Your Thoughts: Do You Recognize These 10 Negative Thought Patterns?

July 21st, 2008         Email This Post Email This Post       Print This Post Print This Post

I presume you want to be happy. So why do you allow such negative and disempowering thoughts?

Let’s look at some negative thought patterns just to make sure you realize how ridiculous and draining they are. You may already recognize how destructive they are, but think they are beyond your control. I know better - I can’t claim to be perfect, but I have made major improvements. You have more control over your thoughts than you think!

  • Feeling Powerless - If you feel something is beyond your control, your only option is to complain to people who can’t help, and then feel frustrated. People don’t like listening to your complaints. I doubt you like to listen to your complaints! If you feel powerless, you will abandon searching for a solution. Someone has probably dealt with this problem before. Search online, explain the situation calmly and clearly (without complaining!) and ask people if they have any advice. Feeling powerless just frustrates you and everyone else.
  • Anxiety - Students will feel anxiety about essays, and most working people about taxes. It’s absurd to be anxious for weeks about something that takes a few hours!
  • Stress - Do you feel like you have too much work, errands, or things to handle at the office? Well, you still have to do them, the stress is an added bonus! You get to do the work you don’t like, and even get to feel stressed when you AREN’T working on it.
  • Worry - The most common worry in America is about money. Worry can force you to take action - to sit down and plan, to work smarter or harder, or to cut back spending. Is worry forcing you to work more creatively? Or, more likely, does worry eat away at your peace of mind and stop you from enjoying time with family and friends?
  • Feeling Insulted - You are perfectly human, so yes, maybe you do have that fault! Don’t be so arrogant as to think that you are perfect or don’t make mistakes. Or, if the person is just blowing off steam, you may not have done anything wrong. Someone insulted you – it’s now in the past – do you still want to feel bad about it?
  • Impatience - Do you get impatient waiting at a bus stop? If you have to be somewhere by a certain time, then figure out when you would have to take a cab to be there on time and set an alarm. Otherwise, being impatient just you stresses you out - it won’t make the bus come any sooner.
  • Hatred - Oh how that person gets on your nerves. You hate them! Did it ever occur to you that now they don’t just annoy you when you see them, but also when you think of them? Your hatred may even be self-reinforcing. What normally would be neutral, since THAT person did it, you automatically view it negatively. When you see them next, your fuse will be shorter and you may greet them with a sour face, setting up another negative experience.
  • Frustration - something isn’t working. It’s taking too long. So get frustrated! I used to get horribly frustrated when things on the computer wouldn’t work or take way too long. Often, things crashed randomly. A huge waste of time. Now I just know that annoying things happen, they make you wait. Try to use the time more constructively. Getting frustrated just makes you feel bad. It doesn’t help the situation.
  • Regret - do you regret anything that happened in the past? Then go do something to fix it. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time regretting it. With my current motivation and learning skills, school would have been so much different. Oh well, no use dwelling on it :) It happened, and it’s in the past.
  • Reliving past bad experiences - you went through it once, isn’t that bad enough? Do you think reliving it will make you feel happy about it? Try some NLP to have it affect you less: see the event happening to you, instead of being a part of the event. Or, Hear loud circus music as you start reliving that memory again. Why would you want old memories to haunt you?

Wow, that’s thoroughly negative but just a small sampling of the negativity that goes on in our head every day . Do you WANT to continue living with thoughts like these?

Wouldn’t you rather have thoughts that help you lead a happy, productive, and meaningful life? Make it YOUR goal to start thinking in a more positive, empowered way. Write your goal down. Put it on a sticky note in your bathroom. Tell your friends.

Check the next post to get started.

 

This post is part of a 5 post series about how your thoughts affect your world. View: one, two, three, four, five.

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Posted in Awareness, Principles, Traits, core