Introduction: Change Your Thinking to Change Your Life

      We all need reminders now and then. You don’t leap out of bed every day, knowing you are amazing and about to have an incredible day. All of us have a lot of demands, pressures, to-do lists, and responsibilities, so we find ourselves rushing around and working hard to please others. Most of the time, you find yourself at the back of your own bus, having made everyone else happy but your own darn self. Then you go and beat yourself up about it.

      Let’s stop that, shall we?

      I’m here to remind you that you are pretty darn great. I had to learn to remind myself of that, but you know what? It feels pretty darn good. It is even kind of addictive, in the best possible way. While this might seem like a fluffy little exercise, it actually runs quite deep and will serve you the rest of your life. There are reasons we need esteem boosters here and there: we pick up scars along the way and get bumps and bruises in the wake of daily life. If you had a bad childhood, you have these old “tapes” from poor parenting that loop around in your brain on an unconscious level, saying: “You’ll never amount to anything. You’re not good at sports. Your sister has a much better singing voice than you, so we’re sending her to music camp and you can stay behind and babysit.” Even really nice moms and dads perpetrate parenting errors that leave marks on the souls of their children.

      If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed and drained by the busyness of life and its oh-so-many demands, you need to stop in your tracks and do an attitude adjustment—or more specifically, a “gratitude adjustment.” Whenever you have gotten to this point, you need some “me-TLC” and a dose of radical self-care. Chances are, your very wonderfulness might have led you to give and give and give some more. Now,