Negative Thoughts

Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions; it is governed by our mental attitude.

– Dale Carnegie

Did you know that we have anywhere from 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day?

Did you know that up to 98% of those thoughts are identical to the ones that we had the previous day?

How about that 80% of those thoughts are negative thoughts?

The reality is that our minds are plagued with negative thinking and that we do this without even realizing it a lot of the time.

Negative thoughts are constantly present, both consciously and subconsciously, and it is difficult to break this habit.

It is easier for us to simply say, “Nah, I don’t think I’ll write today because it’s too hard” or “I’ll put that off right now because I’m not really feeling it.”

Negative thoughts are the cause for many, if not all, of the bad habits we have in our lives. We convince ourselves not to do or try things because we’re afraid of failure. We don’t allow ourselves to have a good time with someone because we’re dwelling on something that this person or that person did last week.

You see, we use these negative thoughts, to some extent, as a defense mechanism. It’s easier to defend against failure when you convince yourself to not even attempt a thing.

Or so we seem to believe.

It is within our nature to have negative thoughts just as it is in our nature to pull our hands away from a hot stove; however, thoughts and immediate pain are clearly two different things. We can test the water with an idea since we might be unsure of the outcome – yet with pain, we already know what the outcome will be.

Would you rather give up on something before you’ve even begun and know definite failure, or would you rather try and possibly be met with success and a feeling of accomplishment?

Just because we fail doesn’t mean we can’t pick ourselves back up and try again. Or, at the very least move on and try something else. That’s an especially hard pill to swallow when we have a mindset of one and done.

Michael Jordan once said, “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

We need to be able to recognize a negative thought and to understand that that thought isn’t true.

So, rather than give into negative thoughts this weekend, fight them and keep your positive thoughts at the forefront of your mind.