5 ways to make your thoughts more positive and change your world

Mindfulness

By Chris Akins / 14 years ago

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

If you have been reading my blog for any time you will already know that I believe our thoughts create our reality. In other words the way we think and the thoughts we have tend to color the way we see and react to the world around us. If we have typically depressing thoughts, we will most likely be depressed. If we have happy thoughts, we will most likely be happy. If we are constantly thinking about threats, then we will see most things as a threat. You can see how these ways of thinking can change the way we view our world.

It follows from this logic that we can change our reality by changing the way that we think, or by changing our thought patterns. Here are 5 effective ways to do just that.

1. Keep a thought record. Keep a pocket notebook handy and when you notice that you are having a negative thought about something, write it down. Sometimes when we see our thoughts in writing we become aware of how irrational they are. Or, even if after you see your negative thought in writing you still think it is valid, you may find it easier to find be objective about the situation. Such objectivity is important to reduce emotional responses to negative thoughts, which makes problem solving easier. Most importantly, keeping a thought record will allow you to identify and work with your typical thought patterns.

2. Learn how to identify and change “cognitive distortions.” A cognitive distortion is a thinking pattern that distorts our view of a situation or event. I have already discussed the most cognitive distortions and how to overcome them in my post “How to overcome negative thinking,” so I won’t go over them again in this post. But, I want to emphasize how important it is to learn about these cognitive distortions, and learn how to overcome them. Using your thought record can really help you do this. As you keep track of your negative thoughts over a week or two, you will most likely start to notice some of these distortions in your thinking.

3. Become aware of your emotions. Cognitive distortions are often automatic thoughts. In other words, they sometimes occur without you ever being aware of them. Sometimes the first sign that we are having a negative thought is when we start getting angry, stressed, or upset in some way. When we start feeling these kinds of negative emotions we know, without a doubt, that we are having negative thoughts. That is because our thoughts control our emotions, which are actually chemical responses to the way we perceive the world around us. By learning to be aware of our emotional states we can learn to change or control them by changing the thoughts that are responsible for them.

4. Live a healthy lifestyle. Science, medicine and psychology all agree that what affects our body affects our mind. By eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep and taking other steps to reduce stress in our lives, we change the way we view the world around us. As we live healthy lifestyles our thoughts become more healthy and optimistic. We are less prone to emotional thinking and better able to self reflect and manage negative thoughts and influences.

5. Live in the moment. Negative thoughts tend to hang around for a long time once they come into our mind. As negative thoughts hang around they also tend to cascade and grow into more negative thoughts. This is what is known as “catastrophizing,” or “making a mountain out of a mole hill.” All of the sudden a minor thing that may not really be that important becomes a disaster that threatens your whole life. It happens to all of us, sometimes. One way to prevent this cascade is to learn to live in the moment. This means that we must learn to deal with what is in front of us, right now, and not obsess with the past, or the future.

Changing the way we think can have a tremendous impact on how we view our world, and how we live our lives. Our thoughts are so powerful, in fact, that one of the most recognized and researched treatments for severe depression and anxiety is based on managing the automatic thoughts, or cognitive distortions, discussed above.

I encourage you to track your negative thoughts for a week and see how many times you have these kinds of cognitive distortions, and how they affect your life. When you review your thought record after you are out of the situation that caused the negative thinking, you may find that things were not really as bad as your negative thinking made them out to be. Learning to control negative thinking can truly have a big positive influence on our lives.