I just finished the book "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz (on a recommendation from my dear friend Nancy.) I found it highly enlightening and will need to add the advice to my arsenal of good thoughts to carry around.
Ruiz speaks of the many beliefs and agreements that we learn or are imposed on us as we navigate the world. Many of these beliefs become what we know and sometimes limit our happiness and success. For example, as a child if your parents negatively criticized your drawings, you may have this internal belief that you are not a good artist and thus never pursue improving your craft. There are many people earlier in our lives that may have imposed limiting beliefs without us or them realizing. It's one word or one sentence that we unconsciously tacked on to. Ruiz calls us to take a look internally and review how we interact with ourselves and others to find these limiting beliefs or personal agreements.
Below are the Four Agreements that we should start creating with ourselves and replace the old agreements from our past.
Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself.
It's amazing how powerful our words are. If we day, we can't do it, it seeps into our being and prevents us from succeeding. If we say we can and we visualize, meditate and speak of our future success, we can accomplish great things.
Don’t take anything personally because by taking things personally you set yourself up to suffer for nothing.
These words couldn't have rang truer for me especially in the last few weeks. Only you know what need, don't let other's fear or insecurity take your happiness.
Don't make assumptions. The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth. We could swear they are real.
How many times have we made assumptions in our own lives, creating a fantasy land for ourselves, not realizing that this is not the truth. This only leads to disappointment and suffering.
Do your best. Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next.
Many of us our afraid to try our best because if we expend our maximum effort and we fail, it hurts, but that's the point. We won't know what we are capable of until we try our best. Our best is not someone else's best. We should stop comparing ourselves to others and just do what need to at this point in time.
Check out the book at your local library. It's a quick and easy ready.