It is so easy to get pulled into negative thoughts and self-criticism. Once stuck in this pattern, it can be hard to break free. When you internalize all the derogatory things you have said about yourself or others have said to you, self-esteem suffers or becomes non-existent. If your negative thoughts are outweighing your positive thoughts, it is time to focus on feeling better about yourself.
Begin with the simple step of awareness. Catch yourself as you begin to have these negative thoughts. Are you engaging in “stinkin’ thinkin’?” – the term used in the book, You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!, by authors Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo, who ask readers to visualize these negative thoughts as physical masses dragging us down. Being aware of these thoughts is the first step to getting better control of them.
Self Talk
We all have an inner monologue with ourselves. Sometimes it is as innocuous as, “I need to pick up some milk from the grocery store.” While other times it can have a negative connotation like, “I’m so spacey, I’ll never get promoted.” When you repeatedly engage in negative self talk, you begin to limit yourself and your abilities. To change this pattern, an individual must actively practice positive self talk.
Be a Neutral Observer
Sometimes it is easier for those on the outside looking in to appropriately assess situations. Try to become that neutral observer of yourself. Are you engaging in negative self talk because you are assuming too much responsibility for bad happenings? Do you automatically blame yourself when things go wrong? Do you tend to minimize or ignore your accomplishments and magnify the negatives? Talk with a trusted friend to get this outside perspective if you find it is difficult for you to do this on your own.
Reframe
If you have a negative thought, try to reframe it in a more positive way. If you are telling yourself - “I am so irresponsible, I can’t even get to the meeting on time” – dissect the thought. Get rid of the negative judgment and reframe the thought in a more productive way – “I was late to the meeting. What can I do to be on time the next time?
Get Rid of Absolutes
If you find yourself using terms like “I always...” or “I never...” with associated negative thoughts, work hard to get rid of these absolute descriptions. “Always” or “never” implies that you aren’t capable of doing things differently and such absolutes can carry negative connotations.
Be Kind to Yourself
It is easy to slip into the pattern of being your own worst critic. You may say negative things to yourself that you would never dream of saying to another person because it would be too hurtful. Treat yourself with the same kindness. Don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to another person.
(By Keath Low)
HOW TO PRACTICE POSITIVE THINKING
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Pravin Kumar
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Thinking happy thoughts are also a good way. Just good vibes. 
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RishiRahul
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headhominid
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Pravin Kumar
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purusharth
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Thank you for sharing this....
I hope all of us can do more of this in our daily lives. Negative thinking becomes so intricately woven into our thought process that we often find it extremely difficult to shun. However, as has been so beautifully pointed out here, realizing that we are having negative thoughts is quite helpful. I wish everyone could check this destructive habit and practise developing positive thoughts for every situation. It's a lot of hard work in this day and age though. Good luck to all of us.
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katherine22
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Much of our negative thinking comes from the conditioning we were given as children by our parents, and even by many of the adults within the public education system where we were schooled. It is indeed very important to recognize and work to break free from these internalized messages that keep repeating themselves by focusing on creating more realistic and positive internal feedback for ourselves.
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Kate_Oranum
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Funny- I actually got a book about positive thinking a couple months ago from a friend of mine for my Bday - for some reason - i am not eager to read it - eventhough I know it would definetly do me good... but its like there is this back force holding me from reading - any idea what this could mean ?
re:
Thanks for this! This is a really good read and also makes you feel much better
re:
Thanks for this! IT was indeed a very good read
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peredhil31
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Genetically, we're selected to be negative when in a hostile environment. The caveman who pessimistically saw a tiger behind every bush tended to live longer than the one who gathered flowers and gazed on the beauty of the clouds when walking.
Add to this that from a gene's point of view, men and women are a way of passing genes into the next generation (The Selfish Gene and the Moral Animal; Robert Wright). A discontented person strives harder at everything in life.
One of the problems in this life of genetic tendencies is that they are no longer useful in our modern lives. The person who retrains their thinking to perceive positives, to view their needs met and be grateful for anything in excess of that, as contrasted with the person who thinks negatively and focuses on unmet wants, lives longer, with better quality of life.
For those who enjoy a more technical view of the process, here it is. This may be skipped.
The physiological process goes beyond "positive thinking". The bulk of the brain's emotion/thought/perception process is isolate. The brain floats in isolation, and it doesn't actually know, for the most part, if something is being experienced, or modeled in the forebrain (neo-cortext). This is one reason visualization exercises and mediation work so well in training thoughts and in learning to exercise. So well, in fact, that professional athletes and Olympian regularly use visualization.
The normal process is that nervous stimulation comes into the Reticular Activating System (RAS) at the base of the brain. It is the filter that determines what is passed on, and what isn't. The RAS is what allows you to wake up, and what says a meeting is boring and suggests sleep. It is at the very foundation of the system, but can be trained over time - if you stopped wetting the bed, it is because you trained your RAS that waking up to avoid social embarrassment was more important than sleeping when your bladder told the RAS it was full. Strychnine eliminates the RAS ability to filter - and the mammal dies because it can't ignore its own deep muscle sounds moving on one another, its breathing, heartbeat, and all the other feedback the body gives, as well as external sensations, and dies in convulsions from over-stimulation and lack of sleep.
From the RAS, the sensations go to the centers of emotion and get an energy charge of "importance" determined by the strength of the input and prior experience. It then goes to the Cortex for an emergency check. If the Cortex determines that there is time, it will pass it to the Neo-Cortex for modeling and decision, to be sent back down the chain.
An example for understanding.
Your hand rests on the glass stove and the nerves send an enormous charge up the slow-fiber nerve bundles, far stronger than the fast-fiber ones, and it reaches the RAS first, signaling pain instead of sensation. It is immediately passed to the thalamus and such and given a large strength and sent on to the Cortex. The Cortex says, 'HOT!' and sends back down the chain "jerk away!". So before you had a chance to "think" (Neo-Cortex), your hand has jerked back from the stove. Make sense?
Now, the Neo-Cortex is responsible for programming the rest for environment and situations beyond the simple. It is a slow process, takes about 40 days more of less for the situation to reach the RAS and re-tune its rules for filtering. Here's an example of how it works:
You hate your job. You particularly hate your boss. He's always riding you, you never feel like you're good enough, and you're afraid of being fired any day. You have debts, mouths to feed. You pass down day after day thoughts as you brood that this job is life or death. You dwell on emotions and thoughts that make this essential. You program all the way to the RAS.
You come in after a few weeks, are called into the manager's office, and the last thing you hear is "you're being let go" - and testify to that in court.
Your RAS heard that - and sent it right on because you've identified this long before as an emergency. It picked up the preprogrammed emotional charge waiting for it, and hit the Cortex, which heard and reacted to save your life and your family's lives - by eliminating the threat. The Cortex ALWAYS exists in an eternal now, and doesn't consider consequences - that was the job of the Neo-Cortex, and you did it for weeks with your thinking.
So positive thinking is a way of controlling your thoughts until they "become habit". Of dwelling on positives, on gratitude, on needs met instead of wants unmet, until you've trained your Cortex out of emergency hijacks, and trained your RAS to recognize positives and send them up, and to filter out the minor negatives. After the training period, in that way, it becomes a self-enforcing cycle.
Add to this that from a gene's point of view, men and women are a way of passing genes into the next generation (The Selfish Gene and the Moral Animal; Robert Wright). A discontented person strives harder at everything in life.
One of the problems in this life of genetic tendencies is that they are no longer useful in our modern lives. The person who retrains their thinking to perceive positives, to view their needs met and be grateful for anything in excess of that, as contrasted with the person who thinks negatively and focuses on unmet wants, lives longer, with better quality of life.
For those who enjoy a more technical view of the process, here it is. This may be skipped.
The physiological process goes beyond "positive thinking". The bulk of the brain's emotion/thought/perception process is isolate. The brain floats in isolation, and it doesn't actually know, for the most part, if something is being experienced, or modeled in the forebrain (neo-cortext). This is one reason visualization exercises and mediation work so well in training thoughts and in learning to exercise. So well, in fact, that professional athletes and Olympian regularly use visualization.
The normal process is that nervous stimulation comes into the Reticular Activating System (RAS) at the base of the brain. It is the filter that determines what is passed on, and what isn't. The RAS is what allows you to wake up, and what says a meeting is boring and suggests sleep. It is at the very foundation of the system, but can be trained over time - if you stopped wetting the bed, it is because you trained your RAS that waking up to avoid social embarrassment was more important than sleeping when your bladder told the RAS it was full. Strychnine eliminates the RAS ability to filter - and the mammal dies because it can't ignore its own deep muscle sounds moving on one another, its breathing, heartbeat, and all the other feedback the body gives, as well as external sensations, and dies in convulsions from over-stimulation and lack of sleep.
From the RAS, the sensations go to the centers of emotion and get an energy charge of "importance" determined by the strength of the input and prior experience. It then goes to the Cortex for an emergency check. If the Cortex determines that there is time, it will pass it to the Neo-Cortex for modeling and decision, to be sent back down the chain.
An example for understanding.
Your hand rests on the glass stove and the nerves send an enormous charge up the slow-fiber nerve bundles, far stronger than the fast-fiber ones, and it reaches the RAS first, signaling pain instead of sensation. It is immediately passed to the thalamus and such and given a large strength and sent on to the Cortex. The Cortex says, 'HOT!' and sends back down the chain "jerk away!". So before you had a chance to "think" (Neo-Cortex), your hand has jerked back from the stove. Make sense?
Now, the Neo-Cortex is responsible for programming the rest for environment and situations beyond the simple. It is a slow process, takes about 40 days more of less for the situation to reach the RAS and re-tune its rules for filtering. Here's an example of how it works:
You hate your job. You particularly hate your boss. He's always riding you, you never feel like you're good enough, and you're afraid of being fired any day. You have debts, mouths to feed. You pass down day after day thoughts as you brood that this job is life or death. You dwell on emotions and thoughts that make this essential. You program all the way to the RAS.
You come in after a few weeks, are called into the manager's office, and the last thing you hear is "you're being let go" - and testify to that in court.
Your RAS heard that - and sent it right on because you've identified this long before as an emergency. It picked up the preprogrammed emotional charge waiting for it, and hit the Cortex, which heard and reacted to save your life and your family's lives - by eliminating the threat. The Cortex ALWAYS exists in an eternal now, and doesn't consider consequences - that was the job of the Neo-Cortex, and you did it for weeks with your thinking.
So positive thinking is a way of controlling your thoughts until they "become habit". Of dwelling on positives, on gratitude, on needs met instead of wants unmet, until you've trained your Cortex out of emergency hijacks, and trained your RAS to recognize positives and send them up, and to filter out the minor negatives. After the training period, in that way, it becomes a self-enforcing cycle.
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