Happiness is finding your best self

Happiness is finding your best self

Winner’s Circle Network with Lou Tice – 7/27/09 – “Your Best Self”

What’s the difference between being yourself and being your best self? At a seminar where I was teaching last month, a young woman came up to me at the break and asked me an important question. “All the psychology and self-improvement books are always telling us that we should just be ourselves,” she said. “But I get confused sometimes because I can be so many different ways. How do I know which self I should try to be?”

You know, she was making a good point. All of us have many possible selves. Some parts of our personalities are active and obvious, but some parts may surface only now and then, and still others may remain hidden almost all the time.

Let me ask you a question. What is your best self like? Can you list the qualities that make your best self different from the ordinary, everyday you? You see, becoming aware of these qualities is the key to bringing them under your control. If you are aware of them, you can deliberately set out to make your everyday-self more like your best self.

Using the techniques of affirmation, visualization and control of your self-talk, it is relatively easy to do. You see, we move toward and become like that which we think about. So, focus your thoughts on those aspects of yourself that you would like to see more of. Do it in a systematic way, over and over again, every day. Soon, you will find that “being yourself” will automatically mean, “being your best self.”

Lou Tice

The Pacific Institute

www.thepacificinstitute.com