Thoughts are internal speech directed at ourselves. Our mind is constantly filled with thoughts – tens of thousands of them in a single day! Single thoughts often only flash through our mind without us paying much attention to them.
Thoughts affect your actions
However, frequently recurring thoughts have a strong impact on the way you act and behave in different situations. If you have negative thoughts of yourself, such as ‘I never get anything right’, you will also start to behave in a belittling manner towards yourself. You will make choices based on the assumption that you cannot succeed.
Frequently recurring thoughts have a strong impact on the way you act and behave in different situations.
To identify the effect that your thoughts have on your actions, you must stop and listen to yourself. Identifying your thoughts is worth it because it provides you with the opportunity to work with them. Additionally, you will become better at identifying what is real and what is merely your own interpretation.
What kinds of thoughts?
Thoughts can really be about anything. We can also do lots of different things with our thoughts. These include the following:
- Motivating ourselves
- Demoralising ourselves
- Stating things
- Planning things in advance
- Dwelling on the past
- Dreaming
Positive, constructive and useful thoughts improve our mood, encourage us and make us act.
“Even though things are really bad right now, at least I’m trying to do something about it.”
“Even though I screwed up now, it can help me learn something for the future.”
“This day was tough but I made it through it.”
These kinds of thoughts help us see more possibilities, and obstacles do not seem impossible to overcome.
Negative, destructive or useless thoughts often make us feel bad and bring our mood down. They also discourage us and make challenges seem harder.
“I don’t know anything even though I’ve already studied for so long.”
“Everything’s getting worse.”
“I never get anything done.”
When reading through the examples, did you observe any difference in how the positive and negative thoughts affected you? If you give too much space and value to your destructive thoughts, they will start to affect your actions. The same applies the other way round too: when you pay attention to positive thoughts, their effect becomes stronger.
If you give too much space and value to your destructive thoughts, they will start to affect your actions.
Do harmful thought patterns guide your actions?
Sometimes we get stuck to the same recurring negative thought patterns that discourage us and make us feel bad. Harmful thoughts patterns can guide the way you observe things, act and make choices without you even noticing it.
For this reason, you should try to recognise recurring thought patterns you have that:
- Prevent you from being yourself
- Prevent you from utilising all your skills and abilities
- Lower your self-esteem.
There are many ways to work on your thought patterns.