Can you really transform your life, simply by changing your thoughts?

Many inspirational people have been associated with the following quote over the years:

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

It really doesn’t matter who said it. What is important is the message that it holds.

Our thoughts really can determine the quality of our daily life, whether we are happy and contented or sad and unsettled. However it’s very easy to get into the habit of allowing our thoughts to be pessimistic and gloomy, and people can find this cycle of thoughts hard to break.

Here are our top ten ways you can change your thoughts and give a positive direction to your life.

1. CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS BY CREATING POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

Affirmations are like mantras and can have both a negative and a positive impact on the neurological functioning of the brain.

Most of us are actually very good at creating negative affirmations and really bad at making positive ones. How many times have you stopped yourself from doing something, because your thoughts and words are ‘I can’t do it’ or ‘I find this difficult’?

When we build positive affirmations, they should be forceful and determined such as ‘I can’, ‘I will’, or ‘I am going to’. Remember that your brain is always adapting to your thought patterns and it will affect your emotions and how your body acts accordingly.

2. LEARN TO BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Learn to stop going over and over past misfortunes, how others have treated us and the mistakes we’ve all made. Constantly asking ‘what would have happened if I had done this or that?’.

We should all learn for the past and use it to plan for the future intelligently, but never get caught in the past… live the present moment… learn to love yourself, who you are and what you stand for.

3. CREATE AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

Gratitude helps us see the fullness of our lives. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home and a stranger into a friend.

We are often consumed by all the things we don’t have, or the problems and issues we face. Yet I know for a fact that there are people all over the world who face starvation on a daily basis, war and death are commonplace, discarded bits of cardboard are home to many around the world.

We should be grateful we don’t face those hardships and be thankful for what we actually have in our lives. Try this daily routine, every morning when you wake up, say out loud the five things you are most grateful for.

4. BE PROUD OF YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS AND ENJOY THEM

It is very common for us to set ourselves goals, such as personal, relationship, financial and life goals. It is also very common for us to be very excited and elated once we achieve them, only to find that as they become our new ‘normal’ we grow bored or less enthused by them.

We must remind ourselves daily how lucky we are to have the relationship we wanted or the house we wanted etc, and we must tell ourselves how proud we are that we got the job we wanted or we achieved the goal we set ourselves.

5. BE CHILDLIKE IN YOUR ATTITUDE

We all know that children get upset over simple things, they fight with their friends over nothing and get moody over things they don’t understand. But we also know that because of their youthful innocence and simplicity of thoughts, they soon forget these issues and get on with life, happy and smiling again.

This is a lesson we could all do with learning, is the power of forgiving, forgetting and moving on.

6. BE HAPPY AND CONTENT NOW

How many times do we tell ourselves we will be happy once a future event happens? ‘I’ll be happy once I’ve moved house’ or ‘I’ll be happy once I get the new job’. This futuristic expectation of happiness can rob us of those special moments that happen every day.

We must try to focus on what is happening in our lives right now and understand that while things could be better, we actually have a lot going for us right now.

7. BE THE BOSS OF YOUR MOODS

We are in control of how we respond to other people or circumstances, therefore we can choose to be happy or get mad. We must choose to be the boss of our mood, rather than letting outside influences choose our mood for us.

Gaining control of how we feel and react to life events is game-changing.

8. YOUR BODY IS A TEMPLE

There is a very close relationship between our bodies and our mind. Regular exercise, healthy nutrition and getting enough sleep have been shown to contribute significantly to our mental health.

Therefore we should make our body a temple that we worship every day.

9. MEDITATE DAILY

Meditation is a great time for us to focus on ourselves. Morning meditation can set our minds up for the day ahead, full of positive affirmations and can-do attitude. Evening meditation can relax our minds, helping us resolve things and also being grateful for the day.

There are many great online tools or apps that can guide us through the various types of meditation if we are beginners, or get easily distracted during our meditation.

10. FOCUS ON CHANGING YOURSELF INSTEAD OF CHANGING THE WORLD AROUND YOU

Let’s face it… It is virtually impossible to change the world around us. Not everything will go as we planned, people will not meet our expectations, and things can take longer than we would like, so try not to get upset, anxious or angry… doing so doesn’t change the situation.

What we can control is how we respond to challenges, how we feel about what is going on around us. In most cases, when you look back in a few weeks or months our lives continued regardless, we are able to move on and find our personal happiness.

We would love to know if you’ve found this helpful, and please share it with someone you know who should read this. Help the U perform family by commenting below if you have any other helpful tips or ideas.