In Others’ Words: Choose Your Weapon

Our thoughts are powerful forces for good or evil.

And no, I’m not overstating this truth.

Think about a time when you were juggling some important tasks or facing a major deadline, but still having a good day. And then, for some unknown reason, you found yourself discouraged. Frustrated. Overwhelmed by all you had to do.

You’re not sure how you went from happy to stressed out — you just know it happened.

If you took a moment to step away from the maddening crowd of your emotions and tuned into your thinking — what you’re mentally saying to yourself at that moment … how you’ve been talking to yourself for the past few hours — you’d realize why you were so stressed.

I’d wager the thoughts running rampant in your head were something like:

I’ll never get all of this done.
I’m so stupid for letting all of this work pile up.
People will be so disappointed in me if I don’t come through.
I’m going to blow this just like [insert a time you failed at something].
Everyone’s going to find out I’m a fraud.

 

When the going gets tough, we need to exercise our ability to choose one thought over the other, going on the defensive mentally.  Negative thinking tears us down, undermining our ability to focus on the challenge at hand. Sometimes I take the time to trace my way back to the first thought that tripped me up. Identifying it allows me recognize the trigger and mentally switch it to off. Then I “change the station” and only allow positive thoughts in.

In Your Words: How do you choose which thoughts you’re going to think?

In Others' Words: Choose Your Weapon http://bit.ly/2xFhMA7 #perspective #thoughts
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'The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.' Quote by William James http://bit.ly/2xFhMA7 #stress #choices
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