032: I Believe... • Passion Design Project

Summary::

During the holidays, we often are bombarded with people saying how busy they are and advertisements reminding us how stressful they are. I mean, when’s the last time you’ve heard someone talk about December being the month of relaxing holidays? Ha!

I absolutely love Christmas, and if I had my choice, it would last all year. Orange Cinnamon spiced candles, flurries of snow outside while I watch cheesy Lifetime Christmas movies inside, wrapping presents and lots of festive parties. When I think of Christmas, I think happy, so I recently got wondering when this whole “stress and strife” mentality began to take over and if we are all making it up, or what?

There’s an article I recently read in Huff Post that touched on how our beliefs become true. What’s that mean? It means that whether or not something is truth, we can actually believe it into being true in our own minds.

For example, for a long time I believed that I wasn’t a good ski instructor and because of that always felt like I was sort of faking it during lessons and didn’t want people to watch me. Why did I think that? Probably because compared to most instructors, I was a bit of a newbie and didn’t know all of the terminology or the runs that everyone else did. What I failed to take into account was that the majority of my lessons were with little kiddos with disabilities who just wanted to have fun in the snow. Knowing all of the technical names and expert runs wouldn’t have helped me anyways. I spent years feeling less-than for no reason.

This article I mentioned touches on some pointers that go along with this idea, like:

Our daily lives are the result of what we tell ourselves about life.
Life will be as wonderful or as terrible as we believe it is.
Our attitudes develop out of the thoughts we choose to think.
Whether our self-talk is positive or negative indicates what we believe about ourselves.
Our beliefs are constantly motivated by love or fear. And love is causing us to thrive, while fear is beating us up.
Changing our beliefs is as simple as changing our dominant thoughts.

So going back to the example I mentioned, had I repeatedly told myself that I was a good skier (not the best of course, but certainly proficient), I couldn’t let go of those less-than thoughts I’d conjured in my head. After all, no one had ever told me I was a bad instructor, so I had obviously made up a whole narrative in my head that stuck with me for years.

Maybe you’re in a position where you feel like a fraud or that you aren’t good enough for it. I want to challenge you to think about where this idea is stemming from.

Did someone tell you 20 years ago that you weren’t doing it right? Well I’m sure you’ve become in expert since then! Or are you like me and you’ve been making up a story in your mind for years that is causing you to be less-than who you truly are. If that’s the case, figure out where it’s stemming from and realize it’s most likely not real, and rewire that thinking.

Or maybe when you look around right now, you see what others doing and how they are feeling and think you must feel that way too, like the stressed out Holiday faces around you. In the moment that you feel overwhelm, think back to these examples I gave you.

Our attitudes develop out of the thoughts we choose to think.
Life will be as wonderful or as terrible as we believe it is.

This Christmas season can be amazing! I believe it will be and I’m going to take that belief and dance in the snow for the rest of the month. I hope you’ll join me!

032: I Believe…