By Remez Sasson
It is no secret that negative thinking is part of almost everyone’s life. For some reason, it seems it is easier to think negative thoughts, than to think positive thoughts. Sometimes, there are more negative thoughts, and sometimes fewer, depending upon the mood, situation, and circumstances.
Unpleasant situations, problems and difficulties arise in everyone’s lives, and these events cause negative thinking. Quite often, you might not be aware of the thoughts you are thinking, and therefore, get easily immersed with negative thoughts and negative moods.
It would be a good strategy to avoid negative thinking, though, in many cases, it is easier said than done.
Here are a few techniques for avoiding negative thinking:
1. Try to be aware of your thoughts. Most often, one thinks in an automatic way, hardly aware of what he or she are thinking. If you strive to become aware of your thoughts, you will know when you are thinking negatively, and therefore, would be in a better position to avoid them.
2. When catching yourself thinking negatively, consciously, try to think of something else, something positive and uplifting.
3. Choose to watch happy and funny movies, instead of movies about disasters and unhappiness.
4. Think often about the goods things you have in your life, and less about the bad things. Look at the filled part of the glass, not at the empty part, even if the empty is greater than the full.
5. Align your thinking with your actions. When doing something, focus on it. When eating, focus on the act of eating. When dressing, focus on dressing, and when exercising your body, focus on the exercise. In this way, you will not make a place for negative thinking.
6. Sometimes, during the day, visualize yourself doing something you love doing, like being on the beach, being in a beautiful place, or being in the company of people you love. You can think about happy events or success you had recently. All of these thoughts are positive ways to avoid negative thinking.
7. Be aware that sometimes, problems and difficulties are blown out of proportions. Often, they are minor problems and difficulties not worth your time and energy. Having this point of view can help you avoid negative thinking, when facing problems or difficulties.
8. If negative thoughts persist, write them down, and analyze them to see if there is any truth in them.
9. Don’t fight the thoughts you don’t want or don’t like. If you fight them, they become stronger. A better approach would be treating them with detachment and lack of interest.
10. Surround yourself with positive people.
Remez Sasson is an author and blogger. He is the founder of SuccessConsciousness.com, a website and blog about self improvement and spiritual growth.
Remez Sasson is the author of several life transforming books, containing a wealth of information, advice and guidance.
Great idea’s.
“8. If negative thoughts persist, write them down, and analyze them to see if there is any truth in them”
Writing down certainly helps for me. What I do sometimes I make a “brain dump” of my negative thoughts and try to turn them in more positive statements. It often works …
Thanks for sharing!
It’s a case of is your glass half full or half empty and finding the silver lining. So many of the old says we have chosen to ignore can tell us amazing things.
Most people don’t realise how negative they can be to others around them. Taking some of these points and actually putting them into practise will help hugely. We are surrounded by a negative environment, you only have to watch the news and soap operas to see that. Take what’s great out of life and use it to your advantage – great post
This e-zine letter is always though provoking and provides a vehicle for positive thinking and positive approach in personal and official life and daily dealings. This is a very very useful periodic e-zine and helps us to scrub away the dirt and keeps our mind healthy and happy.
studying the mind and detaching it from negative thinking is truely a way to know who you are and understand people around you …………..Remez sasson keep on the good work
We really don’t realize what an effect gloomy Gus’ have in our lives. They tend to feed the flames of our own negative thoughts and smother our happiness if we allow them to.
I am a classroom teacher and I actually have a stuffed monkey named Gloomy Gus. I use him to stop negativity in my classroom. When someone makes a negative comment, he ends up with a monkey on his back.
Thanks for this blog. It’s great to hear other positive people. It helps to keep me on track.
Negative thinking often forced me everytime. I want to try your tips. Thanks a lot of your post.
This is great stuff, I have learned a nice point(5) to avoid negative thinking, many times I was totally dominated by my negative thinking. My thoughts are always away from what I was doing at that time and circle around other stuff and which makes me worried a lot.
Negative thought is a natural thing, and valuable tips are discussed in this article. The more we try to avoid negative thoughts the more we entangled with it, so just simply divert your mind with other things e.g. listening good music, give a call to some friend, go out for a walk. The best solution regarding this problem is to get connected with the good people around and give the value to our life cause the more productive ideas, thoughts and experiences we have, less we will be spare our mind for negative thoughts. If we make it other way, it will be “Garbage in, Garbage out”. So, enjoy every precious moment and gift(LIFE) cause there is no undo button.
I look forward to trying these techniques as I deal with a new company president who I “perceive” as having expectations I cannot achieve. I need to change that “perspective” and realize I can only control what I can control, and errors are normal. Thanks for the post!