Positive Thinking + Self-Talk Indeed

We are aware of famous quote said by Swami Vivekananda- “We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.”

Let’s check “Is your glass half-empty or half-full?” How you answer this age-old question, about positive thinking may reflect your outlook on life, your attitude toward yourself, and whether you’re optimistic or pessimistic.

Positive thinking means that your approach to unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst. Thoughts which we usually throw out of our mind, comes around us. Let put in this way “what goes around, comes around.” Baggage holds you back so let the grudges go.  Life reflects back at us what we put into it and pay backs can be tough, so throw some sunshine Karma’s way.

Positive thinking often starts with self-talk. Self-talk is the endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head. These spontaneous thoughts can be positive or negative. Some of your self-talk comes from logic and reason. Other self-talk may arise from misconceptions that you create because of lack of information.

The problem with our self-talk is that we never question what we say to ourselves to check its accuracy, we just listen to the negative statements day in, day out and like the drip, drip of water on stone. If we keep up excessive, negative internal self-talk saying negative things for long enough, we begin to believe it even if it’s not correct.  We just accept it as being true when often it is not, or when it is true, we blow it out of proportion.

Some Examples of Negative Self-Tal

• “I’m such an idiot; I can’t believe I’m so stupid.”
• “This is terrible!”  “This is horrible!”  “I can’t stand this!”
• “I should be able to handle this; other people can.”
• “Things never go right for me.”
• “I’ll never be able to learn this.”

Self-talk has a powerful effect on our feelings and is often automatic and a habit. Changing our self-talk will not occur overnight, because it has probably taken many years to attain the level of negative self-talk we have achieved, but thinking style is a habit and with time and practice we can change a habit.

If the thoughts that run through your head are mostly negative, your outlook on life is more likely pessimistic. If your thoughts are mostly positive, you’re likely an optimist.

Putting positive thinking into practice

Negative self-talk

• I’ve never done it before.
• It’s too complicated.
• I don’t have the resources.

Positive thinking

• It’s an opportunity to learn something new.
• I’ll tackle it from a different angle.
•  Necessity is the mother of invention

It is important that we begin to look at what we are saying to ourselves this is the first step towards changing our negative self-talk to become more positive.  A good way of doing this is to start writing down the things we are saying to ourselves and begin to look at them for their accuracy. Always remember you have to grow inside out. No one can teach you other than your own soul. Till then be optimist, be happy, as life is Precious and comes with lots of Surprises. Take care..