It’s amazing to me how much our mind affects how we feel about what’s going on with us.
Look at the same circumstances, the same problem, the same conundrum, the same anything, but with a negative mindset versus a positive mindset, and the situation and outcome will be completely different.
Our mindset amplifies our experiences.
A negative mindset makes great things okay, good things poor and bad things hell. If I lose my job with a negative mindset (or slide into a negative mindset), the world will feel against me. Every trip, red light, expense is justification for my negativity and why my life is going wrong.
Everything will be overwhelming. Nothing will seem to go right. Everything I do will not work (at least not the way I want it to). Everything bends towards me me me, and all the reasons for my problems (reasons that exclude myself from blame).
A positive mindset sees the best in any situation (which is better than a negative mindset, but not always conducive to great results) If I lose a job yet stay positive about the situation, I’ll more likely see the good things that come from not having that job anymore, and the potential opportunities around me.
An objective mindset sees things the way they are, without judgment or fear of personal attacks against itself. An objective mindset isn’t a numb, no emotion state — it’s a calm, cool-headed way of thinking. This is what went wrong. This is what I can do in the future to avoid this again. This is what I can do about it now.
Negativity creates more negativity.
Possibility creates more possibility.
How you think doesn’t exactly manifest into reality. Wishing for a metal suitcase filled with stacks of money to appear under your bed isn’t going to make it happen. (Money Fairy?) But that doesn’t mean how we think doesn’t do anything. Our minds are not isolated. How we think reflects how we act (consciously or intuitively). Even more, how we think about ourselves reflects on what we allow ourselves to act on. If you negatively think you can’t do something, you’re going to mentally check yourself out of the race before you even try and see if you can. And if you positively think you can, you are going to figure it out.
The more you think in opportunistic ways, the more your life bends towards that mentality. You think opportunities will happen, so you are open to opportunities happening to you. They were most likely happening all along, it’s just stuck in a negative state, you didn’t notice them. You were too busy despairing over the past to see the opportunities in the present.
With this in mind, take a look at the people around you. Sympathize with the people you come into contact on the street. How is their perspective painting their reality?
How can we put this into practice?
Be aware of your mental state and how its’ affecting your life.
Take stock of what’s going on in your life, what you like and dislike and your mental perspective of them.
Learn to empathize with others. Knowing how you think will help you understand how others think. Negative people are negative because they are negative. You can’t change them (they have to do that themselves) but you can understand why they think the way they do. This gives you the power to completely block off their negative mindset from infecting your own mindset.
Practice objectivity. Every unfortunate thing that happens to you is an opportunity to measure yourself and practice being calm and collective.
Know that How you Think can be Changed. How you think is just how you have thought in the past and how you think right now. Mindsets are mental places we go to, and if we can go to them, we can also leave them.
If you dislike how your mind tends to go negative when bad things happen to you, you have the power to change it. It’s not easy, but the power is there. Bit by bit, action by action, you can choose to think differently.
The more you can focus on what you can control, instead of what you wish you could control, the better your life will be.
STAY BOLD,
Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner
