Not everyone is the same kind of person. While for some, encouragement, motivation and looking at the bright side works – like Poppy in the animation movie Trolls -- for others, like Branch, the opposite is true. Too much optimism can actually make some of us complacent, overconfident and less of achievers than what we truly are. And let’s face it: we all have been subject to negative thoughts that creep up upon us as self-doubts, inferiority complexes and even a fear of losing all that we have. So what do you do with all those scary, negative thoughts?
Be Like Princess Poppy: Make Negative Thoughts Go Away
Some of us are incredibly positive people and negativity only weighs us down. For those who need to see all things bright and beautiful and manage to find the silver lining in every cloud – negative thoughts are poison. So what do you do?
- Shoo those negative thoughts away: As a positive person who sees, or rather, has the need to see the world in a good light, the only way you need to tackle negative thoughts is to diss them right out of your mind. It takes about 30 seconds for a thought to anchor itself to deeper consciousness and began to gnaw at your levels of worry and anxiety. The moment you have a negative thought, find a way to banish it – sing a song, go for a run, dance, meditate – “train” your mind to stop thinking in negative lines and concentrate on the positivity around. And remember, fake it till you make it.
- Become an even more positive person: No, not by scrapbooking like Poppy, though it might just work – instead surround yourself by what makes you happy. Happy faces, helping other people, focusing on a hobby, gardening, being more grateful – there’s so much you can do to make yourself happy, so do it now and stop waiting for happiness to knock on your door. Go find it…
Be Like Branch: Negative Thoughts Are Not An Obstacle, Rather A Challenge
So while surrounding yourself with happiness and the sunshine works for some, for others, it can have a detrimental effect, so to speak. Some people need the fear of failure to work towards their goals – what’s harmful is when these negative thoughts actually begin to stop you from achieving all that you want to.
It’s when you take these doubts and believe them to be true that you need to step back and re-organize all your negative thoughts, doubts and self-recriminations and turn them around. And don’t be impatient – it took you a while to become so negative, so turning that negativity into positive energy will also take time.
- Concentrate on your emotions behind the thought: When you have a negative thought, see where it is stemming from. The thought or the emotion is leading to something deeper – a flaw that you see in yourself or your life. And while all “flaws” cannot be fixed, they most certainly can be worked on. And they can be overcome.
- Work towards making positive changes: You may not be able to change a few things simply because they are beyond human control. So, identify the things that give rise to doubts and change them instead. If you are down on yourself because of a bad job, or the way you look, or a relationship gone bad – make positive changes around it. It doesn’t sound easy, but one step at a time – it can be done. And once you do make the effort alone to make the change, you’ll see the dark clouds disappear amidst the warm sunrays of hope, thawing out that fearful, frozen heart.
- Now what? Repeat: The next time you have a negative thought, every time you have a negative though, repeat the same steps. Question yourself, dig in deep to find the emotions as well as the source and try and make changes around it. Sometimes a negative thought is nothing but a way of your brain telling you that you are disappointed in yourself. So dust off that failure, pull those rhetorical socks up and keep calm, and keep going…
I leave you with this quote I hope you will remember even in your darkest days, “Be strong because things will get better. It may be stormy now, but it cannot rain forever."
