Stinking Thinking
ONE OF THE POSITIVE outcomes of my unsuccessful life: I’ve had an incentive to study ways to be successful.
Among the self-improvement materials I’ve looked at, many have titles like “how to become…” or something similar. The good ones are easy to understand and make you feel it’s possible for you to achieve whatever they’re selling.
When the material is delivered in person, you get the advantage of a great presentation from a dynamic public speaker. These folks are the modern equivalent of the old snake oil salesman. They’re all gifted salespeople. I’m not knocking them. I just understand that, like all successful salespeople, they’re good at convincing you that what they’re selling is what you need.
One such presenter was Zig Ziglar. He was a former salesman who grew up poor in Alabama and Mississippi, one of 12 children. He discovered the self-help arena and began presenting his “pitch” in books and in person. He found he could make more money selling self-improvement than he could selling pots and pans door-to-door, which is how he started out.
Self-help gurus often use catch phrases to make their ideas memorable. One of Ziglar’s catch phrases was “stinking thinking.” I liked it because it rhymed, plus I could relate to the idea, because I frequently did and still do this type of thinking. I suspect we all do.
“Stinking thinking” is dwelling on negative thoughts. This sort of thinking doesn’t do us any good, and yet we do it anyway. It usually happens to me when I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I don’t fall back to sleep right away. Instead, I lie in the dark and start thinking. Inevitably, I begin pondering the “what ifs.” You know the sort of thing I’m talking about: “What will happen if this happens?” “Will I get that promotion?” “Will my dad make it through the operation?”
The only thing “stinking thinking” does is cause me to worry and lose sleep.
Knowing that “stinking thinking” is going to happen, I take the “stinking thinking” thought, get out of bed and write it down, along with the possible solutions to the problem. I’ve read that your mind doesn’t know the difference between important and unimportant thoughts. All thoughts are considered equal, and our mind doesn’t want us to forget the thought in question. If I can solve my “stinking thinking” thought or, at least, write it down, my mind is tricked into believing the problem is solved or that it won’t be forgotten, and I can then usually fall back to sleep.
“Stinking thinking” is most detrimental to me in the middle of the night. But these thoughts can come to me at all hours of the day or night. One trick I’ve found is to always carry a scrap of paper and a pen in my pocket. When a thought hits me, and I need to somehow resolve it, I write it down, so I remember to address it later.
What if I don’t write it down? The thought will hijack my brain. Indeed, the sooner the thought is resolved or at least put down on paper, the sooner I can get on with the important things in my life.
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