Friends send links to success stories and the first thing I do is begin a negative questioning my own path. Have I not been working hard enough? Am I simply untalented? Shall I quit now?

I am my own worst enemy.

Why I do I do this? Why do I assume the worst about myself? Why do I always assume failure is imminent? Is it easier to expect certain failure than to embrace possible success?

It seems so. So I examined my emotional response to success and found an interesting. I would be happy with success, but how dare I be happy when [fill in the name of someone else] is not? I brought this up to several people who, surprisingly, said they too had experienced the same thing.

I asked, “Do you find that this person you’re so worried about, would they be happy for you to make a success of something?”

Surprisingly, the answer was no. So here I was, for years and years, sabotaging myself, denying myself, of happiness in a job well done and appreciated by others because another person wouldn’t like it.

Good grief. What was I thinking. Stop it, I said to myself. Move forward. Smile. Enjoy the strides you’ve made. Even God himself saw his own work and declared it as good. Am I not his child first? Yes, indeed, I am. My new mandate? To speak nicely to myself.

“Good job,” and “you’re getting better, sweetie” are my bywords.