I learn from this?” It's your job to find the empowering meanings of every experience that you face, both good and bad.

When you are in the moment, you don't always see the value of gratitude, but I encourage you to always trust that the events that have happened in your life serve a purpose that is bigger than yourself. Sometimes hard times force us to hit rock bottom so that we can reflect on our lives and grow through adversity. You can lose everything, but the one thing that can never be taken away from you is what you've learned and who you have become in the process.

There is always a lesson to be learned from every experience. If you believe that life happens for you, not to you, you will feel empowered to get through anything that tests your strength.

Are you ready to overcome adversity and hard times?

Champions look adversity and hard times in the eye and give them a wink. You are a champion. It's time to show life what you are made of. In the words of William Arthur Ward, “Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.” Which path will you take?

Are you ready to learn 21 powerful morning rituals that will take your life to the next level? CLICK HERE to receive instant access to my free cheat sheet!!