One day a professor entered his class and told his students, “Today, you’re going to have a test.” Everyone was surprised since there was no intimation about any test. So, it’s a surprise test! When they got the question paper, they were more surprised. The question paper was a white sheet with a black dot in the middle. The professor told the students, “Your exam today is right what you see in the paper.”
Everybody was surprised. What type of test is this? But since they had to complete it within time, everyone wrote their own answers. After collecting the answer scripts, the professor read the answers loud. Every student wrote about the black dot- about its size, shape, location, position and other things. The professor addressed the students-
“Each one of you have written about the black dot. All of you saw that black dot, but no one saw the white paper and no one wrote about the white paper. The same thing happens in our lives as well. We always focus more on those dark, black things. Whereas we have such a big piece of white paper in front of us. We have so many things in our lives which can give us happiness, peace, joy- our parents, friends, good health, a good job, the laughs of our kids and there are so many other spectacular things in our lives but we always think about the negative things and feel depressed. We always focus on the dark spots like depression, failure, fear, anxiety, what we have not got in life, what mistakes we have made. We forget about the white page and the positive things in our lives but always sit remembering the small stuff, the negative things in our lives.”
Do you do the same thing?
If your mind has more negative thoughts than positive, then maybe this is the time to change it. Why should you change it? Because it has already created several problems in your life and it will keep doing that until you change your system of thinking. You are also losing so many things which could have made your life excellent. Don’t lose any more.
The problem of negative thoughts
When you have negative thoughts, then you will always focus on a narrow and negative thing. It’s good if you can focus on one thing but if you focus on the wrong thing that will create lots of problems and not only problems it will create big problems in your life. Then you’ll not be able to see a big and awesome form of your life and you will lose the positive things hidden in it.
For example, if you have a habit of thinking negative, you’ll feel that your life doesn’t have anything. In such a situation you’ll not be able to see and feel that you can give different meanings to this meaningless life. You’ll be able to see and feel that power that you already have. As a result of that your life will not have any meaning in it.
People who are full of negative thoughts often and their lives in sorrow and pain. If you spend 50, 60, 70 or 80 years of your life waiting for something negative to happen, something painful to happen, when have you lived your life?
A person who always thinks negative will have to spend his life under stress. You will always hear negative things in his mind and the self-talk that he has with himself will also be negative.
A person who has a negative mind or who thinks negative will always see a negative image of the future, so, he doesn’t see or find any meaning in working for the future. So, he doesn’t find any reason for working hard to improve the present and the future. He just spends his life but never lives it. He never gets the happiness of having some positive goals in future and working towards achieving them.
If a student always thinks negative, he or she will not be interested in learning new skills. For example, even though such a student may understand that learning a different language may be very helpful in the future world, but he cannot learn it because he thinks that there is no point in learning at or he is not capable enough to learn it.
You become what you think of, the type of thoughts you have in your mind. How? By the power of thoughts.
The power of thoughts
If you always think that there is no point in doing anything because I cannot do it, then it becomes your luck. If you think it just for once or for a day, it may not have a big impact, but when you think about it in your mind for a long time or keep talking about it to others, after hearing it for some time each and every day and thinking about it all the time, you will start believing in it. And if you believe it even for once, then you’re done for. If it becomes your belief then problems will start arising in your life. It happens because when you believe something, your behaviour will be according to this belief. You behave in line with your beliefs.
Why do so many people think negative?
Why do thoughts become negative? Many people have negative thoughts because of lack of self-confidence. When you don’t have self-confidence, most of the thoughts showing up in your mind will be negative. You won’t be able to think that you can get positive, desirable results and the results that you want. Many people sit idle saying “I can’t” or “it’s useless” because then you don’t have to do anything. When you want good results, desired results you will have to work for it and that is hard. If you want to avoid that, if you’re lazy, if you want to stay away from putting so much of work, then you can use such negative thoughts and thinking.
Sometimes negative thinking can be learnt from others. It is easy to learn it from your parents. Parents who never tried or who do not want to work hard may always insist that there is no point in thinking big or thinking positive because nothing will happen. Trying to hide their own failure or lack of efforts lack of knowledge, they do this. Kids may learn from such parents the way of thinking with or without knowing.
What can you do?
I can tell you to always think positive. But that may not be possible in your day-to-day life. Even though you try to think positive, positive thoughts may not show up. Then, what can you do?
Increasing confidence
You will have to increase your self-confidence because then you negative thoughts will automatically decrease. There are many techniques to increase your confidence. You can choose one that you like. You may need some time but once your self-confidence starts increasing, your negative thoughts will go down.
A simple technique
Choose a positive sentence and repeat that sentence everyday just for 10 minutes sitting in a calm, quite environment. This simple exercise will gradually make your mind positive. The more you practice this exercise, the more benefit you’ll receive. It will gradually make your subconscious mind positive and as a result of that your thoughts will also start to become positive.
Do small things
If you are someone who has a strong, determined mind and you believe only things that you see, then you’ll be able to do this. Take a small task which is important for you and where the result can be either positive or negative. Now, in this task, until it is done start thinking only positive about it. Even if some negative thoughts come to your mind, immediately change it and think positive. At the same time, for this task, do whatever is necessary to achieve the positive result you want and keep doing it until you achieve the positive result you wanted. Now, take a close look at the outcome and measure whether you could achieve the positive result that you wanted to achieve or not.
Results will always be different
Will the results or outcome of a task for a person who thinks positive and another person who thinks negative be different? Yes. The same task will have different results. Even if both the person have the same capabilities, qualities and other things, the results will be different because of the difference of their thinking. Why? Because the person with negative thinking will never do the work with his 100% power and he will not put 100% efforts in the work, because he knows there is no point in doing the task since the outcome will be negative. On the other hand, the person who is positive will look for a positive outcome and for that he will put all his power and efforts in the work. He knows that even though the task is small, the result will have a big positive impact on his mind and this is an opportunity for him to test himself. In that case, he will not only get positive results but this experience will also enrich him for the present and the future.