Here is another thought-provoking post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle. In this one he talks about the baggage we each carry, and how negative feelings about ourselves can make that baggage seem heavy and cumbersome.
Given a choice, would you rather carry a bag of rocks or a sack of diamonds? Well, we do have a choice and you will be surprised how many people choose rocks.
Abraham Lincoln once said that if you “look for what’s wrong, you will surely find it.” How true this is. The imperfections in ourselves mean we can always find deficits if we try.
If your focus is on what is wrong, if you are busy looking for the flaws and weaknesses in your character, you are weighing yourself down just as surely as if you were going though life carrying a bag of rocks – and every day the bag gets heavier.
Of course, if you are a world-class negative thinker, the weight of your burden becomes just one more thing with which to find fault. On the other hand, if you spend most of your time looking for and appreciating all that is right or delightful about yourself, it is as if you had a sack of diamonds in your pocket.
To get a quick reading on where your focus is, list all your shortcomings and all your strengths on a piece of paper. Once you have finished both lists, look to see if you used a double standard. Did you list as weaknesses those things that are occasionally true about you? On the other hand, did you list strengths that are almost always true? If so, you are stacking the cards against yourself.
If you get rid of your old programming that says it is better to carry rocks than diamonds, and start affirming your strengths instead, your life will be so much richer! And what better day to start than today.
Lou Tice
The Pacific Institute
I know, without writing my list of strengths and weaknesses, that I judge them by different standards. I know that I am stacking the cards against myself. For me to list something as a strength, I would have to be extremely good at it, and it will always need to be true. I would, in fact, have great difficulty in adding anything to that column. Whereas I could fill the weaknesses column in the blink of an eye. Yes, I am a ‘world-class negative thinker’. But I’m working on it, and I think I am improving, at least when I sit and think consciously about things.
The daily emails from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle are helping me enormously, especially on the journey towards thinking better of myself. Who knows, one day I may even realize I’m carrying diamonds instead of rocks. If you think you might benefit from the too, do please consider subscribing to the Winners Circle yourself, it doesn’t cost anything.
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