Only if you want it to work!
We know all the wonderful ways thinking positive affects us. We’ve listed countless studies showing that those who maintain a good attitude are healthier, more successful, and just live better danged lives.
So you don’t have to undertake this as a project. What you allow purchase in your mind is absolutely your choice. Your emotions will follow your thoughts, and if you want to remain in the negative cycle, you surely can.
I know I do, now and then. My friends can tell you this! Even though I’m focused and working diligently to maintain positive energy, I backslide.
Why, just recently, I caught myself slipping into those old tapes. But the key is, I caught myself.
I was talking to my good friend, author and fellow spiritual seeker on the path, Jinny, and mentioned this to her.
And of course, as good friends are wont to do, she said, “Didn’t we just talk about this a few weeks ago? Sitting on your deck over a glass of wine? And we agreed you would replace the negative thoughts with positive ones as soon as they popped up?”
Yep. Of course we did.
Old habits truly can be difficult to break. And isn’t that a nice little meme that just showed up! Perhaps I’ll spend some time changing that thought!
But the point being (sooner or later, I do get back to the point J), once you set the intention to change the way you see things, backsliding can be part of the process. In fact, this has proven true for everyone I know on this path.
So, that’s not the problem.
As with everything in life, what we do with whatever we think and feel, experience and deal with, will predict which direction we go.
How we react to life is what we will create in the future as well.
So many people have told me they think this is all bunk. I can’t count the times I’ve heard: “I tried being positive and it didn’t work for me.”
And it won’t—if you do it and then quit. Thinking positive, being motivated, only work if you practice them.
As Zig Ziglar said, ““People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
If you decide you want to run a marathon, do you go out for a jog one day, have soreness the next, and decide training just didn’t work for you? If you commit to eating healthier, fall off the wagon and have a piece of cake, do you decide your body just isn’t meant for healthy food?
Okay, that last may be a bad example, as so many diets fail this way! But if the next day you re-commit to fruits and vegetables, you’re back on track.
Tiger Woods may have won the U.S. Amateur Championship at the tender young age of 18, but he’d been practicing since he was 2!
So why would practice work for any and every thing—except changing the stinkin’ thinkin’ going on in your brain? Who, exactly, makes that decision?
You do. I do.
Whether I perceive an event as the end of the world, or an opportunity to learn and then refocus on the goal, is up to no one in this Universe but me.
The event is, well, just the event.
If you believe something isn’t going to work out, all you’ll see is obstacles. If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities.
It’s all within your own head.
I do have to smile when I realize that although yep, I fell off the wagon—again—it didn’t last long. What would have once sent me into a tailspin of despair for weeks, lasted about 2 hours. Because the new habits I have formed are gaining strength and prowess every single day.
And that’s the thing about backsliding—about anything—you don’t end up back at the starting line. It’s not as if you have to begin the entire endeavor again. Progress has been made.
You’re stronger, wiser, and better at whatever you’ve been practicing.
It’s like that marathon goal—you may fall, but when you get back up and running, you’ll still be far faster than the day you began to train.
Everything, in the end, comes down to focus and practice and committing to your goal. That’s how any habit becomes ingrained.
And that’s how it works.
I’m quite partial the author Neville Goodard’s teachings of the mind, and how that impacts our lives. And often come back to his saying:
“Man’s chief delusion is his own conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness.”
How do you commit to your goal?
