Last Updated on February 28, 2023 by the thought method co.
- Some people define themselves by their jobs.
- You need to take that energy and put it towards a self-investment strategy that will improve every area of your life—including your work life
- You need act like looking for your best feeling thought is your job.
Why thoughts?
Like dominos, your thoughts contribute to how you feel, influencing how you behave. Your behavior determines the responses you receive and how well you accomplish goals and get the things you want.
So if you think a healthy relationship with a trustworthy person is possible, then you will behave in a way that attracts trustworthy people who also want a healthy relationship.
But if you think all relationships are hard and that everyone cheats, then you are more likely to push trustworthy people away (or not put yourself out there at all).
This looks like pulling away if you haven’t heard from your partner in a specific timeframe instead of communicating. It may also look like pushing your partner away by accusing them of cheating without proof.
Not just relationships, thought dominos effect every area of your life. Like if you think you aren’t good enough you might not speak up in a meetings and miss out on opportunities.
Good feeling thoughts
A thought needs to check 2 boxes to be a good feeling thought:
- Makes you feel good
- Does not include hurt, harm or suffering of another
Good feeling thoughts are thoughts that focus on you achieving goals and make you feel good. They positively affect you and do not negatively affect others.
So if your boss is a jerk, you might imagine them slipping on a banana peel. That thought may make you feel good momentarily, but it is not a good feeling thought because it includes harm to another.
If your boss is a jerk, a good feeling thought would be finding a better job or becoming the boss and treating your employees better than you are being treated.
Where are the good feeling thoughts?
You don’t look for good feeling thoughts because you haven’t been taught how. You are conditioned to think bad thoughts and influenced to think in extremes. And you are constantly subjected to negativity. Negativity that spreads quicker than positivity.
You are also taking in millions of pieces of data every second. So it is easier for you to assume everything is the same instead of acknowledging the truth that people and situations are complex and different.
So if a friend is cheated on by a spouse, suddenly that friend assumes everyone cheats. Then, if you don’t feel confident in your relationship and ask that friend for advice, BOOM, you think everyone is a cheater, too.
How to find good feeling thoughts
Get the juices flowing by thinking about when you’ve auto-piloted to negative thoughts instead of good feeling thoughts.
Then follow these 3 steps:
1) Realize bad feeling thoughts.
If focusing on negative thoughts is a habit, then you do it unconsciously. Bring the bad feeling thoughts to conscious awareness by asking questions. How does a particular thought make you feel? If it brings hurtful feelings it is most likely a bad feeling thought. If you acknowledge you feel stressed or anxious you can reverse engineer. Ask yourself: what was/am I thinking that generated this feeling? Using the cheating partner example above, a bad feeling thought would be “they haven’t responded, they are probably talking to a woman/man at the bar.”
If you expected a better outcome, how would you have acted, what would have been the result?
2) Look for alternatives
Thought swapping is when we change out a negative thought for a better feeling thought. So if you haven’t talked to your partner, instead of thinking they are cheating, you can think they are taking a nap or they are busy with chores. This does not mean that your partner will not cheat just because you think of a good feeling thought. But it will put you in a better place to manage any outcome. You are coming from a place of feeling good, and not pre-maturely stressed from the negative thoughts.
Be cautious to find balance. And make sure you are not using the good feelings thoughts to live in denial. So if you catch your partner cheating on you, the good feeling thought would be “this sucks, they weren’t right for me and I will work though this heartache and find someone who is ready to commit.” It wouldn’t be, “he slipped and his dick accidentally fell into her vagina, he’s not actually cheating.”
3) Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Whenever you are trying to form a new habit and get rid of an old one, repetition is key. Initially, you will probably need to actively work on finding and keeping the good feeling thought. But the more you repeat this exercise, the good feeling thoughts will be easier to find and eventually good feeling thoughts will become your norm.
And remember that old habits die hard. So in times of stress or if you are feeling exhausted, you might revert to the bad feeling thoughts. Just remember it’s all part of the process and recognizing you reverted is an achievement!
You got this!
Photo by Eye for Ebony
