“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”
Very famous words of Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher and the founder of Taoism
An average person has about 15,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts.
If we repeat those negative thoughts, we think negative way more than we think positive thoughts.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapists have a term for it — ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts).
All negative thoughts are not bad. Being alert can help you survive but most negative thoughts are useless. They only create imaginary drama in your mind.
Today I will give you an exercise to break these thinking patterns.
1. Get yourself a notebook or a writing software on your pc or smartphone
2. Make one column with:
- your fears
- your insecurities
- your losses
- things that stress you out regularly
- things that irritate you about other people
3. Make another column or a separate list:
Now, for every negative thought, write at least one positive thought:
- Write about what you are proud of or grateful for
- If you’re insecure about your skills, write how much you’ve improved since you started.
- If you’ve lost a relationship in the past, write about the beautiful time you spent with each other.
- If you stress about work, write how your work is bringing positive things to other people.
- If you don’t like your coworker’s behavior, write one positive thing about that person.
Writing these thoughts down will make it become part of your thinking process. Whenever you think of a negative thought, counter it with a positive one.
Shifting perspective sounds easy. But it’s not.
It takes practice.
Make it a habit. Give yourself this challenge to balance your thoughts.
The aim is to make this habit part of your subconscious. Once it has become part of your thinking process, you will shift your perspective.
We live in either of the two mental states — A beautiful state or a suffering state.
A beautiful state is when you feel love, joy, gratitude, awe, playfulness, ease, creativity, drive, caring, growth, curiosity or appreciation.
A suffering state is when you feel stressed out, worried, frustrated, angry, depressed, irritable, overwhelmed, resentful or fearful.
To become aware you have negative thoughts set an alarm on your smartphone a few times a day or hang up post-its in your work space, mirror, car etc. So you get reminded to check your thinking patterns.
We can practice being optimistic, make the effort and better the quality of our life that way ♥
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