Tag: thinking

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?

This great stoic quote speaks to a power many of us leave to chance. When was the last time you paid attention to your thoughts? Many people feel their thoughts are something that are thrust upon them. That they come out of nowhere.

Let us take it a step further. When was the last time you decided what you were going to think about? Yes, you really can do this. It can be very beneficial to set aside at the very least, 5 to 10 minutes a day to do some focused thinking. It can be thinking about what you are grateful for. This could change your life faster than you can imagine. It could be thinking about how it will feel when a goal is reached or accomplished.

We think an average of 60,000 thoughts a day. According to research 80% of that is negative. Further research indicates that 95% of our thoughts are repetitive! Think about that. We are thinking 95% of the same things, 80% of which are negative, and wondering why our life is not improving or changing.

By not utilizing focused thinking, I feel we are missing a great opportunity. Setting aside 5 minutes a day, which is less than .5% of your day, can make a huge difference. What if you used those minutes as a chance to practice some positive self-talk? How about picking someone we love and spending 5 minutes thinking about how we can improve our relationship with them? The difference could be life-changing!

Let me know what you will spend your 5 minutes thinking about.

THERE ARE ONLY 2 PROBLEMS ✌️

Life is a balance. This quote is a good representation. I think most of us fall on either side of this equation. How about you? Do you act without engaging your thinking apparatus? Perhaps opening your mouth while keeping your mind shut? Perhaps you are someone who sits on the sideline wargaming everything but never engaging in action? Worried about making the wrong decision so you never make any decision at all.

Next time you are facing a challenge in your life, ask yourself which one of these two camps you fall in. Are you acting without thinking things through? Maybe you are spending too much time in your head and need to get out there and start taking more action. Even if the action you take is incorrect, you will certainly learn that quicker than if you never acted in the first place. Can it really be this simple? Find out for yourself. Next time you are challenged, ask yourself if you need to act or to think more.

MY MOST IRONIC POST YET

Going into the new year a lot of us think of things we would like to change about ourselves or our lives. If you follow my work at all one of the axioms I base my work on is that it is far more productive and successful to add positive things to your life, than to work on removing negative. Just how the brain is wired. Recently, I sat down with Margie and discussed things I would like to add to my life in the coming year. This is where this post becomes ironic.

I told Margie there are three things I would like to get better at in 2018. I would like to spend more time both reading and writing, I would like to spend more time in nature (hiking, camping or even just sitting), lastly, I would like to spend more time just thinking.  When composing my last book it was often just sitting in a park watching the birds, or Starbucks sipping a coffee pondering life’s great mysteries that some of my best ideas came to me. As any supportive spouse would do, Margie simply replied (she has a gift of keeping things simple which is very helpful dating someone like myself) “Well you should do that then.”

In an effort to quickly make use of this sentiment of hers before it changed I decided to do that today. I had a survey I had to complete, then I was just going to relax and think. The advantages of this is that it engages your subconscious mind to begin thinking about what you are pondering. This is especially useful if you are spending time on things like worthwhile goals you are aspiring to, ways in which you can be of more service to your world, or even just how to make someone’s day brighter. What happens is your subconscious mind will begin to think of this very thing, and continue to do so in the background while you go about your day. Then, at what seems like an random moment, an idea will pop in your head that is a solution to what you had been pondering. This works especially well if you are an author.

Do you see my dilemma with this? As this idea occurred to me, another voice in my head spoke up. It never amazes me how many there seems to be in there. This voice said, “You should write a blog and let everyone else know this.” Which, as you can tell by what you are reading I decided to follow.

As ironic as writing about taking time away from writing is, it brought to like another principle I spoke about at my last author symposium. When we use our brains the in the same fashion over and over, like finding daily things to be grateful for, we begin to train them to do so on their own. Before long, even if it is subconsciously, the voices in our head (assuming you have more than one like myself) will begin to ask, “What can we be grateful for?” Same holds true with me being diligent in my writing and spending over twenty years looking for ways to improve life and then sharing them with others.

My message for you hear is to take time to just think, but know it may be a struggle with yourself at first. I am going to prepare to DJ now, so I will continue to work on carving away time to think again tomorrow. Have a great week my friends!