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Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results. ~ Willie Nelson
Have you ever been in situations where you feel drown in an avalanche of negative thoughts that you literally can feel your chest tighten up and you’re close to being depressed? In the same vein, it almost feels like nothing you do seems to be working and that the whole world is against you. (You know that feeling?)
If you’ve ever felt that way before, you’re not alone . In fact, “according to the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts”. (They call it the Automatic Negative Thoughts – ANTs). That’s way more than 50% of negative thoughts!
This means war against those negative thoughts otherwise they’ll dominate our lives and eventually ruin us. As you know, we become what we think about most of the time. As the Bible says in Proverbs that as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. In other words, if we let those negative thoughts rule our minds that we focus only on negative things, guess what? – we’ve invariably only experience negative things in our lives. And I believe that you, just like me, don’t what that to happen.
I had had my own share of battling with those negative thoughts but seeing the negative effects it had on me, I was determined to gain control of my mind to vanish those negative thoughts. And I am very delighted about the progress I’ve made so far and in this article I share useful practices I’ve implemented to help me guard my mind against those negative thoughts.
1. Check-in with yourself regularly
This was a powerful tip a coach of mine had shared with me and it hinges on self awareness which I believe is paramount to achieve self mastery in any area. The practice entails noticing your emotions several times through out the day. You can choose to do it every 1hr or 3hrs and as often as you can (you could set an alarm to remind yourself.) Whenever you feel a negative emotion, ask yourself what thoughts triggered that emotion. Thoughts are the roots of every emotion you feel.
Sometimes, it’s a thought of the fear of an unknown, or shame/regret from a past mistake which you’re being too hard on yourself for, or just something else that isn’t worth gravity/focus we give it.
So first thing that’s helpful is to acknowledge the root of that emotion (i.e. the thought) and remind yourself that you’re loved. You may even affirm to yourself – “I love you! I love you!!” or “God love me! God love me!” You may use whatever affirmation helps to debunk that thought which triggered that negative emotion.
A few years ago, when this practice was initially introduced to me by a coach years ago, honestly, I almost disregarded it for being too simplistic; but then because I was determined to see a change, plus I’m teachable, so I quickly implemented it and the result was amazing. It helped me with conquering thoughts of “I’m not good enough” and “I’m not worthy enough.”
2. Practice positive self-talk
The words we say to ourselves determine the way we feel. If we talk down on ourselves , no doubt we’ll feel beat down and beneath. On the other hand, if we speak highly of ourselves, our self-respect and self-image shoots up. What’s worth noting here is that, the way we see ourselves depicts what we say to ourselves. And so, if you notice that you’ve been speaking negative or demeaning words to or about yourself, just PAUSE, and watch the image you have of yourself in your head. It’s most likely not positive and so it’s time to switch that .
One of the best ways to do that it to speak and confess positive, empowering, uplifting words to yourself.
Affirmations like these can be helpful:
- “I am confident”
- “I am fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image.”
- “I am worthy, capable and deserving of the best.”
- “Good things are going to happen to me and through me”
Whatever powerful words you can speak over yourself to help you see yourself at your best… just add to the list and make that part of your daily morning affirmation. For more on affirmations, be sure to check out this article “You become what you tell yourself – “Affirmation”
“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.” ~ Peace Pilgrim
3. ‘What if… not?’ – Opposition thinking
Most times we feel negative emotions because we fear we are not in control over. That’s where you hear the – “what if this doesn’t work out?” Or “what if they don’t show up?” And so on. The default response for this is to panic but this doesn’t always have to be so. One thing I learnt from Hal Elrod on handling this scenario is to practice the opposition thinking. That is, when those ‘what if’s thoughts rear their ugly head, instead of yield to their attack, catch the thoughts then think about the opposite side of that and just stew in on it . This way instead of feeling a negative thought, you’ll feel something positive. Follow this up by actually taking the right actions to make the positive thoughts happen.
For example, if you have a negative thought stemming from you not waking up early to get ready for an important event. Catch that thought and switch it up so you now meditate on you waking up early and arriving very early for that event. You would then do something to make that happen, for example, set an alarm and put your things in place the night before so you raise your chances of making it early to the event. You get the drill ?
4. Visualize what you want
Virtually everything that happens in the physical world first occurred in the mind. And what’s fascinating is that the subconscious is unable to distinguish between the real versus imagined experience we create. So, a very good way to clear your mind of those negative thoughts is to play the opposite view in your mind and actually visualize yourself doing that which you desire. This goes hand-in-hand with the opposition thinking. Along with meditation, visualizing your desired outcome will help calm your mind and disarm those negative thoughts.
The bottom line here is to focus on what you want – the opposite of those negative thoughts – and not on what you don’t want – the negative thoughts.
5. Flood your mind with positivity
The only way to overcome negative thoughts in our mind is to fill the mind to overflow with positivity. There’s a lot of negativity in the world and so we must not take this one likely if we want to indeed control and guard our minds.
And there’re lots of ways to feed the mind with positive food. This includes
- listening to positive and motivational contents(audio/video ( lots of them on YouTube and Spotify),
- reading uplifting books (check out these top books on positive mindset)
- hanging around positive people.
- meditating and praying
- positive affirmation
And lots more. Here’re some other articles on this topic I believe you’ll find helpful in staying positive – “Maintaining a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA)“, “The 6 Life S.A.V.E.R.S: practices to transform your life“
“Change your thoughts, change your life”
These are some pragmatic tactics I have been implementing to help clear my mind of negative thoughts that had hunted me like a plague. And now I feel much more in control of my thoughts and of course my mind.
I hope you find these helpful in disarming those negative thoughts playing games with you. It’s time to CONQUER ’em all !! -You’ve got this!!
How about you? What are some tactics do you apply to overcome negative thoughts?
To your victory over negative thoughts!!
PS: The eBook version of my book is not available here