Week 11 - Beliefs
As you journey through Week 11, it's essential to take stock of the voices within you—the critic and the cheerleader. While your inner critic may sometimes dominate the conversation with negativity, it's crucial to amplify the voice of your inner cheerleader, celebrating your progress and encouraging you to keep moving forward.
Take some time to reflect on these inner voices and their influence on your mindset. In your Sober Journal, write down what each side says to you, giving them names and characters to help you connect with them more deeply. By acknowledging and understanding these voices, you can learn to feed the cheerleader and starve the critic of attention.
Here’s my critic and cheerleader for some inspiration.
Negative Nancy often tries to hold me back with her words of doubt and criticism. However, I've learned to recognize her voice and stop her in her tracks before she can derail my progress. Instead, I invite Positive Pamela to step forward, offering words of encouragement and support to propel me forward on my journey.
When you catch yourself engaging in negative self-talk, challenge those thoughts and replace them with positive affirmations. Remember, you wouldn't speak to a friend—or anyone else—in such a critical manner, so why do it to yourself? Each time you choose to speak kindly to yourself, you reinforce positive beliefs about who you are and what you're capable of achieving.
While changing these thought patterns won't happen overnight, consistent practice can lead to significant shifts in your mindset. Consider revisiting the mindset prompts from Week 3 and engaging in the thought monitoring exercise to further strengthen your positive beliefs.
Remember, the journey to empowering beliefs begins with a single step. Embrace the opportunity to cultivate a mindset rooted in self-love, positivity, and abundance. You have the power to shape your beliefs and create a reality that aligns with your highest aspirations.
With each positive affirmation and act of self-compassion, you move closer to embodying the confident, empowered version of yourself that you aspire to be. Trust in your ability to rewrite the narrative and embrace the limitless potential within you.
The more positive you are, consistently, even if you don’t mean it at first, the more you will start to believe it, and the better you will feel about yourself; this won’t change overnight; it will take time and practice. The daily affirmations and gratitude lists should have gone some way to putting you in a more positive mindset.
You might like to refer back to the MINDSET Prompt from Week 3 and the ‘Thought Monitoring Exercise.’
If you don’t start now, then when? What have you got to lose? (A horrible inner critic, that’s what!) Changing these destructive thought patterns is a game-changer.