Negative thoughts are the enemies of victorious life. Since our life is very much determined by our mind, our thoughts can make or break our life. Negative thoughts will distract your focus from the important and drain your energy. At the end, you will no longer have the ingredients necessary for success. Knowing how to overcome negative thoughts may make the difference between victory and defeat.
I believe there is an important principle at work regarding negative thoughts, and that is:
Attention is self-reinforcing.
If you give attention to negative thoughts, they will get stronger and stronger. What seems like a small matter in the beginning may become monstrous at the end. What you should do is breaking the vicious cycle by shifting your focus to something positive. You can then reinforce this positive attention until you completely defeat the negative thoughts (read more at attention management).
Here I’d like to share 20 tips to overcome negative thoughts mostly based on this principle. Not all tips are suitable for all situations, so choose the ones that work for you. Here they are:
- Realize that you only hurt yourself with negative thoughts. Don’t let them trick you.
- Decide that you will live your day with happiness and not let negative thoughts steal it.
- Look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I’m a positive person. I won’t let negative thoughts control me. I’m a winner in life.”
- Read positive quotes. You can go to Quotations Page or ThinkExist and browse the topics. Or, if you want random quotes, you can go to Random Quotations.
- Never say negative words in your conversation.
- Change the tone of your thoughts from negative to positive. For example, instead of thinking “This problem is too difficult” think “This problem is cool and challenging”.
- If you think negatively about someone, remember positive things about that person. Shift your attention to the positive side.
- Smile. It’s more difficult to think negatively when you are smiling.
- Walk and act confidently. Good body language helps you have good thoughts.
- Pray or meditate. Spiritual peace and calmness is among the most effective ways to overcome negative thoughts.
- Gather with positive people. Be careful not to choose the wrong people or the situation will only get worse.
- Take a nap so that you will wake up with a fresh mind.
- Read an inspiring book. Spiritual books often do well.
- Go out and appreciate the beauty of the world around you.
- Sing a cheerful song.
- Make yourself comfortable with failure. Failure is the stepping stone to success, so don’t be afraid to fail.
- Have realistic expectation. Accept the fact that people could make mistakes since nobody is perfect.
- If you think negatively about a situation, decide that you won’t give up even if the worst happens. Prove yourself to be a tough opponent. You are a winner.
- Accept yourself and be comfortable in who you are. You can’t be perfect but neither can anyone else.
- Help someone. Shift the focus away from yourself and do good to others.
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Photo by DeathByBokeh
Comment by Tony Schwartz
#1 23. January 2008, 9:38 pm o'clock |
Pray or meditate? Prayer has already been demonstrated to be 100% useless. That is silly, and childish.
Comment by Michael
#2 23. January 2008, 11:14 pm o'clock |
The look your self in the mirror is a cool one.
Comment by Ken M
#3 23. January 2008, 11:15 pm o'clock |
Not silly if it helps you. I don’t pray but know that it can work wonders for people.
“The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.” William James, American Philosopher and Psychologist.
Comment by Samuel
#4 24. January 2008, 12:00 am o'clock |
How has prayer been demonstrated to be useless, Tony? As someone crippled by a broken back and living with intractable pain, I’ve successfully used prayer and meditation to keep me alive and able to care for my loved ones for 14 years. I’ll be praying for you to receive enlightenment that will help you to understand that somehow you’ve been misled. Soon you’ll be able to enjoy the same wonderful, irreplaceable peace and comfort that I’ve received from a loving, caring God. Let me know when the epiphany occurs for you.
Comment by Donald Latumahina
#5 24. January 2008, 1:46 pm o'clock |
Tony,
I agree with Ken and Samuel. Maybe prayer doesn’t work for you, but it works for many other people. Everybody has different situation. If prayer doesn’t work for you, you can choose meditation.
Michael,
Thanks!
Ken,
I love the quote you shared!
Samuel,
Thanks for sharing your personal story. I’m always glad to learn from other people’s experience, and it’s inspiring to read how you overcome such difficulties through prayer.
Comment by Johnny Ancich
#6 24. January 2008, 6:58 pm o'clock |
I found a variation on #13 that’s made an effect on me: Listen to motivational material on audio books during your daily commute (I myself walk to work).
Comment by Donald Latumahina
#7 25. January 2008, 9:32 pm o'clock |
That’s a good idea, Johnny. Rather than using the commute time for nothing, we’d better listen to motivational material in audio books as you said.
Comment by dinah
#8 26. January 2008, 3:14 pm o'clock |
sincere prayer and meditation is indeed the best tool, you will surely feel the enlightenment and you will feel good from within, i like your tips and you really helped me as i am a bit down now, thank you so much! ;)
Comment by Donald Latumahina
#9 26. January 2008, 11:58 pm o'clock |
You’re welcome, Dinah! It’s a great pleasure to know that you find the tips useful. And I’m sure you will soon overcome any negative situation you face. You’re a winner anyway :)
Comment by Remez Sasson
#10 28. January 2008, 3:59 am o'clock |
I enjoyed reading your article, and from experience I know that the tips you offered are useful and really work.
Defeating negative thoughts and developing a positive attitude is very important and can do wonders, but one has to persevere with it. Quite often, I hear people saying that they have tried to change the way they think, but nothing happened. The fact is that they tried for just a little while, and then stopped trying, because they didn’t get immediate results.
There is some important point that is often disregarded, and that is, if you try to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts for a few minutes a day, but think negatively for the rest of the day, you are actually defeating your efforts. Positive thinking has to be a sustained, ongoing project, not something you do sometimes and for a little while. Perseverance can in time turn positive thinking and attitude into a habit.
Comment by Donald Latumahina
#11 28. January 2008, 1:49 pm o'clock |
Remez,
You brought good points about the importance of perseverance. I completely agree. Good results won’t come easily, and defeating negative thoughts is no exception. Without perseverance, it’s far too easy to give up before reaping the fruit.
Comment by Rhei, writer Surefirewealth.com
#12 30. January 2008, 5:17 am o'clock |
To forfeit negative thoughts, one should have the power to think or perceive things positively. In times of trouble, we should keep our faith to Him; we should remember that He’s there to comfort or rather help us when we’re down. We should not be afraid to fall down for He is there to help us up.
Comment by Donald Latumahina
#13 31. January 2008, 2:02 am o'clock |
Rhei,
I agree with you about the importance of faith. Faith can tremendously help us in time of trouble to keep our head up and move forward.
Comment by Leona
#14 1. February 2008, 12:12 am o'clock |
Thanks for the list
My favourite site for inspirational postive stuff is Inspire your day (http://www.inspireyourday.com.au).
If I am attentive, I turn the negative thoughts into learning experiences for personal growth to be the person I want to be.
They don’t have to be my negative thought they can be even be a negative comment for a stranger that has affected me.
thanks
Leona
Comment by Donald Latumahina
#15 2. February 2008, 5:29 am o'clock |
That’s a good tip, Leona. By turning negative thoughts into learning experiences, we turn the situation around into something positive.
Comment by Mike Greer
#16 14. February 2008, 12:36 am o'clock |
Years ago, I read a great quote from (I think) Philip Glasser [?] “To change what you are thinking, change what you are doing.” To operationalize this, when I start feeling stressed and negative, I either go for a walk or do a full blown exercise routine of some sort. And the negativity always seems to fall away. A while back, I began to realize that at least half the value of my exercise is #14 (Go out and appreciate the beauty of the world…). Recently, however, I’ve added even more value to my outdoor exercise by adding listening to inspirational audio books on my MP3 player.
My latest and favorite audio item is this freebie 42-minute mp3 item from LearnOutLoud.com titled 50 Things I’m Going to Do Today. Listening to this, in an active, open-spirited way, with your problems and goals in mind, you will find at least one new thing to try that will make a positive difference in your life. It’s sometimes funny and irreverent and always positive, encouraging, and life-affirming.
Comment by sreekanth
#17 27. September 2008, 9:32 am o'clock |
thanks a lot for the valuable points. I feel I have to read these type of materials more. Getting out of negative thoughts is the difficult task. Look forward for more tips from you..
Thansk again
Comment by waheed
#18 20. October 2008, 1:28 pm o'clock |
thank you for writing good words on the internet, i will do my best in my remainig life
Comment by Raj
#19 5. December 2008, 4:03 am o'clock |
It was good.
Comment by Make Negative Thoughts Impotent
#20 8. January 2009, 4:52 am o'clock |
I think most people don’t realize how much of detrimental impact negative thoughts have on their lives. If they jus took the time out to really identify and then challenge their negative thoughts, their self esteem would be greatly boosted.
Charles L.
Comment by jonathan
#21 22. February 2009, 10:25 pm o'clock |
great advise keep up the good work
Jonathan
Comment by Mike Greer
#22 23. February 2009, 1:26 pm o'clock |
It’s been a few months since my original comment and I’ve given this much more thought. The result is a blog post/podcast based on Martin Selignman’s Learned Optimism. It’s got a review of key concepts and some Challenges you can use with project teams (workers) or your family. Available as a 9 minute audio or in text form. It’s at the Inspired Project Teams blog under Learn to Be Optimistic… Learn to Succeed.
(Thanks to this blog for the great inspiration and for the implied challenge to apply this to my specialty, project management!)
Comment by Shruti
#23 24. May 2009, 10:19 am o'clock |
At a time in life , when the pressures of corporate world were getting to me, my fiance introduced me to this post.
” Have realistic expectations and learn to accept failure” . Never has truth been said so plainly and effectively. I guess most of my problems and restlessness is routed to the simple fact that I push myself harder than I ought to. I can never relax and am too harsh on myself. I cannot even concentrate on a simple prayer with a million thoughts going on in my head, I guess the only person who can save me from snapping / burning out is myself. I need to stop.
Comment by babita
#24 4. August 2009, 9:52 am o'clock |
a wonderful version to overcome but it is quit impossible to smile while someone is depressed.
Comment by Karim
#25 6. August 2009, 4:08 pm o'clock |
This is a great post and some valuable information. Negative thoughts are like weeds, if you don’t get rid of them early they’ll over run the garden of your mind. The sooner you remove them the better. Start by tracking your thoughts, get rid of those that don’t work for you or don’t help you achieve your goals. Negative thoughts are the kind that get you down, make you feel like you’re no good or that life is hard.
Replace these with positive thoughts and focus on how you can make your life better. The sooner you get rid of those negative thoughts the better.
Comment by Kristen
#26 27. August 2009, 7:34 pm o'clock |
Prayer helps me tremendously… I know that God is listening and working on my behalf for my good, and that things will eventually change. It is up to me to be patient and let Him work things out. And He will and always does.
Comment by Keir
#27 11. September 2009, 1:39 pm o'clock |
Great tips. Prayer and meditation help me quite a bit. It is unwise, and negative to demean and label something childish if it does not work for you.
Comment by Barbara
#28 4. October 2009, 2:52 am o'clock |
I am almost fifty years old, married with two children. I am unfortunately a person with lots of negative thoughts. It makes my life and my family’s life a misery. I cannot help being negative and a little problem becomes hell. I am often introvert, lacking of confidence and I used to be very shy (at fifty shyness is not so strong). Resulting from this, many people have been nasty to me in every ways which have made my hope of getting better even harder. I have tried everyting; praying (because I am a believer in God), meditating, doing reiki, etc. God or praying has never helped me.
Thinking negatively is an illness and very difficult to get rif of.
Comment by siva
#29 16. December 2009, 1:01 pm o'clock |
very very inspiring
Comment by Fiona
#30 18. January 2010, 5:26 am o'clock |
I do not know how people act and function when they hold negative thoughts. For me, I can do nothing if I experience hard time and have negative attitude. Thanks for your wonderful tips to help me think positively. I will try some of them that suitable for me. Amazing article!
Comment by Adam
#31 17. February 2010, 7:27 am o'clock |
Great tips. Meditation has definitely helped me. And listening to music to change the mood as well. Interestingly enough, science supports the idea that meditation can help us feel happier. For instance, scientists have discovered that certain areas of the brain light up constantly in Buddhists. These areas are associated with positive emotions and good mood. One scientist from the University of California San Francisco Medical Center discovered that “experienced Buddhists were less likely to be shocked, flustered, surprised or as angry as other people”, due to meditation.
Comment by lolitta
#32 19. February 2010, 6:04 pm o'clock |
i think that this was extremely encouraging and makes me feel much more highly about myself and the people around. i am going to acsept myself now the way iam, and only try to do good.
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