Change Your Thoughts Change Your Life

How’s that overthinking working out for you?
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As humans we think all the time.  A little peak at Google tells me the experts estimate that the mind has somewhere between 50,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day, somewhere between 2,100 and 3,300 per hour….wowzers.
 
What happens to those thoughts?  Do they help or hinder you. With all those thoughts going on it would be a shame if we don’t put some of them to good use and get them to work for us.
 
There are some people who enjoy their thought processes and choose to do nothing when they’ve finished with a particular thought pattern and are comfortable to just sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labour or take some form of action. Some however go through a series of thought patterns perhaps being less comfortable with the process, who then make decisions that either helps or hinders.
 
Thinking is obviously such a natural subconscious process we rarely take the time to explore how it’s working out for us.

​For the most part overthinking leads us to posing questions to ourselves that we are unable to answer.  Overthinking often leads to analysis of events or situations that are not factual and have not yet happened. I think this is something that most of us recognise as doing at some point in our lives.
 
The reason so many of us become anxious when we overthink is because our imagination can be a powerful tool and can be both helpful and unhelpful. If we are in a negative state of mind to begin with our thoughts will tend to veer towards unhelpful.
 
How many times have you tried to answer your own question about someone or something else that has originated from a thought you had? The truth is you couldn’t possibly know the answer without obtaining information that you don’t yet have. The answer cannot come from your thoughts alone.
 
The answer will come but more than likely you must first ask a question, have a conversation, do some research or obtain further evidence before you can make a decision.
 
How often do you have thoughts that hinder you, thoughts that stem from fear or a lack of self-belief or self-confidence?
 
The process of overanalysing often stops us from making clear decisions or we become so entrenched in our thinking that it starts to have a negative impact, we then create answers for ourselves that seem to suit this negative state of mind.
 
The quote “Change your thoughts, Change your life” - Wayne Dyer is very powerful. This might be easier for some to do than others but if it is something that you are able to recognise, the good news is you can do something about it.
 
Thoughts such as I can’t or I’m not good at, tend to be hindering.  Other examples are deciding what someone else thinks of us.  We have a conversation or we’re in a situation where because of the way someone might have looked at us our thought process goes to something like, “that person doesn’t like me or that person thinks X about me”.  How do we know this is?  Did we ask? What factual evidence do we have apart from a look or a glance?
 
The other curious way of thinking I hear often is where a decision is made about an outcome, without actually having any dialogue or conversation.
 
When I speak to him I know what he will say. I’ll say X and he is going to do or say Y
Or
I’ll do X and I know she’ll do Y.
 
How do we know this is true? Is it because of past performance, something that’s happened before? Shouldn’t we converse first with an open mind, before we create imagined thought responses and emotions? We’re not able to read minds yet, are we?
 
So many misunderstandings, relationship challenges with friends, family, colleagues even strangers are initiated by thoughts and invalid conclusions that we create. We also stop ourselves from achieving what we want because our thoughts sometimes have a tendency to err on the side of our fears.
 
Overthinking can sometimes lead us down a rabbit warren. 
 
My encouragement today is for you to have a ‘Thought Audit’.  Are your thoughts leading you to where you want to be or further away?  Do you know where you want your thoughts to take you? How can you create thoughts that are more helpful for you?

You won’t have all the answers immediately but you can start a change in the way you think, your first step to enabling you create more of what you want and less of what you don’t want.

“Change your thoughts, Change your Life”. If you don’t know where to start please call or email me.
 
If you would like help or support with this or any other mindset challenges please call or email me
[email protected]
+44 (0) 7956 381 247