Stopping Negative Thinking: 5 Tips

Troubled with negative thoughts? Well then, ask yourself the following questions.

Is your thinking negative? Are your thoughts causing trouble in your life? 

Do you find it so easy to focus on negative thoughts in your head rather than fulfilling and positive thoughts? 

Do you find the more your negative thoughts play, the more they affect you emotionally and mentally?

Here is an example. Say you feel like an idiot because of a dumb mistake you made at work. That triggers you to think you are "not good enough for anything". Even though you keep telling yourself you're an idiot or not good enough for anything zero changes. 
Why doesn't it? Over time your subconscious mind makes you believe the lies of your negative thoughts and become your truths because there are embed negative core beliefs that make you think that way. Thinking is a by-product of an idea, not the origin. 

Thought Addiction

If you answered yes to all three, then you a vulnerable to getting caught up in a constant looping of thoughts aka thought addiction. Thought addiction is thinking a thought or set of thoughts over and over again with the feeling of no influence or control in stopping them. A thought addiction can be subtle, mentally inconspicuous or power and can negatively influence how you relate or view yourself. In the end, this constant thought looping can have a debilitating outcome. Looping negative thoughts can have serious your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual implications as well as deplete personal energy and yourself your worse enemy.

An example of this is when you get a song stuck in your head. When you get a song stuck or looping in your head, it doesn't matter what you do it continues to repeat and consumes your thinking. 

Understand the more you recall or focus on negative thought or thoughts, the more powerful they become Repetitiveness causes negative thoughts to stick with you.

How do you know when you have such a habitual thought anomaly? Here are 9 indicators that will aid you in discovering if you’re a habitual negative thinker.

1.     When a thought or set of thoughts consume all your mental              time and energy

2.     When you are so consumed and focused on one thought or set          of thoughts that you stop experiencing your life and others

3.     When you find yourself breaking a promise to yourself to not            think a specific negative thought or set of thoughts      

4.     You spend more time in your head about the past than in 
        the moment

5.     When eating, and sleeping patterns are severely 
        disrupted due to constant thinking

6.     You experience increased anxiety and worry

7.     You are in fear of not having control of your thinking

8.     When a thought is more important than anything else in life

9.     When thoughts are ruining your relationship with you 
         and others but no matter what you can’t stop focusing                      on those thoughts

How to Affect a Positive Change

Being able to stop ruminating on negative looping thoughts or a thought addiction is not about eliminating or replacing those thoughts. It’s about discovering the root that generates those types of unproductive thinking. 

Now, more good news. There’s a way to edit your negative thinking by changing its roots. Changing the root of your thinking will result in strengthening neural networks which will be devoted to positive thinking and a happier mindset as well as producing improved mental health and more life fulfillment.

Here are 5 do it yourself positive tips you can put into practice right now to stop your negative thinking.

1. Write all your negative thoughts down

This first and more powerful step to improvement is recognition. In writing down your negative thoughts, you'll have to 1 identify, 2 become aware, and 3 acknowledge them. Along with articulating your negative thoughts note the beliefs those thoughts are generated from and what triggered each of you negative thoughts after each. Writing down all your negative thoughts, beliefs are based on, their triggers and precisely why you think they will be a liberating mind-clearing experience.

2. Denounce each negative thought as truth

Denouncing the truth of each thought nullifies the lies within. Then develop a sense of each negative thought. 

Back to "you are not good enough thinking." Instead of ruminating over it constantly to yourself "I'm not good enough," drop into your gut or seat of intuition thinking and search your own sense of that negative statement. You may find your sense of the negative statement is the reverse "Am I not good enough?" If honest with yourself, you will discover your real sense, without any supporting evidence. See negative thinking is not based on reality but rather on negative beliefs formed while you grew up. These negative beliefs were the results of inaccurate statements or lies express to you from others. Avoiding negative beliefs, distorted thoughts, and false emotions, and going straight down to your intuition helps to prevent those inaccuracies.

3. Practice strengthening your resolve

If you feel tip one and two just aren't working? Practice, practice and practice some more. Recognize, the first step to healthy thoughts, by writing them down. Confront and reduce their power by denouncing them verbally out loud to yourself. Do it again and again until you get positive results and your negative thoughts lose their powerful ability. Lies seem powerful, but with practice, the light will shine through. If you have ever trained for a sport, you also have to teach your mind to think in a new and more creative way to perform better.

4. Don’t take it personally

Once you take something personally, you lose all your clear perspective. Distance yourself from your negative thinking, by imaging you are talking to someone else. Say you're a close friend of yours who faces the same day-to-day barriers, challenges and negative thoughts. Ask yourself what does that person genuinely need, it is validation. Validation counters negativity and uncovers the lies. Realize what advice you would give a close friend and give that same guidance to yourself and consider it.

5. Don’t give up 

Giving up or giving in actually intensifies the power of your negative thoughts. Re-direct your energy by doing something physical. Switch gears to a different task or venture. For example, clean your kitchen floor grout with a toothbrush. Focusing on cleaning the dirt out of your kitchen floor grout changes your mental focus and energy. 

Your mind can’t fully think about more than one thing at a time. Maybe you should get up and move to a different room, take a walk. Encourage yourself to think about something else entirely. Your mind can’t focus on a negative thought once it's wrapped up in a new task.

5. Believe differently

Think of new thoughts. To accomplish that create new beliefs that you can commit to now. Practice them and practice them again until they become a part of your automatic thinking.

Takeaway

Don’t be a slave to your negative thoughts. Eliminate your thought addiction by changing the root of, the origin of your mode of thinking at the belief level. You change your core beliefs, and you change how you think. 

Take back your powers of thought.

        Coach Bill                       

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