Processing Our Thoughts

The Power of Positive Thinking

Sometimes it’s good to stop and observe whether your inner speech is mostly positive or negative, optimistic or pessimistic. An optimist believes that a good and hoped-for outcome is highly likely. This also makes its possibilities higher. Positive attitude will also become stronger. A pessimist is prone to see the bad and negative sides of things. They believe that bad things are more likely to happen, and positive things are rare or non-existent.

It’s good to remember that there’s a connection between thoughts, action, and emotions. The way we interpret the world and what we pay attention to, affects our mood and actions. Optimism and positive thinking can partly be learned, and they are something you can practice. You can boost positive thinking for instance by making a list of your good qualities and everything that is going well in your life. Check your list daily and add more positives on it. This way you’ll remember that you have positive qualities and there’s a lot to live for.

As you can see, optimistic attitude can gradually increase the likelihood of things going your way. Pessimistic attitude on the other hand can make you lose motivation. Notice how you describe your future to yourself. If you’ve learned to envision negative and pessimistic things, they might harm you and add to your problems. The expression “self-fulfilling prophecy” means that someone sets themselves up for failure by predicting bad things for the future.

INNER SPEECH: BE YOUR OWN COACH

Imagine having a coach that advises, encourages, praises and consoles you. You can be your own coach and give yourself advice, tips and encouragement. If your inner speech has trouble starting, you can imagine what you would tell a friend.

REWARDING AND ACKNOWLEDGING YOURSELF

Getting praise and recognition energise you. Notice what you’ve accomplished so far and give yourself credit for trying. Sometimes you can reward yourself for just resting and doing nothing. “I’m glad I listened to myself and took a break.”

REPLACING ”SHOULD” WITH ”I WANT TO” OR ”I CAN”

Replace ”should” with ”I want to” or ”I can” and take another look. You might find a new point of view. You might see what you actually want to do or if something is unnecessary or impossible. Sometimes even deeply rooted beliefs can fall into place.

Question your beliefs and argue against them

The ”Recognising Your Thoughts” chapter listed the most common harmful thought patterns we might follow. By questioning our beliefs and arguing against them we can see that our thinking is just another interpretation among others. There’s always the possibility to see things from another angle. See, how you could rethink things:

Negative inner speech
• Argue against your inner speech with more encouraging, tolerant and wellbeing-promoting speech.
• Talk to yourself like you would talk to your best friend.

Generalisation
• Each person and each situation is different.
• There’s no one solution.
• Question and avoid expressions like always, everyone, all the time, never, ever, each time, nothing.
• Remember the times when things were different.

Either–or thoughts 
• See other options to extreme alternatives.
• The world is not black and white: there are shades of grey as well.

Negative predictions
• See good things in your future.
• Don’t pretend to know how things are.
• Find out.
• Things change and you have power over them.

Reading minds
• You can’t know or guess what others are thinking.
• You’ll realise, that the way others act or feel doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with you. Most people are likely concentrating on their own problems, not yours.

Exaggerating
• Are your thoughts real?
• You are enough and good as you are.
• Keep things in perspective.
• Is the problem as big as you think?

Labelling
• Does your label actually represent you?
• Does the other person’s label actually represent them?
• What you did vs. who you are.
• What the other person did vs. who they are.
• Is the thought real?

Ignoring the good
• Note even the small positive things.
• Come up with a positive thought for every negative thought.
• Write down positive things and thoughts and bring them with you so you can keep reading at them throughout the day.

Blaming yourself
• Admit your role in failures.
• Take responsibility for yourself and your actions and not others’.

Not giving yourself credit
• See your achievements and give yourself credit for them.
• Notice your strength.
• Pat yourself on the back when you deserve praise.
• Remember the good things that have happened to you and that you have made happen.

Techniques worth trying

Above we learnt comprehensive methods on how to affect your own thinking, and next we will go through some individual techniques to test when you’re processing your thoughts. Try out and practice different methods to find the best ones for you.

WORRY TIME

Sometimes your mind is buzzing with things that are impossible to ignore. Constantly ruminating on your problems is unlikely to solve them though. This will take up your energy and attention so that you’ll be less able to function on other areas of your life. One way to keep problems from building up is to learn how to schedule worry time. During the worry time you don’t do anything but concentrate on the worries that burden you. Choose a calm place to spend 10 minutes in. Let the things or problems that worry you occupy your mind freely. Don’t do anything else. If you feel like you could focus your thoughts on your problem and its solution, do it. At other times, you can stop the thoughts bothering you by saying to yourself: I’ll process these thoughts only during my worry time.

TIME OUT

It might sometimes be a good idea to ignore things and let your worries float by without even trying to control them. When you know you can take a quiet break, you’ll be more energised and can face everyday life. During this break, let your mind rest, relax, quiet and calm down. Timeout works wonders when you feel busy, your schedule is too tight or you feel over-emotional. The break allows you to also use different relaxing methods.

STOPPING YOUR THOUGHTS

You might sometimes get caught in negative thought patterns. It makes you feel stressed and anxious. Learn how to stop the negative thoughts following one other. One way is to strictly say ”stop”  and then focus on a concrete thing you’re doing or take a walk for example. If you seem to get overwhelmed by the thoughts bothering you, tell yourself: “This is ruining my mood. I want to think about something else!” You can also write down the thought and concentrate on it later (like on worry time).

THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN

You might think about a worst-case scenario if your fears come true. Not finishing your presentation on time could worry you. Worrying disrupts your working. The worst thing that could happen, though, is that someone can tell your presentation is still incomplete and your grade might be low or your studies might not finish as planned. In a few years you’ll forget the whole thing. Don’t use this method with worries that can have dire consequences.

THINKING AHEAD

Sometimes there are periods and situations in life that feel tough. It often helps if you imagine a moment in your future when everything is fine. Maybe before you have faced difficulties which you have overcome. When you focus on a bright future, you might find the energy to survive the hard situation at hand.

THERAPEUTIC WRITING

Sometimes writing can help with recognising your feelings and processing them. You can, for instance, write about difficult matters that worry you, or hopes and dreams. Here’s what you should do:

• Choose a calm place to focus on writing without distractions.
• Commit to writing at least 15 minutes on 3–5 consecutive days.
• When you start, write without stopping. Never mind grammar or such.
• You can write about the same topic daily or freely change topic. The most important thing is to write about whatever comes to mind: the text is meant only for you. Don’t let what others might think affect your writing.
• You’re on an expedition. Write boldly about your thoughts and feelings without assumptions on how to write.
• Don’t be alarmed if you start feeling sad or down after writing. The feeling usually passes. If some topics make you too upset, stop writing and change the subject.
• You’re not supposed to continue the writing process forever. It’s more about checking your current course than make ruminating a way of life. Of course you can repeat the process whenever you feel like it or even regularly, like once a year.

THE ABCD METHOD

The ABCD method can be efficient in managing beliefs that make you feel blue.

A is the event that started things. What happened?

B is your belief that explained the event. What did you tell yourself about what happened?

C is the consequence. How did you react?

D is the argument which questions the belief.

As you can see, there are many different techniques for processing your thoughts. Some of them might come naturally to you, and some might feel unfamiliar at first. Trying things out and practicing can be worth it though. Slowly you’ll find the most suitable methods for you.

Sometimes it’s as important to accept your own thoughts than change them. Then you can see that even the harmful thought pattern is just one way of interpreting among others. The harmful thought pattern gets its limited attention and then life goes on as usual.

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