These 7 ways can help you to get rid of the negative thoughts and live your best life.
In this blog, you’re not just going to learn about how can stop negative thinking. You’re also going to learn about the reality of thought patterns itself. We recommend that you after reading each paragraph, take some time to reflect on the concept because it’s going to get a little deep. When you understand the concepts of this blog and practice it, you will be on your way to thinking and living better.
Most of us are constant thinkers. And thinking can be constructive or destructive.
Constructive thinking can be any thought that helps us be more confident, is positive and supportive, and enables us to build desired outcomes. Whereas destructive thoughts are those that make us doubt ourselves, which is harmful and negative in nature, and hinders our desired outcomes.
Negative thoughts harm our growth, success, peace and happiness if we let them continue. Negative thought patterns are common in humans. But this can be controlled and stopped. Here are seven ways through which we can stop thinking negatively–
- Mindfulness
Mindfulness involves cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, a state achieved by directing your focus towards a specific element, such as your breath, body, emotions, or surroundings.
At the heart of mindfulness lies the practice of conscious awareness, which enables us to release our thoughts and stresses of the world and embrace the present moment.
As an illustration of a mindful exercise: The next time you go for a walk, you can practice mindfulness by focusing on how each step you take feels. After being mindful of the sensation of your steps, you can shift your focus to your surrounding environment. After that, you can shift your awareness onto your breathing.
Regularly engaging in mindfulness, even for a brief duration, can aid in eliminating overthinking and stress.
2. Understanding the truth about thoughts
Thoughts can be good for you and bad for you. And having no thoughts can be the best for you.
In today’s day and age where most of us are constantly overthinking, we tend to forget to just live in the moment. Each moment that passes by in our thoughts is an experience missed.
Thoughts stop us from being present and they take us to a place in our minds that prevents us from seeing what’s really happening. And this is relevant even for positive thoughts as well. Most of the thinking that’s happening in our minds isn’t really helping us at all. It only aids us in escaping the present moment and living in our minds.
Most of us do this on a regular basis. We live in our minds so much, that we forget to experience what’s in front of us; life. The reality of thought patterns is that none of it is actually taking place in the outer world. It’s all taking place in our minds.
Don’t take it the wrong way. The two best ways to get rid of negative thoughts id to be aware of the present moment and to replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
Positive and constructive thoughts are very useful in one’s life to achieve success and mental peace. And this can be a great practice to replace negative thoughts.
The best time to practice positive thinking would be first thing in the morning, right before you go to bed and after you practice mindfulness. This is because your mind is in the best state to grasp information and use it. You can practice positive thinking by saying aloud a few positive sentences that make you feel good. You would also want to repeat a positive sentence a few times before you move to the next one.
The only fallback about having positive thoughts or thoughts of any kind is that one thought can lead to another thought and another, and another, till you find yourself overthinking again. Hence we recommend the practice of bringing our awareness to the present moment.
3. Don’t force yourself to remove the negative thoughts
Trying to force yourself to do anything is the best way to think about it even more. Don’t force yourself to stop negative thoughts or to think positively. Rather understand how the mind works.
The nature of the human mind is to frequently think about things. When we force ourselves to think, or not to think, we will find ourselves in a battle of constantly defending our brain from the thoughts we don’t want or constantly giving an order to the brain to display the thoughts that we want.
This process is like going into a war as the king and losing all your soldiers as a result. Instead, whenever you have negative thoughts, try not to put your emotions into them. Just look at them as thoughts floating by. Observe that you are having a thought and bring yourself to the present moment. Don’t analyse the thought; just observe it.
4. Keep a goal in mind and pursue that
If you’re finding it difficult to work towards anything because of constant overthinking, your best possible solution is to be focused on the goal and not the outcome.
The outcome is often what we overthink because we want it to go a certain way or we don’t want it to go a certain way. But focusing on the outcome is not going to help you do your best work. You will be more successful at your work by using your intelligence and focusing on solely the work itself.
Thoughts always come and go no matter what situation you’re in. But don’t let that distract you from working towards something. Make sure that you have a goal in mind. It would be helpful to write it down. Focus on completing that goal and do not overthink it. Just take the action. Practice this a few times and you will see that the thoughts you have been having will slowly fade away. You will realise that working towards something without thinking about the outcome is the most efficient way to work because your mind is focused only on doing the work and not on the possible outcome
5. Practice Gratitude
Being grateful can help aid in dispelling the negative thoughts we may be having. Gratitude can be associated with positive thinking. Being grateful is when we’re thankful and appreciative that we have something in the present moment. And thoughts are usually linked to the past and future.
Practising gratitude can bring us to the present moment because we’re feeling and experiencing something that we have right now. This can also completely remove our negative thoughts as we truly feel grateful about having something and we’re focused on it.
You can practice gratitude throughout the day. It’s best practised when said out aloud and truly felt as an emotion. Use the words ” I am grateful for” before saying what you’re grateful for. Try not to just say the words without feeling it. Pick something that you have at present that you truly feel thankful for. When you feel it as a strong emotion, the potency it has on enhancing your present experience and letting go of negative thoughts and emotions increases magically.
6. Engage in things you love doing
It’s very rare to find yourself immersed in thoughts when you’re doing something that you really like to do. Engaging in the things that you like brings you to the present moment where you’re completely experiencing it.
This can be very effective in stopping you from thinking negatively. Doing what you love can reduce stress, and boost your moods and overall well-being.
The best thing about this is that it requires no effort because it would be something that you are eager and happy to do. It could be anything you like doing, any activity.
Make sure that you do it regularly for a good amount of time. It would be ideal to do the activity for 30 minutes every day at the least. As you do this regularly it would be best to switch the activity with something else that you like, so it doesn’t become meticulous.
You can also explore doing things that you have wanted to do but haven’t yet. This will give you a great amount of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment as well.
7. Remember that nothing lasts forever
Many of us have gone through periods of extremely negative emotions, thoughts and circumstances. And this can be really draining. It may also feel very demotivating and you may find it hard to even follow the practices written here. And it’s completely fine. Most of us have been in similar situations.
If you are one of those people who is finding it very difficult to change your thought patterns to be more positive or you’re not able to focus on the present moment. It would be helpful for you to understand that the current situation will not last long. Feelings change even though it has been present for a long. The nature of life is such constant change. Nothing stays permanent.
We encourage you to do your best and not give up. Try following the practices to the best of your ability. And keep in mind that these negative thoughts, emotions and situations don’t last forever.
