3 Ways to Change Your Thinking Today

This is really a simple, excellent approach to developing a balanced but ultimately positive attitude to dealing with challenges – staying away from the tar baby of blind pessimism, and avoiding sunshine fantasies that sap initiative and will.

There are three further points that are worth considering -

1) When you attitude changes for the better, some people will not like it – and they will try to pull you back into THEIR comfort zone in which you play the role of Doomed Victim whom they may succor. Sounds crazy – is crazy – and can come from the most unexpected quarter.

2) When self-pity builds like a choking fog in your mind, it’s usually built on the thought – “I’m special, and I deserve better.” When you’re tempted to dwell on the ease and comfort you deserve, bear in mind that there was Someone, 2000 years ago, who cried out in frustration against the fate he wanted to avoid. He truly WAS special, but His experiences were ordained for a larger purpose.

3) The process of Decide / Embrace / Face is one that you will have to implement every single day, and usually more often than that.

Success is a coice.

So is survival.

Regarding: “Instead of being optimistic and “looking on the bright side,”

Below is the link to the “New York Times” article about their take on “The Power of Negative Thinking.”

I love the part about several people being burnt after walking on hot coals at an Anthony Robbins seminar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/the-positive-power-of-negative-thinking.html

I also like how the writer of the New York Times article states:

“What if all this positively is part of the problem? What if we’re trying too hard to think positive and might do better to reconsider our relationship to “negative” emotions and situations?”

This passage also applies:

“Beware of false prophets and whimsical gurus extolling their sweet nothings and empty talk falsely represented as spiritual awakening and the road to success. Most are telling you how to make your life work when their own lives are in a big mess. You cannot fake it until you make it. Success is not one big motivating thought away. A flaky prayer cannot ordain a fabulous career.
Whispering hope alone cannot manifest
superb achievement and render remarkable prosperity. Only the person of integrity, action, passion, excellence, and creativity carries in his or her heart the capacity for making an impact on this world and being rewarded handsomely for it.”
— from “Life’s Secret Handbook”

Anyway, that’s my contribution to the paradox of being positive about attaining success and how you have to be in control of your mind so that you are not too positive.

Ernie J. Zelinski
International Best-Selling Author
“Helping Adventurous Souls Live Prosperous and Free”
Author of the Bestseller “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”
(Over 175,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and the International Bestseller “The Joy of Not Working”
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)

You’re asking fiction writers, dreamers by nature, to be realistic? Funny.

Thank you for the encouragement. An equal measure of hope and realistic vision is wonderful advice.

To me, this is called life. Not that at 48, I’m old, wise and ready to depart life’s lessons, but I have learned a few things.

1. Nothing is my due.
2. Dream and try for them, but remember that their success or failure don’t define me.
3. Life is made up of successes and failures. Fact.
4. Problem-solve. When I start acting like a wind-up toy hitting the same wall over and over, it’s time to change directions. Many things are out of my control.
5. Strive but learn to be content in the moment.
6.Listen to my inner guidance above all.

Now…to apply that when I’m in the midst of crisis!

I so appreciate this post. I’ve been really thinking about perspective this year. When I look at the circumstances in my life with an inaccurate perspective, or incomplete perspective, I will respond in a way that leads to discouragement. When I can consider things with an eye that sees situations accurately, I can respond in a way that will move me forward. I think your number three says it best:

3. Instead of being optimistic and “looking on the bright side,” assuming publication will eventually be your due:

FACE your current situation realistically, acknowledging every downside, every hardship, every difficulty. And be willing to ceaselessly take action to overcome these obstacles and find publishing success.

I liked this!

Thanks for sharing! So apropos because just yesterday I was thinking that I need to change my thinking regarding an opportunity that has come my way that I’m scared to embrace. Will look into this further.

This relentless deciding, embracing, and facing is necessary. Seeking publication is not for the weak at heart. As a Christian writer, it encourages me to see God using these steps to mold and shape character and patience in me. So, I press on, striving, improving, and growing.

Wow. Imprisoned and tortured for eight years and lived to tell the tale. That’s cause for a mindset to be developed. Thanks for sharing the wisdom in this post. Excellent.

What a wonderful perspective to adopt. Thank you for sharing it.

Some days I’m close to having this point of view; others days, not so close.

Wow! Thank you so much for this empowering article. It’s exactly what I needed to read. And knowing that others need to read it as well I’ve shared it on Google +. And I’m going to share it on Tweeter as well.

CHANGE? WHO NEEDS CHANGE?
. …Each and every day I visit three(3 books. My bible(1), my dictionary(2) and my own words(3). Randomly reading a paragraph perhaps even a page of each, certainly the three(3) choices I select will deliver variety from these three(3) different places of thought but no greater achievement and no greater thrill I have found: The three(3) have never failed to deliver just the one(1). A one(1) of god, a one(1) of mind and a one(1) of vision.[... .][3=1].

This is my Gravatar avatar, my facebook avatar may be found at Sidney Ross.

What you write, Rachelle, is meaningful to me because for a number of years I pursued the “positive thinking” gurus. Gradually it began to dawn on me that the so-called “law of manifestation” wsn’t working for me. So why weren’t all those positive affirmations working? One day I recognised that a lot of things I’ve achieved in my life, I’ve achieved in the face of “negative thinking.” So yes, I do believe in this paradox: the power of negative thinking. Because we are all so complex I believe we constantly tread a delicate line between positive & negative; & we do have a choice as to which one we focus on at any time. Jesus is an excellent example. Surely He never believed God had truly forsaken Him? That could lead on to a very big theological argument!