These are cognitive restructuring truisms used in manualized cognitive lifeskills workbooks to help people overcome distorted thinking and self-destructive behaviors.

If you keep on doing the same things that you have been doing; you'll keep on getting what you have gotten in the past. To change what you have been getting; you must change what you have been doing.

Life is short and fragile. The average healthy person will only live 800 to 900 months. It isnt birth or death that is important, but what happens in between birth and death.

Much of what we are today was scripted in our childhood. Scripting, whether good or bad, is handed down from one generation to another. Some relatives who are now dead are still having a controlling influence over personal lives.

People can be blockers and diminish the wrong that was done to them, they can choose to be neutral and pass on what offenders did to them or they can be magnifiers and make things worse. They can stand between the past and the future and rewrite their future. They may influence their posterity in a negative or positive way. It's all up to them.

If a person is seen acting in a negative or self destructive way, lift his/her lid and look underneath to see a person who is hurting. And, under that will be found usually a worthwhile person.

You can discern good from bad by what it produces. Doing wrong has never brought true happiness and never will. One may decide to do wrong, but one cannot determine the consequences that those actions will bring.

Six basic emotional needs are required for people to have happy lives. Those who do not get their needs met typically become emotionally damaged or handicapped. Nevertheless, they still have the ability triumph over their emotional handicaps by forgiving and forgetting the wrongs done to them by others and going on with their life. Life moves forward when the past is set free.

Life can be unfair. Often bad things happen to nice people.

People typically treat other people as they are. If people do not trust you, it's due to the fact that you are not trustworthy. If people do not believe you it's because you lie. If those around you do not respect you, it's because you do not keep your word. If those around you are afraid of you, it's because you are unkind. If you go back to prison, it's because you are a criminal.

Anger is a secondary emotion caused by primary emotions caused by one or more of the four basic sources. Those who anger us control us.

The most important thing in a marriage are the people in the marriage. When a married couple wants to enhance their marriage, then they have to improve themselves.

Correct communication requires to seek to understand and then to be understood.

When choosing to do wrong, you let others and circumstances control your life.

Doing wrong will ensure that life won't get better. Wrongdoers will suffer the consequences of their bad choices.

Numerous people with terrible beginnings have terrible endings. Their past will equal their future unless they make the choice to make a permanent change.

Who we are is what we do. What we do is who we are. We cant hide the people we are because eventually we'll be discovered by what we do. Our long-term behavior is a direct indication of our values and who we are.

You can tell right from wrong by what it produces. Good people mostly produce good actions, bad people mostly bad actions. A person cant be good and bad at the same time. They are one or the other.

Emotionally damaged people are usually pretty hard on themselves. They believe lies others have told them about themselves and they believe untruth about themselves. If they do not understand this and make an effort to change they'll keep on receiving the same results.

"We cannot break the laws, we can only break ourselves against them." (Cecil B. DeMille) These laws are love, validation, affirmation, understanding, gratitude and security. If these are missing in our lives, we become damaged.

Life isnt always fair. Bad things happened to good people. It isnt life that causes our problems, but our reactions to it. Mistakes can be forgiven, emotional scars can be healed. Life isnt over until it is over. Each new day brings an opportunity for change.

About the Author

Larry Lloyd is the founder of American Community Corrections Institute (ACCI), which sponsors a blog about anger management and related topics.