Taking the above analogy one step further: How can you change your attitude from negative to positive when you don’t particularly feel like being positive? How can you remain upbeat and optimistic when things go wrong? Of course, it’s not easy, but let me explain it like this: It’s as though we have two dogs inside our head – a good dog and a bad dog – and both of them are constantly fighting for the same piece of meat. What we must do, in order to remain upbeat and positive, is to feed the good dog and starve the bad dog. In other words, when your (negative) inner-voice creates anxiety, doubts and fears by rabbiting on and on about why this won’t work or why you shouldn’t attempt to do this or what would happen if you did that etc., this is like the bad dog. You must starve the bad dog (get rid of the negative self-talk) by taking away its food. And exactly how do you do this? Simply by doing the opposite and feeding the good dog with positive self-talk. In other words, use positive affirmations to starve the negative thoughts to death.

R. Ian Seymour