Read the transcript below for the video lesson How to Change Negative Thoughts into Positive Thoughts: 2 Ways.
In this video, you’re going to learn two ways to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts.
As a teaching tool, I’m using the Positive Thinking Tool. Now let’s get started.
Let’s say you want to replace a negative thought like “I have failed to achieve a lot of things” with a more positive thought. How do you do that?
The first and most important step is that you have got to pick a positive thought that you can comfortably and honestly except as valid or true.
For example, if you want to replace this negative thought with a more positive thought, and you say, I’ll just think “I have successfully achieved everything I never set out to achieve”…
That might be a positive thought, but if you think about it, it is not a valid or true thought, because clearly there are times in your life when you haven’t achieved things you set out to achieve, and your mind knows this.
So if you reject this thought as false or invalid, it doesn’t matter how positive it is, because your mind won’t accept or use the thought, so it does you no good.
So now that you know that you have got to pick a positive thought you can accept as valid or true, let’s identify two ways you can do that.
First, the best strategy is to pick an opposite positive thought and see if you can accept it as valid or true. So, for example, if you want to replace the negative thought “I have failed to achieve a lot of things”, an opposite positive thought might be “I have successfully achieved a lot of things”.
And if you think about it that is probably true for you in your life. Even if you have failed to achieve a lot of things, you have definitely successfully achieved a lot of other things. So that is a great positive replacement thought.
But what if this positive replacement thought doesn’t work for you? You think you haven’t successfully achieved a lot of things in your life.
That’s okay. Then you go on to step 2.
The second strategy for replacing the thought is to use statements like “even if”, “though”, or “but” to transform your negative thought into a more positive thought.
To show you exactly what I mean, it works a little something like this: you think about your negative thought, and you think, even though I have failed to achieve a lot of things, Something Positive. I have failed to achieve a lot of things, but Something Positive.
Whatever you put in here is completely up to you. For example, you could do something like “Even if I have failed to achieve a lot of things, I can still achieve a lot of things with my life”.
And if you can accept this as valid or true, then great! You’ve found a positive replacement thought that works for you.
As an added bonus tip, what I do is I shorten this statement by taking away the “even if” part, and now I have a simple positive thought that I can comfortably and honestly except as valid and true. (“I can still achieve a lot of things with my life”).
You’ve just learned how to pick a positive replacement thought that you can definitely accept as valid or true, and you’ve learned two different ways to do that.
I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Summary:
In this lesson, you learned how to change negative thoughts into positive thoughts using 2 different strategies. This knowledge will make it easier for you to think more positively.
Continue to the next lesson for more step by step instructions on how to change the way you think.
Next: How To Overcome Negative Thoughts: Don’t Forget This Step →
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Section 5 Lessons:
- How to change negative thoughts into positive thoughts: 2 ways
- How to overcome negative thoughts: don’t forget this step
- How to avoid negative thoughts in the future
- How to be a more positive person & enjoy these benefits
- How to remain positive the smart way