How to Stop Negative Thoughts

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character.” — Lao Tzu

When you feel stressed out, frustrated, depressed, resentful, worried or fearful, negative thoughts crawl into your mind.

Negative thoughts create imaginary drama. Lets break it!

Changing the way you perceive things, may sound easy. But its not.  It requires a lot of practice When you do the following exercise, your mind will remember to counter a negative thought with a positive one.

The aim is to make positive thinking a habit and part of your subconscious. Once it has become part of your thinking process, you will be able to shift your perspective gradually.

List all your negative thoughts such as

• things/people that stress you out regularly,
• insecurities,
• your fears,
• losses,
• things that irritate you about other people.

Here for every negative thought you have written , write at least one positive thought.

If you have fear of failure. Write one thing that you have learnt from your failure.

If you have lost someone dear in the past, write about the beautiful times you had with him/her.

If your work is causing stress, write how your work is helping others.

If you dislike your coworker's behavior,write one good thing about that person.

Whenever you have a negative thought replace it with a positive one. Make it a habit. Give yourself a one day challenge to balance your thoughts.

It takes a cue, routine and reward to form a habit of positive thoughts. The cue is the negative thought, routine  is a positive thought that help in balancing and harmonizing your thought process and the reward is how you feel.

This happens when you feel love, joy, gratitude, awe, playfulness, ease, creativity, drive, caring, growth, curiosity or appreciation.