Boot out the negative

"With so much that you choose for yourself, your life is very much what you’ve decided it to be.  When you accept responsibility for the results your choices have brought you and own your life, a whole new world of possibilities opens before you. . . . You can do anything because you have the power within you."

Like most things in life, LDS dating has its own set of challenges.  And like most challenges, our ability to come off conqueror depends upon our attitude and our approach.

Unfortunately, many LDS singles remain single because they have a completely wrong attitude and a completely wrong approach.  Last week we discussed some of the ways in which LDS singles can improve their approach.  Although not comprehensive, that discussion provides some ideas for starting the change towards securing better results.

Yet, as good as those ideas are, they won’t take you very far without the right attitude.  That’s because your approach always takes root in your attitude.  Even if you have a more effective approach, a bad attitude will water that garden with contaminated water that will destroy whatever blooms your approach encouraged.

Conversely, a good attitude will prosper that garden into providing a harvest of beautiful blossoms.  And the best part is that you can choose the attitude you embrace.  It all starts when you boot out the negative from your life.

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Leave the past in the past

Have you ever seen ads for investments?  They always have some fine print somewhere that essentially says past performance does not guarantee future earnings.  Now, why is that?  They’re trying to cover themselves.  After all, the future’s not written.  Anything could happen.

That’s just as true for our lives as it is for a financial portfolio.  Yet too many of us don’t believe that.  We believe that somehow the past determines our future.  We think we’re deficient or “less than” because of something that happened to us.  Or maybe it’s because of something that hasn’t happened to us.  Our focus turns more towards the negative, and before long our reality is negative as well.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  Our past will become our future only if we choose that.  If we choose differently, then our lives will be different.  It all starts when we leave the past in the past and believe a brighter tomorrow awaits us ahead.

Yes, whatever bad thing happened to you happened.  OK, great.  Now it’s time to move on.  Do you want a different future?  Move towards it!

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Watch the self-talk

Moving towards a better future means gaining control over your self-talk.  I’ve discussed self-talk so often in this forum because it’s absolutely essential to having joy all along your journey.  Up to 95% of our emotions comes from self-talk.

Self-talk is essentially the messages we give ourselves.  Most of it operates out of habit, so whether it’s positive or negative, you’ll drown yourself in whatever you’ve programmed your habit to play to you.  And yes, you have programmed your self-talk habit.

That may sound discouraging, but it really isn’t.  If you make conscious choices in how you program your self-talk habit, you can feed yourself positive messages that will uplift and inspire you.  You can feed yourself hope, optimism, and light that will support you in moving towards a positive future that’s very different from whatever past you may have.  All this is possible because you can choose what messages you give yourself.

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Make the change

We choose not only the messages we give to ourselves but also the messages we give to others.  Even some of the messages our world gives us we can choose.  After all, we choose our environment.  We choose our friends.  We choose what media we allow in our lives.

With so much that you choose for yourself, your life is very much what you’ve decided it to be.  When you accept responsibility for the results your choices have brought you and own your life, a whole new world of possibilities opens before you.  You become free from the shackles of self-limiting beliefs and excuses.  You can do anything because you have the power within you.

You can move forward to make whatever change you need to make.  No longer held back by your past or held down by your self-talk, you can change your life when you change yourself and the way you think.

So boot out the negative!  Get it out of your life and replaced with the positive.  Immersing yourself in that energy will empower you to become everything your Heavenly Father wants you to become.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

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You can listen to the monologue from today's episode of Joy In The Journey Radio here.  Please also feel free to continue the conversation by leaving a comment below.  Want to hear more?  Listen to the whole show by going to the show page for this episode!