Bullying is extremely destructive, so much so, that, in extreme cases, youngsters have committed suicide. They get bullied in the school yard and on social media—on their cell phones, on Twitter, Instagram, etc. It can be overwhelming and devastating. Singled out, they feel alone, small, and hated so they end themselves. We are horrified and call it horrible, judgmental, and unloving.
We say there is no room for bullying. That it is unacceptable; yet, every day we persist in bully behavior! How? We bully ourselves with negative self-talk, such as, I am not good enough. I am stupid. I am ugly. I am a failure. I am sure you can think of a few good examples, because we all do it at one time or another.
If we consider school-yard bullying unacceptable, why be one to ourselves? Isn’t it about time to let go of this self-sabotaging thinking? It keeps us from achieving our dreams.
It feeds on our fears. Two biggies are fear of failure and fear of success, although there are many others. Let’s look at those two here.
If you feared failure? What is the worst thing that could happen if you failed? Many highly successful people have claimed they would not have been nearly as successful if they hadn’t failed along the way because they learned what didn’t work.
If you discovered you feared success, what does success mean to you? What would change if you were successful?
Positive self-talk can replace negative, bully talk through actively replacing pessimistic thoughts. When you say I can’t, replace with how can I do it, until you say automatically, “I can!”
Successful people do not give up hope, they banish bully talk and practice positive self-talk, and they don’t give up.
This is so true and truly strikes a chord within myself. Thank you.
I have never thought about bullying myself but I have felt like I was a fraud meaning, I really did not know what I thought I knew yet I was successful. It took me years to understand that it is okay that I did things I had never done before and if it worked out well then I must have had some skills that I can look at that I used to be successful. If I failed, I learned from that failure and used the experience to build new skills. I was in a conference and the speaker discussed what I was experiencing and it helped to know others felt that way too. Sometimes, especially in technical fields, you are on the bleeding edge and there are always risks – risks of failure and risks of success. Learning to embrace them both sure helps you be successful. Reading this post, I recognize that during my learning process I was bullying myself in thinking I was a fraud when I was not.