How to change negative thinking to positive. Why is it difficult to change?

“Change your thoughts, your life will change.” That's the title of Karen Casey's book. And this is absolutely correct, what we see around us, what we pay attention to, what opportunities we open for ourselves, what we forbid ourselves and what we allow depends on our thinking. Therefore, by changing our thinking to a positive one, we change our lives.

How to change your thinking to positive? Think about the good, forget about the bad. Enjoy the little things. In short, this is it.

We get used to thinking in a certain way. Due to upbringing, our experience and other people's life examples, stereotypes, genetics. But the fact is that we see in life what we focus our attention on. And if you change this, your thinking will change. Therefore, some see blood and aggression in the sacred books, others see goodness and love. The world depends on how we look at it and what part of it we see.

Read the article changing the way of thinking and changing habits, it is about why our brain and worldview prevent us from changing, but facts do not change our thinking.

Characteristics of a person with positive thinking

How to think positively? Some individuals see only good in everything that surrounds them. Such a person who thinks positively has the following characteristics.

• Looks for advantages in everything.
• Interested in new information as an additional opportunity.
• Improves life, creates plans and ideas, works hard for his goal.
• Treats people neutrally or well.
• Observes successful ones in order to take into account their experience.
• Calmly regards achievements and considers why this is possible.
• Has generosity in emotional and material terms.

How to change yourself? It should be concluded that successes arise as a result of the hard work of people with positive thinking.

Advantages

While it's helpful to work with a therapist first, cognitive restructuring is a technique you can learn to do on your own once you know how it works.

Being able to identify and change your negative thinking patterns has many benefits. For example, this might help:

• reduce stress and relieve anxiety;
• strengthen communication skills and build healthy relationships;
• replace unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance use;
• restore self-confidence and self-esteem.

Negative thinking methods and how to avoid them

There are several ways of thinking that lead to bad results. But options have also been developed with which it is possible to avoid negative consequences and get out of a difficult situation. The principle is to change your usual way of thinking, perceiving life within yourself. Without this, it is impossible to achieve success, and subsequently independence. You can make the following list of situations and tips for improving them, how to turn your life towards the positive.

1. Getting used to adhering to clear boundaries, a person does not think about whether this makes sense. It should be realized that in addition to the established rules, there are a great many possibilities and options for action. When building your thinking and life, you need to try to make decisions on your own, which is often much more pleasant than following advice. At the same time, the ability to make the right choice does not come immediately. Given the many daily situations that require decision making, the following questions need to be considered: a) What will be the consequences? b) Will this lead to the satisfaction of the person himself and his environment?
2. If the answers to both questions are affirmative, it is quite possible to make this choice. This way we will gain a small amount of independence, as well as the awareness of our independence and the absence of anyone else's pressure.
3. Changing your mindset to achieve success includes the rule: you should not try to look for problems where there are none. Some people start conflicts out of the blue instead of simply resolving the situation. A lot of negative emotions appear, which affects the rest of the day. Sometimes a person creates a bad condition for himself
4. How to change your attitude towards life? Chinese wisdom advises not to focus on problems that cannot be solved. And if it’s still possible, then there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. The way out of such a situation is to avoid the conflict and refrain from stupid actions associated with it. Another method to improve your life is to not be the source of such quarrels.
5. The absence of fears associated with change helps you achieve success quickly. A new path can be started with a small step. According to Mark Twain, after 2 decades, people regret more about what they didn’t do than about their actions.
6. Change your thinking, but how? Its scope should be expanded. Positive thoughts: If there are problems today, everything can change tomorrow.
7. How to change your lifestyle? There is no need to stop learning, as new knowledge opens up opportunities to achieve goals and makes the process more efficient.
8. How to change your mindset and think positively? It is necessary to eliminate bad qualities in yourself such as envy. If you learn to look positively at other people's successes, they will be perceived as a motivating stimulus. Using other people's accomplishments as role models can help you avoid judgment that leads to problems. And also change lives.
9. The process of brain functioning and the reproduction of thoughts takes quite a lot of time. The more often we resort to it, the more obstacles appear. You can try to choose one of the options rather than endlessly go through and invent situations. You need to change your mind: think less, instead take decisive action. A person must control his thoughts, and not vice versa.

When taking steps that will change your thinking to a positive one, we start with the same thought. By controlling emotions, you should protect not only yourself, but also your neighbors from negativity. And also not to enter into conflicts (not to be their initiator). Changes will occur not only with thinking, but also with consciousness. And then it will become clear from the surrounding world that life has changed.

Learn

And now I’m not talking about school and university. Yes, educational institutions provide some knowledge, but they will not teach you to live and think for yourself. What do you really want? What is your place in this life?

Each training that you undergo at your own request will not only add pluses to your karma, but will also help change your consciousness. Find your calling and develop in this direction, do not forget about personal growth.

By the way, we often refuse the experience of people who have achieved something. “I already know everything.” No, you don’t know shit if you couldn’t achieve at least half of that person’s success. Listen, perceive not just the text, but important information.

How to learn to think differently?

Right thinking doesn't come out of nowhere. You won't be able to wake up one day with different thoughts. This needs to be learned. Yes, you will encounter difficulties, which you often create for yourself with your laziness, misunderstanding and fear.

But it's not because you're stupid or unworthy. It’s just that our brain is designed in such a way that any exit from the comfort zone is a big stress for it, so it will try to drive you back into a calm and understandable ass.

Changing thinking

Often our way of thinking is stereotypical, and bias can make a person a failure. When you change your thinking, life becomes completely different. By perceiving internal (subjective) reality, the world of our ordinary thoughts, we distort the external world. It turns out to be illusory or invented. At the same time, emotions and feelings are distorted. This makes the person inappropriate or even unhappy, which can lead to inappropriate behavior. Failures follow in the spheres of life and activity. How to change your thinking and attitude towards life?

Using the method of changing thinking, we come from irrational to rational perception, using the technique of objective refutation. This ensures a self-sufficient life. In the question of how to think positively, you can also use the technology of emotional experience. But the first method is more suitable for people who want to avoid depression. Following the adoption of a different way of thinking, life can change.

For the same purpose, there is a method of alternative interpretation that changes “automatic” thoughts. To change his life, a person applies a method according to the following principles.

1. Priority allows you to pay more attention to first impressions of events. This perception is not always the best, since people often behave impulsively and follow their intuition. As a result, late assessments lead poorly to objectivity, which is not entirely consistent with the circumstances. People are being misled. How to change yourself? We conclude that it is necessary to refrain from hasty assessments. It is necessary to obtain more information for an accurate perception.
2. How to change your thinking and lifestyle? While working on your thoughts on your own, you can try to write down unpleasant emotions throughout the week. It is also necessary to note the event that activates them, and the first thought about it. Over the next week, as you continue to take notes, you need to come up with a number of interpretations—alternatives for the situations. Continuing to act in this way, we replace irrational thinking with objective thinking. Within a month, you can learn to think like this automatically and rebuild your lifestyle for the better.

Questioning your thoughts

Another important part of cognitive restructuring is learning how to question thoughts , especially those that get in the way of living a productive life.

A professional can teach you how to use the Socratic questioning method to discover where and how your automatic thoughts are biased or illogical.

Some questions you may want to ask include:

1. Is this thought based on emotion or fact?
2. What evidence is there that this idea is true?
3. How can I test this belief?
4. What bad could happen? What can I do if the worst happens?
5. What ways are there to interpret the information?

For example, if you experience a cognitive distortion called catastrophizing, you may assume the worst possible outcome in a stressful situation. When questioning this way of thinking, you can ask yourself to list all the possible outcomes. You might ask yourself how likely each possible outcome is.

Important! Questioning allows you to consider new possibilities that are not as drastic as the catastrophic ones you may be afraid of.

How to improve your life

It is quite possible to learn to perceive different reality, and not just its black and white colors. Ambivalent thinking does not correspond to the division between “good” and “bad.” Once you have made your choice, you can confirm your decision without thinking about it further. But gray (or ambivalent) thinking differs from black and white in that a person is able to accept the opponent’s position. This way of perception reduces the degree of determination, but brings benefits in the form of wisdom. And you can not only change your life, but remember yourself in childhood, when you already used this method.

Consciousness and subconsciousness

To understand how to get rid of negative programs, you first need to understand how the mechanism of human perception with its conscious and unconscious components works.

1. It is believed that consciousness is a biological function of the brain that allows an individual to receive information about the world around him and about himself. Thanks to consciousness, a person can lead active life activities: thought processes, setting and realizing goals, analyzing situations, etc. Consciousness is a programmer: a thinking, creative component that is responsible for self-realization in society.
2. The subconscious is a biological function of the human brain, which is responsible for mental processes that occur without reflection in consciousness and in addition to conscious control. The subconscious is responsible for preserving life in environmental conditions: the instinct of self-preservation, the coordinated work of all body systems. The subconscious is a database plus an ultra-fast computer for accumulating, processing and providing information at the right time.

This system is built in such a way that the subconscious accumulates information about past events in a person’s life, and when a person finds himself in a similar (similar) situation, the consciousness receives impulses coming from the subconscious, processes them and, based on this information, directs the person along a certain path.

It turns out that a person consciously makes exactly the decision that corresponds to the subconscious programs and attitudes embedded in him. Thus, successful people continue to be successful, and unsuccessful people remain unsuccessful.

How does the world turn black and white?

During the period of growing up, a person’s views become rigid, as “frameworks” are imposed from the outside. For example, is higher education beneficial for us or is it just a waste of time. Strong beliefs do not allow you to find multiple answers to a question. Although it is clear that the world is not so simple as to be divided into “bad” and “good”. It's not good to make hasty decisions, but it's also bad to take forever to make choices. Wisdom allows you to look at a problem from a variety of perspectives.

What types of problems can cognitive restructuring help with?

• eating disorders;
• depression;
• anxiety;
• post-traumatic stress disorder;
• substance use disorder;
• mental illness;
• family problems.

Cognitive restructuring can help you cope with difficult life transitions, such as divorce, serious illness, or the loss of a loved one.

Important! In any life situation in which negative thought patterns develop, cognitive restructuring can help challenge and change unhelpful thoughts.

How to learn to think ambivalently?

It is difficult to change the way you think, especially if you like radical judgments. But attempts will teach you to take a comprehensive approach to problems, which will help eliminate hasty assessments. There are a number of rules for thinking positively in order to change your destiny.

• You should abandon strict judgments. For example, don't pronounce them. By refraining from dividing into “bad” and “good”, one can understand that the world cannot limit itself to these two categories.
• If you take the perspective of an event, it will be possible to assess its significance.
• You need to accept that a person can make mistakes. By feeling yourself in your opponent’s shoes, you can realize that his point of view is the correct one.
• Having become accustomed to the fact that the true solution is not unambiguous, a person learns to accept a different opinion and see the problem comprehensively.

To change your life , as well as your thinking, to ambivalent at least at the level of the first step, you need to pay attention to how the child perceives the world.

Tame your mental monsters

The more we allow negative thoughts to take over, the more we allow negativity to seep into our soul and allow pessimistic thoughts to become a part of us. Negative thoughts are mental monsters: they will eat you (and your dreams) right from the inside.

Psychiatrist Daniel Amen has a name for these raging monsters we allow to live in our minds: Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANMs), which he describes as “the little voices that pop into our heads and tell us we're not good enough, not thin enough.” that we are disgusting daughters, mothers, workers.” The best way to deal with ANM is to develop AMT eaters within yourself. Write down your negative thoughts, and then write down what an ANT eater might say to suppress them.