How To Break Your Your Negative Thought Cycle

The Dalai Lama said,

“One small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”

But the anonymous quote I like even better is,

“A positive thought can change your whole day, but a positive mindset can change your whole life.”

Today I wanna talk about… How to break your negative thought cycle.

So you’re sitting in the car or you’re sitting on the couch at home, and you’re stuck in a negative mindset or a negative thought cycle.

The thoughts are swirling around your head by the thousands, or at least it seems that way. Thought after thought after thought.

Your inner monologue is driving you crazy.

You cannot stop your inner self critic.

You say things like…

• I’m so stressed, or
• This stress is killing me.
• I can’t believe how much I have to do.
• My boss is stressing me out.
• My wife or my husband, or my spouse, or my partner is driving me crazy.
• There’s not enough time in a day.
• Or I’m such an idiot because I did this or that.
• I’m never gonna get it all done.
• I’m always late.
• I eat too much.

Does this sound familiar? One thought after another, you continue to critique.

You know, it’s amazing how we talk to ourselves.  If I heard another person talking to someone else, the way I talk to myself sometimes, I would be offended.

Do you find yourself in these thought patterns? How do you break this cycle? 

I’m going to give you my 3 R’s to break your negative thought cycle.

Statistics show that we have a tremendous amount of thoughts every day. Now, the statistics vary widely, but some people would say, we have up to 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day. Now, most would agree that’s probably a high number.

The more realistic number would probably be 6,000 to 20,000 thoughts a day. But whatever it is, it’s a tremendous amount.

And statistics would also agree that a lot of those thoughts are negative.

Studies also show that we have a tendency and we are biased or hardwired to bias ourselves to negative thoughts.   They say it’s to protect ourselves both physically and psychologically.

I also personally believe that our negative mindsets are perpetuated or amplified by traumatic events that happen in our lives. They’re also affected by our upbringing and what this does to our subconscious and also our repetitive doubt and insecurities about ourselves.

This all factors in to our negative thoughts about ourselves and it can perpetuates our negative mindset.

Now, I also believe our thoughts and our mindset are kind of like social media.

If you click on a post about gardening, you’ll see more posts about gardening. Or if you click or like posts about hiking or sunsets, you’ll see more posts about hiking and sunsets.

And our brain works the same way. Your brain will give you more back of whatever you’re thinking about most during your day.

So if you are consistently in a negative thought pattern or a negative thought cycle and you’re self critiquing and critiquing everything and everyone around you and you’re doing this day after day, then your brain is going to continue to keep you in this cycle.

But if you become aware of this state and you realize that the only way to move forward in a positive way in your life is to change your mindset, then you will start to see positive change.

And I think I used this quote recently in the last two months because I think it’s so appropriate.

Eckhart Tolle said, …

“Awareness is the greatest agent to change.”

The First “R” is: Recognize

You see, one of the most important aspects to make any positive change in your life is to become aware and recognize the state that you’re in.

You see, when you recognize and become aware of the state that you’re in and how it’s affecting you, then you can make the choice to change.

Bill Hebel said, …

“Self-awareness allows you to self-correct.”

So now, once you’ve recognized your thoughts and you’ve recognized your mindset and you’ve made the choice to change, now it’s time to reframe your thoughts and reframe your mindset for how you respond to the circumstances in your life.

Remember, stress is not what happens to us. Stress is how we respond to what happens to us. And you can choose how you’ll respond.

So you see, reframing how you react and respond to circumstances and how you speak to yourself, is one of the most important tools that you’ll have to help reduce your stress, to break your negative thought cycles and to see a huge positive change in your life.

So be careful how you talk to yourself because your mind is always listening and you’ll perpetuate or continue whatever you speak to yourself most about.

But the great thing about self-talk is you have control over it. It may not always seem that way, but when you start to practice and it takes a lot of practice, you will start to see a change and start to develop the habit, the positive habit of talking to yourself in a constructive way.

And you will start to develop what I call a Positive, Proactive Mindset. That doesn’t mean just being happy, it means constructively looking at all aspects of your life in a positive way.

But what you’ll see is when you start to reframe how you react and respond to the circumstances in your life in a positive way, you’ll start to see immediate results.

So when you say something like, “this job is killing me”, you’re actually telling your mind that this job is overwhelming you and that you’re gonna continue to think of it that way. So instead of saying, “this job is killing me”, you can say something like, “you know what? This job is really challenging right now. What could I do to make it better?”

Well, here’s another one. “My partner is stressing me out.”  Whether it’s your husband, your wife, your partner, whatever it is, friend, my partner’s stressing me out, you could change that to….

“You know what? It really seems like my partner’s having a tough day. What could I do to make it better?”

Here’s another one. Instead of saying, “I can’t, or I could never” say, “I can”.

Instead of saying, “I won’t” say, “I’ll try.”

Now, when you first start to do this, it can be discouraging because you almost don’t believe that it’s going to work. You’re so used to being in a negative mindset, or you’re so used to being in a negative thought cycle and being your own worst critic that it’s hard to break the habit.

But I want you to start to do it consistently over time. It’s almost like the old joke…”Fake it until you make it.” Keep talking in a positive way to yourself, constructively reframe how you think about the circumstances in your life, and you will start to see the difference.

Because I guarantee if you don’t change and continue in the negative mindset or the negative thought cycle, it will continue. It will perpetuate upon itself.

So now that you’ve used the first two R’s, which are recognize and reframe; you’ve recognized the state that you’re in or the negative thought cycle, and you start to reframe your thoughts and how you react to the circumstances in your life, you are ready to reset your mindset to a positive, proactive mindset.

One of the ways that you can do this and stay consistently reset in this positive, proactive mindset is to set specific goals for yourself.

You see, one of the reasons we get into a negative mindset or negative thought cycle about ourselves is that we’re kind of lost. We don’t know what we want to do, and we haven’t set any goals for yourself.

Once you set specific goals for yourself and you know what you want to do, what you want to do, be and have, then what happens is you give your brain marching orders.  Then it’s much easier to be in a positive state of mind or in a positive thought cycle so then, when you get clarity about what you want and you set specific goals for yourself, then you can focus more on what it takes to reach those goals.

So then what’ll happen is you will focus less on reacting and responding to your circumstances in a negative way, because for lack of a better term, you’re lost.

So remember, to break that negative thought cycle and that negative mindset, use the 3 R’s.

The first R was to recognize.   Recognize the state that you’re in and become aware of how it’s affecting you. And that will allow you to make the choice to change. 

Then, use the second R to reframe your thoughts and to reframe your self-talk, which will allow you to develop a positive, proactive mindset. And this allows you to reset your mindset and set specific goals for yourself that you can focus on what it is that you want to accomplish.

And as you start to do this, I know you’ll see a tremendous difference in your life

I hope this informatiuon helped you out.

Be Positive, Be Motivated, Be Focused and Be Well,

When you sign up to receive his blog updates via email.