4 Remarkable Techniques to Block Negative Thinking Permanently
"Having a positive mental attitude is asking how something can be done rather than saying it can't be done." —Bo Bennett.
Negative thinking patterns are made up of negative thoughts that lead us to develop a pessimistic attitude towards life. This adversely affects our approach towards the decisions we take in life and diverts our focus from positive aspects to the negative ones. All this negativity leads to unsolicited stress, worry, and sadness if we stick with negative thinking patterns.
When you let such thoughts take over, you feel unworthy and incapable of doing anything in life, and you end up compromising every chance of success and happiness. You can block your negative thinking patterns, but first, you need to understand what causes these thoughts and how they work?
What Causes Negative Thinking?
To harness the negative thoughts, it is impertinent to understand what causes this pattern? These thoughts merely result because of fear. It is a factor that paralyzes you and impedes your progress in life to evade the negative outcomes. Fear of the unknown is quite real, and, in some cases, this fear is so dominant that it makes way for the highly pessimistic views as you play safe. In the long run, extremely adverse effects of negative thoughts and pessimism become clearly visible.
Thus, it is important to be aware of one's own fears and deal with them to ensure steady progress in life.
How to Stop Negative Thinking
Overcoming or blocking negative thinking is not an easy task. Ironically, the very negative thinking that you are trying to overpower can hinder achieving your goal. Patience, perseverance, cautious planning, and untiring efforts will be required to master your negative mindset.
First and foremost, you need to understand your thoughts and what are the triggers of this pattern? Is it a place, a person, or some particular event or situation that makes you afraid of taking the positive step? Once you have taken note of this, you will automatically be able to identify negative thought patterns.
Next comes the strategy to combat these negative thoughts in situations and circumstances that trigger your negative thinking. Properly crafted plans with useful techniques that you can practice consistently will help you block the negative thoughts. You can always tweak this plan as you move ahead in life.
Here are powerful techniques to help you control your thought patterns and keep the negative ones at bay:
1. Acknowledge Your Negative Thoughts and Refocus Your Energy
Acknowledging your negative thoughts sounds quite contradictory, right? However, this is a crucial step when you are dealing with negative thoughts. When you acknowledge your negative thinking patterns, it allows you to deal with them in a better way. Whereas, if you keep focusing on how to rid yourself of such adverse thinking, it will lead to more anxiety and stress instead of finding a solution, and you will end up feeling worse than before.
Constant thoughts about this will affect your daily functionality. Instead, your goal should be to identify and accept these patterns so that you can deal with them more effectively when they arise. Negative thoughts won't go away just because you are saying so. They are inevitable but what matters is how you keep them in control and squash this negativity swiftly.
2. Challenge Your Negative Thoughts
Once you have recognized your negative thoughts, you can work on ways to challenge them. You can start by asking yourself if your thoughts are based on realistic grounds? Are they really that important and truly mirroring the situation? Or is it just your fear that blowing your thoughts out of proportion exaggerates the whole scenario?
View the situation from another's point of view. For instance, if you feel that you are not capable enough to get that promotion and you will never get it, imagine a friend saying the same thing. Would you support and conform with your friend on this negative approach, or will you do your best to boost his or her confidence by telling them that they are quite capable?
Your answer is what you should be telling yourself. Master your thoughts, and don't let them rule you.
3. Get Around Positive People
What happens when people around you have a cold? No matter how strong your immune system is, you will eventually succumb to a cold if everyone around you is sneezing. So, what connection does it have with thoughts? It means that if you surround yourself with negative people, you will catch their negativity as well. If you are surrounded by people who demean you and underestimate your abilities or always look at the negative aspects of things, your thought patterns will shape up in the same way.
Therefore, it is important to surround yourself with people who have a positive and optimistic attitude. You need to be in the company of people who believe in doing something and taking action instead of brooding over various things in life. Let your eyes and ears see and hear the positivity, and your mouth will follow, and so will your thoughts.
4. Don't Expect Everything to Be Perfect
Being judgmental will not get you anywhere. Keeping too high expectations from yourself will also not be helpful for you. When you expect everything to be ideally perfect and flawless, you expect the impossible, and you are making way for a lifetime of disappointments and unhappiness.
Keep your goals real and practical, with enough room for changes. Having goals and dreaming of success is not wrong, but these dreams need to be steeped in reality. You may not get the promotion or the much-awaited proposal when you want it, but maybe you will get it some other time. So, instead of falling into a never-ending abyss of negativity, take charge and refocus your energies towards something else.
When you apply these techniques to block negative thinking, you will definitely feel liberated.
