Thoughts are not facts. Feelings are not facts. Beliefs are not even facts (they are just the thoughts that you have repeated the most). If you find that what’s in your head is making your life harder, not easier and more exciting, then it’s time to change that.
Do you believe your negative thoughts?
There is a good reason for this. In fact, there are three good reasons why it’s so easy to believe our negative thoughts.
- Everyone around us is doing it too. It’s actually less common to not believe negative thoughts than to believe them. Our society doesn’t encourage us to be not negative – not really. We tend to make fun of people who are like that or call them “unrealistic” or “naive.” So, it’s not even your fault that your negative thoughts win – but you CAN change that.
- We have a negativity bias. This is essentially something that saved our ancestors. Being negative in those days meant being the members of the tribe who anxiously remembered where the sabre tooth tiger had eaten their friend yesterday. And, because of that remembered information, not going back to that place again and being constantly hypervigilant for the same threat – seeing that negativity everywhere. Today, there are no sabre tooth tigers but we still have this programming because it’s handed down from the generations who used it to survive and we rarely question it.
- “Realistic” means negative. Listen out for the next time you hear yourself, or someone else, say the words “I’ve got to be realistic” or “you’ve got to be realistic.” What they/you are actually saying is you must look at the most negative outcome and be ready for that. Why do we think “reality” has to be the worst possible outcome? Why not the best? It’s a choice most of us are making every day that we don’t realise is creating negative outcomes because of how the mind works.
How you can change your negative thoughts
Negative thoughts are unhelpful for resilience because they stop us being able to adapt, be flexible and keep trying things and experimenting. They stop us being successful and they stop us being ourselves. So, when a client comes to me with a negative mindset, the first thing we’ll do is change that. How you do that will depend on your specific challenges. But it often involves:
- Stopping the inner critic from dominating.
- Undoing negative core beliefs about yourself that are feeding your mindset lies.
- Using the reticular activating system (scientific explanation for manifestation) to create a new reality.
- Changing habitual thoughts that lead to anxiety and pessimism.
- Building confidence in simple steps.
- Learning to be more audacious, assertive and take the right kind of risks.
- Undoing the habits of people pleasing, catastrophising and anxiety.
It’s one of the most liberating things for anyone to be free of negative thoughts – and it’s actually not that hard to do. It’s what we start working on from Session 1 in resilience coaching. Want to know more about how it could work for you? Book a free intro call and let’s chat.
