Chapter 3: How to Recognize “BLUE” Thoughts
The term “BLUE” serves as an acronym.
B- blaming
L- looking for the bad news
U- unhappy guessing
E- exaggeratedly negative
The truth is, these thoughts are extremely negative for them to be anything from the truth. One important thing that you must note is that we have over 70,000 thoughts every day. These thoughts often have a great impact on our emotions and the choices we make in life. While you cannot control any automatic thoughts that you have raced through your mind, you have the power to control how you respond to them.
When you believe in self-doubt, worry unnecessarily over things you cannot control, and ruminate on the negative events in your life, your mental strength is drained. The secret here is for you to turn every negative thought into something positive. The trick is to purposefully train the mind to have a different way of thinking that will help build your mental muscle.
When you decide to take control of your inner thoughts and thought process, you become much stronger than when you would ruminate on negative thoughts throughout the day. The stronger you get, the higher your chances of becoming kind, productive, and receptive. In other words, when you have a positive thought process, you create a positive cycle that changes your way of doing things and ultimately impacts your life with success and happiness.
So, how can you recognize these negative thoughts?
Blaming Myself
Yes, we all must take responsibility for our actions. However, while that is a good thing, excessively blaming yourself can be counterproductive. When you blame yourself too much, studies have shown that this hurts your mental health and is likely to bring about depression.
Therefore, ensure that you stay alert for the times when you feel like everything that is going wrong is your fault and remember to take responsibility for your actions, without necessarily being too hard on yourself.
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Looking For The Bad News
Have you ever had a perfect day with everything going your way and then something bad suddenly happens and ruins it all? Well, I bet we all have had those days. But the most important question is, what did you do after that? What did you focus your attention more on?
I do not know about you, but I kept on pondering on what had ruined the day. So many of us get caught up in one bad thing or break even when you have had over ten good breaks that day. However, you have to realize that when you dwell too much on the bad things, your mind will be captured in a rather dark place.
When you realize that, at this point simply take a step back to have a realistic perspective of things. This way, you will create a balanced and realistic plan of action to be happy, even amid the bad breaks.
Unhappy Guessing
No one knows what is lying in wait for us in the future or better still tomorrow. You may be here predicting doom when so much good lies ahead of you in your future. Maybe you are going to give a presentation tomorrow at work, or you could be preparing for an exam. At the back of your mind, you are thinking of how you will embarrass yourself or how you are going to fail that exam and miss opportunities.
One thing that you must realize is that when you have unhappy guessing into your future, there is a high chance that you will start acting like it and eventually bring the prophecy to come to pass. Each time you have such unhappy guessing, replace them with quite the opposite. What if you give the most memorable and amazing presentation anyone has ever had? What if you sit that exam and ace it and get so much more opportunities beyond your wildest dreams?
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There is always an opportunity that things will turn out much better than we imagine. Rather than choosing to focus on the negative, think of all the positive things that will come of your success. That will empower you to exert more effort, and hard work to whatever you are doing, and this will ultimately yield impeccable results and success.
Exaggeratedly Negative
When you tell yourself that the whole experience was a great disaster, it is somewhat a downward spiral. When you start to convince yourself that your job is a complete joke, you are headed in the wrong direction. The truth is negativity yield negative results. There is no way you are going to be successful if you are always going to think that you are bound to fail. It will not make any sense in sitting the exam if you already believe that you will fail. In other words, the more negative you feel, the worse you get, hence lowering your chances of having positive outcomes.
That said, you must purpose to turn those “BLUE” thoughts into positive thoughts. One better way to do this is to put yourself in a friend’s shoe and imagine what you would advise them if they were going through what you are facing today. Therefore, when you find yourself having negative, self-defeating thoughts, think of a concrete and clear plan that will help redeem you to a better place in life.
You will realize that when you replace negative thoughts with more realistic positive thoughts it can be very inspiring and is the key for you to create the kind of life you want to live. If you choose to naturally err on the negative thinking end of the spectrum, it will take too much effort to change your thoughts. However, when you start changing them slowly, with time, your brain will physically change for the better. In other words, thinking positively will come naturally, and your brain will begin to perceive you and the abilities you have in a new light.
