In irrational thinking I suggested that expecting thinking to act externally, and “attract” is somewhat flawed. I am more interested in how positive thinking acts internally. How we can improve self confidence and self esteem by changing our thoughts about ourselves. As a starting point I want to look in more detail at how our thinking evolves.
As we grow up, we are all subject to stimulation from those around us:- parents, siblings, teachers, peers, television, media, everyone…. Especially in our early years, the messages we receive formulate how we see the world, and our place in it. When we tried to stand up and walk, most of us got loads of encouragement - despite falling flat on our face - because this is something we should do and everyone around gets pleasure and excitement from seeing a child make its first steps.
The same happened with our first words. But as years go by, most children get far more negatives than positives - don’t do this/that, do be quiet, stop talking. How many parents encourage their children to talk more!! Sadly, for some, the negative messages are more harsh (”you can’t do that”, “you’re useless”) or even abusive. In childhood confidence I touched on this as well.
The result of being subjected to negative, rather than positive, messages is our internal belief system both lowers our expectations and automatically creates negative thoughts. This means that whatever is presented to us, our automatic thoughts are negative-
“Would you like to … go for a walk” [”it might rain”]
“… go for a meal at a restaurant” [”everywhere will be busy”]
“… meet my friends” [”they won’t like me, I’ve nothing in common with them”]
“… apply for this job” [”I won’t get it, I’m too old/young/inexperienced/over experienced/unqualified/overqualified … there’s lots of people going to apply, there is no way they’ll chose me..]
I’m sure you can think of you’re own examples. And I reckon many of us are prone to think this way to some extent. Few people, in my experience, have such brilliant positive thinking that they will automatically think positively in every situation:-
“excuse me, but there is a huge mountain of manure on your doorstep” [”great, someone has bought me a horse….”]. Which sounds a good place to stop!
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- How to Have Great Self Confidence
11 responses so far ↓
1 All thoughts, including good ones, are useless - Personal Development for Smart People Forums // Oct 16, 2007 at 9:46 pm
[…] going to be affected and you will find reasons to avoid stuff. If I can quote from a post I did on thinking for my blog:- “Would you like to … go for a walk” [”it might rain”] “… go for a meal at a […]
2 Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings « every, every minute // Oct 20, 2007 at 11:24 am
[…] do we have these “dark imaginings”- we don’t choose to have them? Worries are automatic thoughts. Throughout our life we take on board millions of messages from those around us, and sadly most of […]
3 Stop feeling sorry for yourself // Jan 20, 2008 at 4:35 pm
[…] lacking in your life? As I have said before, apart from hacking off others, you will only feed your negative thoughts and perpetuate your lack of “whatever”.submit_url = […]
4 self confidence // Feb 6, 2008 at 10:22 pm
[…] voice, how to solve problems. But to date 24 posts have been tagged with “thinking” - automatic thoughts, irrational thinking, affirmations, worry. So much of our self confidence, our trust in ourselves, […]
5 How to find Happiness | How to Have Great Self Confidence // Mar 1, 2008 at 1:14 pm
[…] Like everyone else, I can allow negative thoughts to creep in. I have posted quite often about positive thinking and techniques for challenging negative thoughts. I do practice what I preach, but like everyone I […]
6 Stop feeling sorry for yourself | How to Have Great Self Confidence // Mar 13, 2008 at 12:08 am
[…] lacking in your life? As I have said before, apart from hacking off others, you will only feed your negative thoughts and perpetuate your lack of “whatever”. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you […]
7 How to Solve a Problem | How to Have Great Self Confidence // Mar 16, 2008 at 9:50 am
[…] or have worried, at some point. Some people do it constantly. A worry is yet another example of a negative thought getting in the way. Unfortunately, as worries circulate in our mind they gain momentum, increasing […]
8 Confidence in your environment | How to Have Great Self Confidence // Mar 16, 2008 at 3:01 pm
[…] is very much influenced by the way we think, and I have discussed positive thinking on previous occasions. And our thinking is influenced by how we feel - which is affected by our […]
9 Confidence making bread | How to Have Great Self Confidence // Mar 16, 2008 at 3:08 pm
[…] writing the above made me realise I need to do something about my own automatic thoughts. Rather than linking the workshops with the positive images of children having fun and engaging in […]
10 Affirmations | How to Have Great Self Confidence // Mar 21, 2008 at 1:01 pm
[…] positive messages, the mind starts believing it to be so. This is exactly the same principle as how negative thinking undermines us - being told repeatedly “you’re useless”, we believe it to be […]
11 Goddess // Apr 23, 2008 at 9:26 am
ah yes, the great “back-ender” - the toxic thought that pollutes your good intention. Back-ender be-gone!
Nice article, about a very important trait that all too often hobbles self-esteem attempts!
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