While your daily life sweeps you away, how are you handling it? Are you happy? Unhappy? Lost? Confused? Successful? Content? Once you figure out your overall outlook you can begin to do something about it. Listening to your thoughts is not something most people do consciously, rather they tend to be ruled by them subconsciously. The words going through your mind go so quickly that we rarely react consciously unless great passion or emotion are tied to them such as those thoughts that make us angry, or sad, or make us dwell on things. Most of our thoughts simply fly by without us taking much notice. But these thoughts affect our overall state, and to maximize our effectiveness and ability to move our lives in a positive and productive direction, we need to take some time to slow them down and analyze what we are saying to ourselves.
Analyzing our thoughts can be an interesting and even daunting challenge. For one thing it’s rarely something that we do. So suddenly slowing our thoughts down and taking notice of them can really shock us, especially if our outlook is not as positive as it could be. We can catch ourselves cursing at people mentally, or criticizing others or ourselves. We can find ourselves saying no to most things before really analyzing them. These are just some examples, and in my case I often find myself shaking my head along with negative thoughts. Noticing this, it allows me to take immediate stock of what just flew through my brain. Analyzing it I can take a moment and decide if the negative thought had merit or was just old programming marching through my mind. The thought itself is rarely as important as the source. A negative thought can be a warning, old resentment, guilt, or a poor memory, and of course a combination of all of them. When we analyze the thought we can deal with it and either deal with the challenge and so solve the issue. Or we can reject it because it has no merit.
One of the benefits of analyzing your thoughts is that it can prove humorous. A negative or unproductive thought is often based on such erroneous information that when you analyze it you discover that it is just plain silly. Overall, however, the real benefit of doing this is that it leads to positive thoughts and increased energy. Increased productivity naturally follows, and if you have been struggling or having difficulties you will see ways out of them because you will be directing your thoughts to work for you rather than against you. So take stock of your thoughts, analyze them, and deal with them. Replace unproductive and unfounded thoughts with positive and productive thoughts, and the thoughts that indicate a challenge should be used to solve the issues that are creating the challenge. Your thoughts are your thoughts, and no one else belongs in your mind unless you want them there and they are helping you. Take charge of your thoughts, make them work for you, and in a short time you will not recognize yourself.
