Your negative thought patterns can have a penetrating and damaging impact on your mental and emotional well-being, physical health, and relationships. It will limit your desired success and what you deserve. Framing your situations in a negative light and only fleetingly seeing the good leads to increased stress and anxiety, a negative outlook on life, feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, communication problems, misunderstandings, and other relationship conflicts. Reframing your thoughts is a very powerful tool that can help you change your perspective and approach to various life situations. Reframing involves taking a step back from your initial thoughts, understanding why so negative, looking at them from a different angle or through a different lens. Never ignore your emotions. You must understand why the stress resulted in anger frustration, or sadness. Leveraging this process is critical to the overall quality of your life. Reframing your negative thoughts help you:
Þ Manage stress and anxiety: It is common for your mind to go into overdrive and focus on the negative aspects of the situation causing you to feel overwhelmed and anxious leading to a vicious cycle of stress and negativity. Shift your focus away from the negative (I cannot do this. It is too hard.) towards the positive (This is a challenge, but I can break it into smaller more manageable chunks.) This puts you back into control reducing anxiety.
Þ Develop a more positive outlook: Studies have shown that people who have a positive mindset are generally happier and more successful than those who have a negative mindset. If you hate your job but cannot quit, shift your thoughts to what is good about your job, such as, how it provides you a steady income to support you and family, learning, or growth. This shift moves you to feel more grateful for what you have versus what you are missing.
Þ Improve your relationships: Negative thoughts about yourself or others are normally assumptions made or lies you are telling yourself. These thoughts and assumptions will impact how you interact whether personally or professionally. If you believe you are not enough in your relationship, you will feel inadequate and will self-sabotage it. You may unnecessarily appease to avoid being rejected. See the good in them as human beings even when not happy with your relationship. Shift to see what may be going on with them do not assume they know how important the topic is to you. This reframing shift can help you approach the situation with more empathy and understanding, which can improve your relationship.
Þ Achieve your goals: Negative thoughts about not being good enough, not worthy, or not capable will hold you back from pursuing your desire and what you deserve. However, if you shift your focus on your strengths and abilities that align with you being enough, worthy, and capable it will give you the confidence and motivation required to propel you forward. For example, instead of thinking “I’m not good enough to get that promotion or raise or talk to this executive,” you can reframe your thoughts by focusing on your skills and experience believing “I have the skills and experience necessary and deserve it because I have positioned myself and willing to learn and grow along the way.” This positive and proactive approach will help you focus and act toward your goals overcoming any obstacles coming your way.
Related News “If you do not like something, change it. If you cannot change it, change how you think about it.” Mary Engelbreigt
It may seem as though you are naturally focused on what appear to be objective facts about your situation and setback. However, they are often shaped consequentially by your own mind. Your mind shapes the way you experience the world and the way you think shapes your ability to respond to challenges and setbacks. As a result, it becomes critical for you to notice when you are in that downward spiral of negative thinking, take a step back from your initial thoughts before acting, look at your situation from a different perspective, and then act accordingly. Cultivating a more positive and proactive approach to life shifts you in the right direction to receive what your heart desires and you deserve.
When you replace “Why is this happening to me?” with
“What is this trying to teach me?” everything shifts.
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