Your thoughts have the power to determine your actions

To survive negative thoughts and continue living a satisfying life, you need to be able to recognize negative thoughts when they come.

You will also realize that you have a better grip on your mental health and general wellbeing when you know your stressors.

try to study your thoughts — their frequency, content, and other factors — you’ll then see how they add up to a constant stream of chatter.

identify and find a way to control your thoughts, they determine your actions. The constant chatter inside your head can distract you from the present.

Humans are hardwired toward negativity

The more you try to suppress your thoughts, the more they fight to come to the surface. ~ S. J. Scott & Barrie Davenport

We jump straight toward the negative, and we overlook the high likelihood that the situation is more positive than we think.

Your mind is the foundation of everything you experience and of every opinion you have. Given this truth, it makes sense to train it. ~ Sam Harris

If you’re stuck in a negative mind-frame, you’re also stuck in a cycle of low mood and anxiety. The key to a happier life is therefore to declutter your mind, gain control, and reframe your thoughts towards the positive side.

There are many reasons for mental clutter, but our lifestyles play such a huge part. Stress is a massive part of daily life these days and we do not know how dangerous this is until we feel the effects.

We also have far too much choice these days, and this leads to a situation called “the paradox of choice”. Of course, having freedom and many choices is a wonderful thing, but too much can cause overthinking, which leads to anxiety.

When you learn to control your breathing, you’ll be able to channel your energy positively

breathing plays a huge part in helping when you’re stressed, anxious, or on a treadmill of overthinking. The best ways to work with this include:

• Sit up straight and don’t slouch: By sitting up you will allow oxygen to get to where it needs to go, and you can help the process by mentally breathing into those particular areas
• Breathe through your nose and not your mouth: Your nose has a built-in defense system that filters out toxins and air which is too cold
• Use abdominal breathing, i.e. pushing your stomach out slowly when you’re inhaling, and letting it deflate back down when you exhale
• Know the difference between shallow breathing and diaphragmatic breathing: Shallow breathing ends right at the chest, whereas diaphragmatic breathing is far deeper and more beneficial

Meditation can be as simple as being calm and turning your thoughts inwards for a short amount of time.

Meditation strengthens your attention muscle. ~ S. J. Scott & Barrie Davenport

The simplest way to start is to sit somewhere quiet and comfortable and to focus only on your breathing. As distractions enter your brain, simply push them away.

If you make it a part of your routine to practice this daily, you’ll notice the differences. meditation is extremely useful for increasing productivity and focus. Other studies have also shown that meditation is useful for reducing stress levels.

Reframing thoughts and your mind

Reframing involves being aware of the thoughts you’re having and learning how to separate yourself from them.

Giving thoughts a name helps; rather than thinking “I’m so busy, I’m never going to get everything finished”, turn it around to “I’m having the thought that I’m not going to get everything finished”.

Other options include to say “no” very loudly and to visualize a barrier between you and the thought, or place a rubber band on the wrist and snap it whenever a negative thought appears.

Distractions break the cycle of negative thoughts. ~ S. J. Scott & Barrie Davenport

Brainstorm and write down what your triggers really are. Distract your mind and keep yourself busy if all else fails!

Your core values define you and are vital to goal setting

by knowing what your core values are, you can focus on the things that are truly important, and kick out the things which aren’t, the things which cause you stress.

Your core values will also act as a yard measurement in life, and your choices and your overall decisions will be made against them.

Knowing your core values helps you to set goals in your life. Without goals, we drift from place to place, without really ever achieving anything, and without really knowing what true happiness feels like.

Having goals doesn’t mean that you’re living in the future, because we all know that having our heads a few years in front of us is a fast track toward not being present in the here and now. When you have plans you have a greater chance of getting to where you want to be.

Your goals have to be SMART:

• Specific: They shouldn’t be ambiguous or difficult to understand.
• Measurable: Your goals should be measurable by some standard of measurement.
• Attainable: The goals you set shouldn’t just be wishful thinking but achievable.
• Relevant: Your goals ought to be relevant to you or some other people. They shouldn’t just be there because you feel like setting a goal.
• Time-Bound: Once you set a goal, you should also attach a time limit. This will help you keep track of your goals and move on to other projects.

To get the most out of your goals, they should easily connect to the things you love and enjoy in life. ~ S. J. Scott & Barrie Davenport

Relationship problems are the easiest way to end up miserable

A study found that people who placed focus on relationships and connections within a social circle were far happier and healthier than those who focused more on achievements. These happier people possessed some traits of which include:

• Putting the relationship first, or making it a priority
• Having open lines of communication
• Being able to deal with problems in a healthy way
• Trust and respect on both sides
• Shared hobbies and interests
• Intelligent and emotional intimacy
• Being able to accept and forgive
• Physicality and intimacy, in romantic relationships

if you find that you’re constantly running into similar problems with the same person, it’s time to assess whether they deserve to remain in your life. Never feel guilty for extracting a person from your life if they cause you constant misery.

Try these steps to improve empathic listening:

• Allow the other person to take over the conversation and pay complete attention to them
• Don’t interrupt, even if you want to make a valid point
• At suitable times, ask questions that are open-ended and are designed to get them to talk and open up more
• Don’t come to conclusions without having heard everything
• Once they’ve finished talking, repeat back the main points of what you heard

Your past can have either a positive or negative effect on your present and future

If you want to be present and improve the relationships you have in the here and now, you need to declutter your mind and let go of negative thoughts. ~ S. J. Scott & Barrie Davenport

Resolve anything that you can, challenge your side of the story, and examine if anything could have been done differently, and what you can learn for the future.

Finally, offer total forgiveness. This can simply be in your own mind, which allows you to gain closure and move on from the situation.

Your home is an extension of your wellbeing

Your home needs to be a place of peace and serenity, somewhere you can go at the end of a long day and feel safe and secure. However, most of us focus on collecting things that clutter up our space and make it hard to relax

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. ~ William Morris

if your general environment is full of clutter, you won’t be able to focus or relax.

Decluttering your home should therefore be a priority, and can be done in 10-minute increments every day.

By being organized and doing this in stages, you will make steady progress, helping to declutter your mind as you go along.

dedicate an hour of digital-free time every single day to a manual hobby such as reading a book, drawing, making something, or playing a musical instrument.

You could also think about decluttering your actual devices, too. If you work on a laptop and it’s full of unused files, your brain isn’t going to be able to focus or concentrate on the task at hand.

You can save yourself time and energy if you have a system that helps you to store and find things easily. ~ S. J. Scott & Barrie Davenport

Conclusion

Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing to do! Prioritize the tasks you need to do in a day, have personal time when you can simply rest, ensure you set 3 firm goals each day, and focus on them.

You need to avoid one of the biggest focus killers, and certainly one of the fastest ways towards mental clutter — procrastination.

To avoid procrastination, make sure that you plan ahead and work out which tasks are the most important. Make sure you have everything you need to complete the task at hand and take any troublesome distractions out of the equation.

You could also try visualization here, e.g. visualizing the feeling of having the task finished, which should spur you on to actually do it. Have some breaks, and then when it’s done, reward yourself.

Negativity doesn’t have to be your go-to setting, and while nobody can be 100% positive all the time, you can reframe your thoughts and become a generally more positive person

Try this

Write down the things in your life that you are grateful for, and help to cultivate that “glass half full” mindset.

Also, reframe the negative thoughts you have throughout the day by replacing them with positive ones.

It is a good idea to set aside 10 minutes every day to sit and do absolutely nothing.