A thought is just that, a thought. It only becomes more when we get entangled in it and give it power. Try this: Tell yourself you can’t lift your leg and as you're thinking it lift your leg. Your thoughts can have an influence on what you do but they do not control what you do.
Shouldn't You Be Perfect By Now If Beating Yourself Up Were A Good Way To Change Your Behavior?
Beating yourself up is a waste of time because it saps your strength and makes it hard to learn from and grow from your experiences. So what does work? Self-acceptance. Which means letting go of all self-judgments. This allows you to assess the results and move forward. It allows you to assess your behavior rather than judge it.
Here’s an example:
▪️Assessing my actions: When I got caught up in all the things I had to do today I turned off my alarm, I went back to bed and was late for work.
▪️Judging myself: I’m so lazy and not responsible.
Allow yourself to let go of all self-judgment and see what happens.
How To Relate To Your Thoughts
Imagine your thoughts are your hands. Your thoughts never just disappear. I think we all hope that the thoughts we dislike will just disappear. But when we try to ignore them or push them away they actually gain more power and become more prominent. When you get entangled by your thoughts you aren’t able to focus on what you are doing and you end up not doing it very well. When you separate from your thoughts and realize that they are, nothing more than words and pictures, you can focus on what you need to be focused on during your performance. The goal here is not to get rid of your thoughts. The goal here is to be able to do things without getting entangled in them.
(An idea adapted from Russ Harris’s book The Confidence Gap)
Never Let A Self-Limiting Belief Go Unchallenged
You don’t have to believe all of your thoughts. Feeling that you are unworthy, incapable or weak doesn’t make it true.
“Consider every thought you have as a suggestion, not an order. They are options. You have the power to choose which option you follow.” -James Clear