Positive Thinking Exercises

Positive Thinking Exercises: Stop Those Negative Thoughts

No matter how hard you attempt to think positively, it will be difficult unless you learn to spot and stop negative thoughts. There are many positive thinking exercises that will help. One of them, learning how to spot your negative thoughts, is explained here.

Why Is It Important to Combat Negative Thoughts?

It’s important to combat negative thoughts because they serve a destructive function in your life. For most of you, thinking negatively is a subconscious habit. Bad thoughts do their harm while you are totally unaware. In fact, as you are reading this, you may be thinking that you're not very negative, but you could be wrong.

Negative thoughts, even the small ones, can be one cause of the struggles you are having in your life. If you stop and think about it, you'll find that you're being more pessimistic than you realized.

How to Recognize Negative Thoughts

Here are examples of thoughts that show you may be looking at things negatively:

• I’m unlucky.
• It's definitely going to rain today now that I've made plans.
• I’m bound to make a mistake on this project.
• I’m not good enough.
• I’m not important.
• Nothing I try ever works out.
• I’m not pretty.
• I’m too tall/too short/too fat, etc…

These are but a few of the myriad negative thoughts that fall into the negative thinking spectrum. You can fix them once you have recognized them. Positive thinking exercises are intended to alleviate this kind of thinking and replace it with a more objective and constructive alternative.

Take Baby Steps

Start your journey toward positive thinking with baby steps. At first, simply be aware of your negative thoughts without trying to change or stop them. As the saying goes, knowing there’s a problem is half the battle. It’s the first step in deviating from the negative thought pattern that you have been stuck in. Jot down the bad thoughts you notice – both big and little. This will help you recognize the most common ones and will give you more material to focus on as you move forward through your positive thinking exercises.

Positive thinking exercises, such as recognizing and stopping your negative thoughts may not seem important initially, but they are very useful. When you understand your negative thought patterns, you can shift them towards something more positive.

Eight Ways to Cultivate a Positive Mental Attitude

 

Cultivating a positive mental attitude can’t be accomplished overnight. It starts by gradually introducing good habits into your daily routine. This can be a struggle at first, but eventually it will take less effort to look on the brighter side of life.

 

Eight Things You Can Start Doing Today to Become More Optimistic.

·         Take Action

Many of us worry about the future, always imagining the worst case scenario. Your future circumstances depend largely on your current actions, so you can exercise some control over your future by taking constructive action in the present. If the situation is beyond your control, take your mind off it by focusing on other areas of your life over which you do have control. You can improve those areas.

·         Practice Appreciation

If you think there isn’t much good in your life--always seeing the glass as half empty--take five minutes a day to list the things you're grateful for. After a while, you’ll start noticing the good things more than the bad, which will help develop that positive mental attitude.

·         Think Well of Others

We sometimes judge others harshly and expect the worst in people. This only perpetuates our tendency for negative thinking. Instead, try to go for an entire day thinking only positive thoughts about other people. Do this as often as you can and notice the results.

·         Have a Sense of Humor

As the saying goes, “Laughter is the best medicine.” Keeping your sense of humor and making sure to laugh each day is an easy and effective way to help you become a more positive thinker.

·         Snap Out of It

Make up a prompt that will stop your negative thoughts dead in their tracks. Use it when you find yourself thinking negative thoughts. It could be anything from snapping your fingers, to shouting “stop,” to imagining a red stop sign. Anything is useful as long as it puts an end to that thought.

·         Consciously Feed Yourself Positive Thoughts

 Most of us put our thoughts on autopilot, without consciously deciding what to think. Start getting into the habit of forcing yourself to think positive thoughts, or affirmations. At first it may seem silly, but it will soon get you into the custom of thinking more optimistically.

·         Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself

Negative thinkers tend to focus on their flaws without acknowledging their good points. To stop this harmful habit and boost your positive mental attitude, keep a journal and write down everything about yourself of which you are proud. You'll soon recognize that you do more things well than you thought.

·         Turn off the Television and Social Media

We receive a constant barrage of upsetting information, anxiety ridden situations, and mood destroying comments and thoughts from television and social media. It’s easier to think more positively without this constant influx of negativity. Take time out each day to go low tech. Meditate or take a walk outside instead.

 

Pick one thing on this list and practice it, if you find that doing it all at once is too much. Start today.

Stopping Negative Thoughts

How to Stop Negative Thoughts

Break the Habit

Stopping negative thoughts takes patience and training. Since pessimistic thinking is a habit, step one is to catch yourself when these thoughts begin to occur. Once you start to notice them, you can try to verify them to convince yourself that they're not true. Test Your Negative Thoughts.

 

Your destructive thoughts aren't based on reason, but no matter how much you tell yourself that, it's seems impossible to stop them. This is why you need to go a little further and start gathering proof that will convince you that these thoughts are false.
 

Step by Step Instructions to Test Your Negative Thoughts

 

Step 1 - Take a wide category of negative thinking and break it down. Don't begin working on all of your negative thoughts at once. It takes time to learn how to stop them, so start slowly. For example, you may choose to work on your poor body image or the thought pattern, "I am unlucky."

 

Step 2 – Using your wide category, think about all the thoughts that come under each subcategory. Take the poor body image example. Your thought pattern might be something like "I can't wear tight blouses because they accentuate my small breasts" or "everyone pays attention to my cute best friend and not me," or “I’m not pretty." Make a list of these thoughts on a piece of paper.

 

Step 3 - On another piece of paper, write down facts that will negate that thought. For example, for the thought "I’m not pretty,“ you might write that nobody has ever said you weren’t pretty. You can also write something like "I don't judge people solely on looks, so why would they judge me that way?"

See how this is working? Writing down the evidence forces you to view your life objectively and learn how to stop negative thoughts by seeing whether your thoughts are based on fact. A feeling that people think you're not pretty isn’t sufficient. This is the time for cold, hard facts. We've all heard the occasional hurtful remark, but when you put the facts on paper, you'll discover that your thoughts are more illogical than you first realized!

What Now?
It takes time for your irrational feelings to catch up with your rational brain, so you will need to regularly repeat this process to learn how to stop negative thoughts. Eventually, you'll find that it is possible to stop such thoughts, and that your negative thinking habit becomes much more realistic.

Author: A native of the Midwest farm country in Iowa, Marcia Ripperger has lived in a number of locations. She has resided in Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Minneapolis, Minnesota., Living in rural and metropolitan areas taught Marcia to always look for the best opportunities each community could offer. She now lives in a rural area of Minnesota that has a small city flare and closeness to the land. . Marcia has work in the corporate world outside of her home and has various home based businesses over the years. She holds a degree in business management and is CMOM certified. Marcia is the owner of a Work At Home Choices LLC along with being the founder founder and publisher of " Christian Work From Moms and Grandparents" She is a well known published and featured author through out the internet.