How to Influence Life With Your Thoughts

People get involved in a variety of situations in life that get described as negative or positive.

By this method of designation, our minds separate the evil and the good, our distaste and desire, all so that our subconscious can send the appropriate signals when finding ourselves in a situation with any one of them.

Thus, it seems that there is a correlation between our thoughts about anything that transpires in our lives and the attitude we have towards them.

Therefore, managing our thinking process can help us bring the utmost in our lives and decrease the negative emotions and unwanted scenarios we may stumble upon.

This article will explain the influence that our thoughts can have in our lives when we govern them or if we get governed by them, and show ways for utilizing them to achieve anything we put our minds to.

What Our Thoughts Can Do

The most perfect explanation I have found on how our thoughts are interdependent with our attitude and way of living comes from this single quote:

“You become what you think about”

- Earl Nightingale

Take a moment to try and realize what these 6 words imply.

What you constantly convey to your subconscious tends to be returned to your conscious decisions, mood, and generally the way you associate with everything in your life.

This means that whatever thoughts you consistently instill into your subconscious will unavoidably affect your actions in a specific situation in either a positive or a negative tone.

For instance, if you continuously make up stressful images of you being fired from the place where you work, this will inevitably lead to certain decisions and actions that will assist the accomplishment of what you are thinking.

However, if you are regularly creating mental images of you being successful in your field of work, and believe in that, your decisions and actions will be polished in a way that will help you achieve just that.

So there happens to be a clear pattern here; by controlling what type of thoughts you pass on to your subconscious you procure in one way or another exactly that in your life.

Moreover, if you have already noticed, there’s a lot of usage of the word “continuous” and its synonyms. This is done on purpose to highlight the importance of habit.

One mere and standalone thought cannot simply change your whole attitude and way of living, especially when it comes to the positive ones.

To change your mindset into anything, it’s imperative to do it habitually. With this, I mean to act in a spirit of patience and persistence with your thought transmission.

Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy the mind at the same time. One or the other must dominate. It is your responsibility to make sure that positive emotions constitute the dominating influence of your mind. Form the habit of applying and using positive emotions. Eventually, they will dominate your mind so completely, that the negatives cannot enter it.

- Napoleon Hill

Understand Your Thinking Patterns

Comprehending how much your thoughts define your life and the course of actions you take is 50% of the whole procedure.

The rest of that emanates from understanding the reasoning behind your thinking process, and the consistent practice of utilizing your thoughts to change your attitude to its desired form.

Now for starters, watch carefully what thoughts are entering your subconscious and then try to trace them back to their core.

This of course takes a lot of time and consistent practice, but this self-analysis (which can be also done with the help of a psychotherapist) leads to understanding how your mind processes some things and for what reason.

For instance, if you feel embarrassed to talk to a large audience, try to understand what thoughts are triggering this emotion and then attempt on changing these into ones that will reverse the situation.

This feeling of embarrassment might be traced back to moments in your childhood when you tried to recite a poem in your classroom and forgot the lines or if some of your classmates made fun of you.

Your mind may be filled with negative thoughts of the like: “What will I do if I get stuck and forget what I was going to say” or “What if the crowd doesn’t enjoy what I am about to say”.

Understanding why you are feeling this way is the first step into discarding your old impractical thinking patterns and will assist in creating new useful ones.

Control the Flow of Your Thoughts

One essential thing for your progress in life is that of making your thought management a habit.

Since you can change yourself with the thoughts you allow your subconscious to get a hold of, it’s good practice to try and control their flow.

Now, this is extremely hard to pull off given that most of us have many hardships to deal with simultaneously, but it’s nonetheless crucial for everyone to try and learn.

The following tips were told by Norman Vincent Peale, an American pastor and author best known for his works on the subject of positivity.

1. Enter a state of relaxation

The first thing to do is set aside some minutes daily for relaxation or even better meditation.

To inject yourself with thoughts that will assist you in anything, you ought to first take a small step back from whatever you are doing and relax.

Try picturing in your mind an image that best describes the word “tranquility” and “serenity” for you.

It can be a walk on a beach, a dark starry sky, or even lying in bed.

There’s no limit in what you can imagine, just create for a few minutes this mental image and try to feel like you are living in that image as much as you can. With this, you will be able to release a lot of your tension.

2. Empty your mind

The next step is trying to free yourself from every thought, emotion, or task that is currently occupying your mind.

Your tranquil state will surely aid you in fulfilling that.

This is a very important step since an occupied mind won’t be able to hold any thoughts you’ll implant into it.

So, try to free yourself by feeling all the negative tension and energy you have piled into your mind escaping it.

To accomplish this, visualize that flow of negative energy releasing its clutches from your subconscious with whatever mental image suits you best.

3. Infuse your mind with positive affirmations

Now, you are ready to inject in your mind the appropriate thoughts you need to change your attitude towards anything that hinders you in life.

Your mind should now be susceptible to anything you deliver to it and will both accept and hold that.

Be careful, though, since negative thoughts can enter your mind if you let them and it won’t be easy to free your mind from them again.

The most impactful affirmations you can provide your mind with are those of faith in you and your powers, and gratefulness for the things that you already possess in your life.

What also works wonders, is to feed your mind with happy thoughts or mental images of you succeeding in anything that you desire or currently worrying you.

Final Thoughts

The human mind is a whole different world from the one that your physical body inhabits.

It needs a lot of work and practice to dive into this realm, understand how it operates and also manage what it can produce.

By seeing how the food you supply to your mind is associated with the quality of your life, it’s worth all the time and effort you put.

Always remember that your thoughts can become both a shield to defend you from the adversities in your life and a sword for appropriately attacking them.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

- Marcus Aurelius

Make your thought analysis and control a habit, and you are sure to see wonderful changes in your life’s standing.

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This article was originally published on Medium at Harrys Stratigakis