Quickly break the habit of negative thinking
Your brain has as many as 60,000 thoughts every single day.
That’s almost one thought a second.
And according to research, over 80% of them are negative.
That’s a lot of negative thoughts.
It doesn’t take much.
Just an off-hand comment or a thoughtless act, and off our mind goes, telling us everything that’s about to go wrong.
And before we know it, we’ve decided that the world is ending, everyone’s going to die, and we should just go hide under the bed.
Well, maybe that’s just me.
Whether it’s feeling angry at our partner, worrying we won’t be able to pay the bills, or criticising our latest creation, we have to deal with a lot of negative thinking constantly.
So how do we break free from this deluge of negativity?
I’m going to share with you:
- the one critical skill you must develop if you’re going to have any chance of meeting negative thinking,
- three things you need to understand about how your mind works, and
- the only three strategies that can break you out of this habit.
Plus a power up you can use to supercharge your results.
A while back, I was listening to Abraham Hicks talk about negative thinking.
They said something along the lines of,
“If a brick fell on your head every time you had a bad thought or feeling, you’d stop it right away, but unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.”
It was such a vivid image that it really stuck with me.
Boy, would that hurt!
But we’d learn to stop thinking negatively in a heartbeat.
Instead, it’s up to us to break out of the habit, which starts by learning one essential skill.
And that is the ability to catch ourselves in the moment, to observe ourselves as we start to spiral downwards.
Because until we even know we’re doing it, we have no hope of breaking free.
You have to catch that train of unpleasant thoughts before it gains momentum.
And the best way to practise this is meditation, which I have a whole newsletter about here.
By creating even the tiniest gap between your thoughts and your awareness, you make it possible to stop your negative thinking before it gets a firm grip on you.
Instead of finding yourself in that dark, deep pit of despair, you catch yourself as you think,
“I must have messed up”, or
“I hate it when people ignore me”, or
“Why are people so mean?”
And to interrupt this torrent of misery that’s poised to unfold, there’s three things you have to understand about how your mind works.
First and foremost, your mind is a thought machine.
That’s what it’s built to do.
Pump out thoughts as fast as it can about anything and everything.
“Oh, look, a butterfly.”
“Ooh, I love this song.”
“Now, where did I leave my phone?”
So if you don’t give it something useful to do, it’ll start making up all kinds of hogwash.
Secondly, a thought is not a fact.
Sure, your mind makes your thoughts sound really convincing, but the act of having a thought does not make it true.
REALLY.
You’d be surprised how many people fall for that one, hook, line, and sinker.
You have to stop believing everything you think.
And thirdly, you can’t “fight” your mind.
It’s not an enemy to be defeated.
It’s a tool to be used.
I have a whole newsletter about that as well.
Just like any bad habit, you can’t stop negative thinking just by willing it so.
You have to replace it with something else.
And there’s actually really only three different strategies you can use to stop negative thinking in its tracks.
1. The Distraction
The first and simplest thing you can do when you catch yourself having a negative thought is the “distraction” method.
Basically, you immediately find something else to think about.
Just like a dog when it sees a squirrel, everything else goes out of its head.
In the moment, it can be tricky to find a distraction, so start building a collection of options ready to go.
Maybe you can get up and walk around.
Maybe you can eat something.
Maybe you can start thinking about your taxes.
Or maybe you can think of a happy memory when you felt excited, proud, grateful, or anything positive.
Do anything you can to distract yourself.
Every time you do this, you’re derailing the train of negative thoughts, and it starts to lose some of its power.
Like a naughty puppy, your brain learns by what behaviour you feed and what you ignore.
Now, this approach is the easiest of the strategies to do, but as a result, it’s not as good at stopping that same thought from coming back later.
2. The Pivot
If you want to do that, you want to try the next method, which is called the “pivot”.
Pivoting is great for derailing that negative thought train.
It has the power to permanently shift your point of view.
To pivot, you examine the negative thought and transform it using one of these tricks.
Number one, you modify or soften the thought into something less harsh or negative.
Instead of thinking, “My presentation really sucked”, think, “I could have done that presentation better”.
Number two, reframe the thought by finding a new way to look at the situation.
Instead of, “Nobody likes me”, think, “I have a few friends, and that means I can probably make some more.”
Number three, replace the thought with a better feeling one.
Gratitude works really well for this.
Instead of, “My shoes are ugly”, think, “My pants look great”.
Number four, question or challenge your thoughts.
Ask things like, “How do I know that?” or, “Is this useful?” or use the four questions from Byron Katie’s work and really put those thoughts through the wringer.
After you’ve been doing the pivot for a while, you’ll be ready for the final level, which is the hardest one of all, but it’s also the most powerful.
3. The Embrace
I call it the “embrace”.
Can you look at that unpleasant thought you just had and welcome it?
Can you accept your current experience without needing to change it?
Can you think, “I’m worried I won’t be able to pay the mortgage” and be okay with that?
Can you think, “I don’t like my job” and just watch all the crazy thoughts start spilling out of your mind?
Can you just sit with your thoughts and observe them?
I’m not saying you have to like the situation.
I’m saying step into your thoughts and the emotions they bring up.
Notice them, acknowledge them, accept them, get curious about them.
It’s not easy, I can tell you.
And I don’t necessarily recommend trying this particular approach when you’re just starting out.
But the embrace can be incredibly powerful at dissolving the emotions that get stirred up by negative thinking.
And it can also open you up to possibilities you haven’t yet considered.
And if you want to supercharge your results with all of these approaches, I love one of Tony Robbin’s techniques.
It’s all about using your body to change your physiology.
Because when your body changes, your physiology changes and your emotions change.
It’s hard to be sad when you’re dancing to your favourite music.
It’s not easy to stay mad when you’re laughing at a funny movie.
And it’s unlikely you’ll feel hopeless when you’re standing tall.
So use movement and change your body’s posture to completely transform how you feel in the moment.
And the next time your mind starts running away with itself, imagining the worst, you now have the knowledge and skills to turn down the volume and maybe even find some peace of mind.
I’ve created a resource for you that will help you conquer those negative emotions and thoughts:
Stop Negative Thoughts Worksheet
A quick recap
- You have to learn to catch yourself as you being thinking negative thoughts
- Understand that your mind is a thought machine, a thought is not a fact, and you can’t fight your mind
- The only three strategies that counter negative thoughts are distraction, pivoting and embracing
What next?
- Practise catching yourself as you begin to think negatively, and just watch what happens as an objective observer
- Start questioning the validity of your thoughts instead of taking them as gospel truth
- Come up with a list of things you can do to distract yourself from negative thoughts
But if you’re going to catch that train of negative thoughts before it leaves the station, you’re going to need to tame that mind of yours.
And in this newsletter, I share the best way to do that.
I reveal:
- the true purpose of meditation,
- why it’s so important that you learn how to do it, and
- three simple things that you can do that will significantly increase the chances that you’ll succeed with meditation.
And now I’ll go back to hiding under the bed.
And I’ll see you next time.
