Do you doubt yourself and your abilities? What is it that you feel you cannot accomplish? What is it that you want to achieve but feel you cant? Whatever it is, as we enter 2006, now is the time to do it. Now, in 2006, is the time to overcome that which is stopping you from progressing and move forward.

How?

By learning to believe in yourself and build your confidence. But before we start: what is your inner critic saying now? What is that inside voice saying to stop you from progressing? The inner critic has a dynamite grip on our daily lives. S/he wants you to stay the same. Doesnt want you to change so uses such phrases as:

Youre not good enough

That will never work

You could never do that remember the last time you tried?

Youre not clever enough

What you. What makes you think she/he thinks you are attractive? What does your inner critic say that stops you from progressing? Now make a list of all the things it says. Go on just try, what have you got to lose?

In our experience most of the critics power comes from generalising from one example. So what you failed one. Well weve got news for you; failure is not the end of the world. Everyone has survived failing at something.

What is the end of the world is thinking that trying something and failing means you cant do it. You are a failure.

Trying something and failing means: Well done. Youre on the road to success.

Dont you see, the outcome is irrelevant, what is important is the fact that you had a go.

All that is wrong is that you have given the wrong part of the process power. If you focus on the end result, not achieving means failure. So, therefore, your inner critic can now undermine and sabotage you whenever it wants to.

If you focus on the fact that you made an effort to do something you had never done before and congratulating yourself for that, irrespective of the outcome, the critic has nowhere to go. S/he cannot use your actions to distract and undermine your progress.

All overnight successes have spent years perfecting their act. Do you think they just did it once and were a great success? Remember that phrase your grandmother kept repeating to you time after time as a child:

Practice makes perfect.

She was saying the same. It doesnt matter if your first try was successful or not. Do it again and again. The next time you can do a bit more and a bit more. Each time you have the confidence to try more.

Let me give you an example. We live in a Spanish speaking country. When we first went shopping we chose the supermarket so we could select our items and pay the cashier without talking. We didnt have the confidence to try and our inner critic said, You are too old to learn a new language. You cant learn a foreign language, you tried at school and failed.

Then over time we ventured into other grocery shops where you have to speak to the owner. Gradually we have learned to ask for what we want and have a short conversation with the shop owner. We dont understand every word but we are more confident that we can understand what is being said and become involved in the conversation.

You see we are progressing irrespective of our inner critic because we have actual proof that practice makes perfect. Proof that the more we make the effort the more confident we become. We have broken the code. We have found the secret ingredient. Confidence breeds confidence breeds confidence breeds confidence. Its not the outcome that matters. Its the fact that you had a go. Next time it will be easier.

Go on have a go.

Good Luck

Graham and Julie

www.desktop-meditation.com