9 Thoughts You Need Out of Your Mind

inShare 127Email The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. ?Albert Einstein The human mind is wonderful and powerful, but it s far from perfect. Too often we are addicted to our thoughts, and we can t change anything in our lives if we can t change our thinking. If you want to move forward with your life, you must chan ge your mind and get these thoughts OUT of it: 1. Life sucks and that s just the way it is. The mind can be the harshest battleground. It can be the place where the greate st conflicts are carried out. It s where half of the things you thought were goin g to happen, never came to be. But if you allow those thoughts to dwell in your mind and fester, they will succeed in robbing you of peace, of happiness, and o f everything that is beautiful in this world. Tell the negativity committee that meets inside your head to sit down and shut u p. Don t think yourself into a nervous breakdown, into depression, into hopeless defeat. If you re being negative when you re alone, the warfare is in your mind. T he fight you ve got to fight is in your mind. You can t change what has happened, b ut you can choose how you re going to deal with it. 2. Those haters are right about me. Be wise enough to walk away from the negativity around you; don t let it infect yo ur thinking. Don t let someone else s negative opinion ruin your reality. No matte r how much negativity is thrown at YOU by others, there is absolutely no need fo r you to stay put and partake in the decay they choose for their own lives. YOU decide how your soul grows. When the people around you give you every reason to be negative, think of one go od reason to be positive. There s always something to be grateful for. Say it: I am lucky to be alive! I am happy to be me! I have so much to be grateful for! My life isn t perfect, it s just pretty darn good! (Angel and I discuss this in more detail in the Self-Love and Relationships chapters of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Suc cessful People Do Differently. ) 3. The way it is now is the way it will always be. Don t confuse your path with your destination. Just because it s stormy now, doesn t mean you aren t headed for sunshine. And remember, you cannot heal a lifetime of pain overnight; be patient with yourself, it takes as long as it takes, but your happiness is well worth the wait. You write your own destiny through the choices you make. You become what you re peatedly do. It is more important to know where you are going and why, than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement. Every time you are tempted to react to the same old circumstances in the same old way, ask yoursel f, Do I want to be a prisoner of the past, or a pioneer of the future? 4. Life is supposed to be easy. Nothing worthwhile in life was meant to be easy; learn to take it easy with your expectations in this area. Don t expect things to be given to you. Go out and a chieve them! It s the only sane way to deal with life s challenges. If it s worth ha

ving, it s worth working for. Anyone can run away and waste away; it s super easy to do nothing. Facing challen ges and working through them, that s what makes you strong. And even on your weak est days you get a bit stronger. So today, stop wishing for it and start workin g for it. Talk is cheap. Action is priceless. (Read Flourish.) 5. It s easier to blame someone else. Too many of us only take credit for positive outcomes. In other words, we take full credit for our successes, but deny responsibility for our failures. A perf ect example of this can be witnessed in school classrooms across the globe. Whe n students receive a good grade, they often attribute it to their intelligence a nd their excellent study habits. But when they get a bad grade, they attribute some of their failure to a bad teacher, an unfair set of test questions, or a su bject matter that isn t needed in the real world anyway. Realize that in order for you to grow emotionally, you must be willing to take f ull responsibility for all your actions and outcomes successes and failures alik e. Because if you are too afraid of failure, you can t possibly do what needs to be done to be successful. Setbacks, failures, obstacles, and hardships are the contractors of life; they build character, strength and knowledge. 6. I just can t stand X, Y and Z! Today, let your small annoyances go. Move through your day consciously. Make a n effort to notice at least one insignificant little frustration that you would normally get frustrated about. Then do yourself a favor and simply let it go. Experience, in this little way, the freedom of being in control of the way you f eel. And realize that you can extend this same level of control to every situat ion you encounter in life. At any given moment, the way you feel is the way you choose to feel, and the way you react is the way you choose to react. 7. They look a certain way, so they must be a certain way. Superficial judgments are made the instant one person assumes something about an other person based on their immediate appearance. Sadly, this likely happens th ousands of times every minute, all around the world. For example, someone migh t see a tall, well groomed man in his early fifties wearing a business suit, and instantly assume he is successful and reliable, even though there is zero concr ete evidence to support this assumption. Bottom line: Don t judge a person by what they show you in a single glance. What you ve seen is oftentimes only what they have chosen to show you at that particul ar moment. Too often we jump to conclusions. Talk with people, listen to their stories, watch what they do this is how you get to know who they truly are. 8. Giving up and starting over is a sign of failure. Don t try to diminish your losses from a past failure by continuing to follow the exact same path that led to the failure in the first place. In other words, don t do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. If it didn t work last time, and you haven t made any significant changes, it probably won t wor k this time either. Sometimes we justify our decision to continue ed solely on our cumulative prior investment, at the cost, starting today, of continuing to enefit. The logical thing to do would be for r course of action. However, due to the sunk feel committed to the endeavor, so we invest nto it, hoping that our additional investment investing in a failed endeavor bas despite new evidence suggesting th pursue it outweighs the expected b us to cut our losses and change ou costs we have already invested, we even more time, money and energy i will reverse the outcome. But mos

t of the time it never will. When you can no longer think of a reason to continue, you must think of a reason to start over, and that s perfectly OK. There s a big difference between giving up and starting over in the right direction. (Read Daring Greatly.) 9. It s too late. I missed my chance. Be done with regrets; they are an excuse for people who have given up. You are still here trying and growing. Life is about learning from the past, trusting y our intuition going forward, taking chances, finding moments of happiness, and r ealizing everything is simply a lesson that happens for a reason. Don t stress over what could ve been; chances are if it should ve been, it would ve been . Focus on the present; you have a lot to look forward to in it. Just do your best. Every moment gives you a new beginning and a new ending. You get a secon d chance, every second. And YOUR best chance is happening right NOW. Afterthoughts and next steps The Dalai Lama once said, A new way of thinking has become the necessary conditio n for responsible living and acting. If we maintain obsolete values and beliefs , a fragmented consciousness and self-centered spirit, we will continue to hold onto outdated goals and behaviors. Today, make it a point to defragment your consciousness and center your spirit o n positive, productive thoughts. Whatever you do, don t get stuck on the one thin g that ruins your day. Smile and be grateful. Life is too short to waste on ne gativity and destructive thinking. Your turn What would you add to the list? What negative thoughts and destructive thinking traps do you struggle with? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts and insights with the community.