Negative thinking for some reason is so much easier to instill in ourselves than positive thinking is, but unfortunately, it is negative thinking that can cause many problems in our life. Some people even talk themselves out of things and what they are capable of doing without even realising it or paying much attention to it and again this causes problems and can develop into something more drastic.
Whether we like it or not we do change or influence our lives by our feelings and most of these in a negative aspect, this can lead to and cause problems with low self-esteem issues. Ways that we put ourselves down and talk ourselves out of doing what we are truly capable of doing are:
Relying on past experiences
A lot of people fall under the illusion that if a past experience produced a certain result then there is nothing they can do to produce a different result should they tackle the situation again. However, you can change the outcome simply by altering your perception of the outcome; you and only you can change what happens in the future. Only by avoiding negative self-talk and altering your thoughts to more positive thinking can you change the outcome.
Self-talk plays a big part in decision making
Self talk whether it is positive or negative plays a huge part in the decisions we make, you should always be aware of negative self-talk and notice how the outcome of a situation is influenced by it. A simple example of this could be, imagine you have lost a lot of weight and were well on the way to achieving your goal with the weight loss.
Christmas came and of course, we all eat more than we should at this time, you put on a few pounds and when the Christmas period was over you weighed yourself. You get discouraged and think why bother, I’m almost back to where I started and give up, all your hard week previous to the Christmas period was for nothing and very soon, you end up weighing as much as you did or worse still more. However the scenario could turn out so differently with positive thinking, if you thought, oh well I enjoyed Christmas but I put on a little weight, I now have to work harder and lose it and carry on towards my goal.
Reflecting
Sometimes we spend too much time reflecting on the past; the example above shows us this, but does this mean that the success you achieved in the past was for nothing, are you really back to square one?. No, you put on a few pounds but you enjoyed the break and you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself for it, simply think positively and get back into your diet and routine without reflecting on what happened and feeling sorry for yourself.
Practice positive thinking
For years, we condition ourselves to negative thinking so changing your way of looking at things won’t be easy, it won’t happen overnight. Positive thinking is something you will have to think about and notice when you are thinking negatively and change those habits into more positive ones.
Persevere and pay more attention to how you think and what you tell yourself, visualise yourself as being a happy, confident person, of course there will still be times when you feel down and depressed but just accept this and move on without giving it too much thought.
