Chapter 3

Noticing your negative thoughts

‘Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.’

Abraham Lincoln

Your life is in your hands. However, your mind will often be playing tricks on you, so that you don’t feel as if it is. You might tell yourself that you want to be successful, happy, competent, loved, productive, organised, calm, positive – but then something is always tripping you up. Something seems to bring you down. Or, somehow things don’t quite work out, and you find yourself in the same old pickles with people, deadlines or money.

Maybe you find yourself coming to the same old dead-ends in jobs, relationships or in any other part of your life that really matters to you. Indeed, you might already be very successful, ...

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