Five Life-changing Lessons Crucial to Success! — The Law of Attraction — Part 3

In The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle, Jim Rohn, the world’s leading motivational speaker, philosopher and entrepreneur stated, "What we think determines what we believe; what we believe influences what we choose; what we choose defines what we are; and what we are attracts what we have."

In the statement above, Jim Rohn points out 4 undeniable truths:
1. our thinking determines what we believe
2. what we believe influences what we choose
3. what we choose defines what we are
4. what we are attracts what we have

Let’s look at these statements briefly:

What we think determines what we believe:
What are you thinking? Did you know that many of your thought patterns were ingrained in childhood before you were mentally capable of rationalizing the messages you accepted. A mother in anger says, “You are so stupid! You haven’t got a brain in your head! You’ll never amount to anything!” Years later, although you are now an adult, you are still filtering events through this angry comment. Say you make a mistake and you automatically think, “I’m such a loser.” Something doesn’t turn out exactly the way you expected and your immediate thought is, “Nothing ever works for me.”

Studies indicate that we have about 60,000 thoughts a day, unfortunately about 90 percent of them are negative! The longer negative thoughts occupy our thinking, the more we believe them to be true. When you think in negative terms, you believe in negative terms. It creates a vicious cycle which often leads to anxiety, stress and depression. It is imperative that you identify what your prevailing thoughts are and replace any negative, self-defeating thoughts with positive, motivating ones.

What we believe influences what we choose:
Negative beliefs always lead to negative choices; they can lead nowhere else. If you believe you will never amount to anything in life, you won’t! Unfortunately, you will most probably make choices in your life that will validate those beliefs; you will reinforce your negative beliefs through the choices you make.

When you study your thoughts, you can identify patterns that were created in immaturity and see how those erroneous beliefs are affecting your life. Then, you can rationally analyze your thought patterns and choose to make the changes necessary to change your thinking and change your life. You are capable of creating the life you want, through the choices you make.

What we choose defines what we are:
Do your choices reflect success or failure? If they are reflecting failure, then decide on what you want to accomplish in your life and set your mind to achieving those goals. Ask yourself if what you are doing right now is getting you closer to your goals or have you become distracted and discouraged. We all want to feel fulfillment in our lives — to experience the satisfaction and happiness that comes as a result of fully developing our abilities or character. What you think about, shapes your life, so decide upon what you want, and then make choices to achieve those aspirations. And if you’ve made poor choices up until now, identify them, learn from them, and start making choices that will benefit you instead. Small choices will add up to big changes in a very short time.

What we are attracts what we have:
How often have you looked at someone and marveled at the success that seems to so easily come to them and yet, someone else never seems to achieve anything they want and their life seems to gravitate from one failure to another. The secret is quite simple. Those that attract success have learned that “like attracts like.” When our thinking is always geared towards positive, success oriented experiences, we naturally draw those types of experiences to ourselves. It’s the Law of Attraction in action.

People who have lost hope, or are immersed in negativity, naturally draw more negative experiences. Again, it’s the Law of Attraction at work. It’s as if they have a sign on their back saying, “Bad Things, Here I am! Kick me down!” As things continue to go badly, they feel worse and worse and spiral downward into increasing negativity and futility.

Thankfully, nobody is condemned to live a life of lack and limitation just because they have had a past history of thinking negatively. With some work and positive determination, anyone can turn their life around. Make “Change Your Thinking! — Change Your Life!” your personal motto! As soon as you desire positive change; change will happen. Start seeing yourself leading the life you want! Begin acting like you are already living your dreams! Be grateful for everything! And remember, the more attractive you make the success you want — the more you will have.

Guide to Recognizing Negative and Distorted Thought Styles

As I said in Lesson 2, I am a great admirer of Dr. David Burns, author of The Feeling Good Handbook and Feeling Good - The New Mood Therapy. I feel that his techniques for dealing with negative thoughts and thinking patterns are the most practical and well-thought out of the various methods for treating negativity, anxiety and/or depression.

Dr. Burns has identified 10 Distorted Thinking Patterns that have a profoundly negative influence on the way we think and react. The more ingrained these thought distortions are in our thinking styles the more negatively we see our lives and the world around us. Each of these thought distortions can be overcome and corrected, but the first step is to recognize which one(s) are influencing you. When you understand these patterns you will understand yourself better and you’ll have a better understanding of other people, as well.

All or Nothing Thinking:
This type of distortion causes you to think in extremes. You see things as either black or white; or totally good or totally bad. You tend to evaluate yourself as a winner if something goes right or as a total loser or a complete failure if something doesn’t go as expected. All or Nothing thinkers often use words like: always or never when describing things. Example: “I always pick the worst checkout line at the grocery” “I never get a break.” “Nobody likes me.” With All or Nothing Thinking, if your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

Over-Generalization:
This type of distortion causes you to think that because a negative event has happened it represents a never-ending pattern in your life. Over-Generalization thinkers often overexaggerated the event and make self-critical statement about themselves and their lives with defining words like “never” “nothing” “everything” “always” “every time” “completely” “totally” “forever” “nobody” and “everybody”. “Bad things always happen to me.” “I can never win.” “Nothing good has ever happened to me in my life and nothing good will ever happen.” This negative type of self-talk often leads to self-defeat and depression. According to Dr. Burns, the pain of rejection is generated almost entirely from over-generalization.

Mental Filters:
This type of distortion causes you to ignore or filter out all positive things and focus exclusively on the negative. Depressed people, are not aware that they are filtering out everything positive; they tend to focus or dwell only on negative details or experiences. The best way of describing the mental filter is to imagine putting one drop of ink into a glass of water. At first, it just creates a few small discolored streams, then almost instantly, the entire glass of water is discolored. When you dwell exclusively on one thing that goes wrong before long your entire picture of reality has become darkened like the water. To overcome mental filters you must force yourself to look for positive potential or possibilities in situations that you feel are overwhelmingly negative.

Discounting The Positives:
This type of distortion causes you to discount any compliments or praise you receive from others. You feel that what they are saying doesn’t count. For example, say you work really hard on a project and do a good job, but when you start to receive attention for it you negate all your effort by implying that anyone could have done it or you tell yourself it wasn’t good enough. Some people erroneously think they are being modest and shunning pride by doing this. Discounting the positive thinkers often use words or phrases like: “it was nothing” “anyone could have done it” “it was just dumb luck” “you’re just saying that” or “they’re just trying to be nice.” Unfortunately this type of thinking robs them of any joy or satisfaction and always leaves them feeling inadequate and unfulfilled.

Jumping To Conclusions:
This type of distorted thinking pattern causes you to make negative assumptions or interpret events with no evidence or facts to support your thoughts. In other words: You jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts or giving the other person a chance to explain. According to Dr. Burns, it is a major source of much of the anxiety we experience.

It usually manifests itself in two very interesting ways: mind reading and fortune telling.

In mind reading, you decide that someone is reacting negatively to you, and assume that you know what they are thinking, feeling and/or why they are acting the way they are. This is a dangerous thinking pattern because it can lead to erroneous thoughts, groundless negative feelings, anger, resentment and bitterness.

In fortune telling, you anticipate that things are going to turn out badly before they have begun or that an event will go from bad to worse. Your crystal ball only predicts misery for you. This fatalistic mind-set makes you feel like your thoughts and feelings are a fact and that nothing will ever change.

Ask yourself, “Can anyone actually read my thoughts? Since you know that they can’t; why do you think you can accurately read other peoples thoughts and know the intentions of their hearts? In the military they have a saying, “Assumption is the mother of all manner of trouble.” (Actually, they say something a lot blunter than that) but I’m assuming you get the point. We should never assume. We should give others the benefit of the doubt, and ask them about a situation or event instead of assuming we know. Often our assumptions are wrong, and so is the hell that we put ourselves through because of this faulty thinking.

This is a great quote on assumption: “Never assume, for it makes an ASS out of U and ME” — Author Unknown

Magnification (also known as Catastrophizing) And Minimization:
This type of distortion Dr. Burns calls the “Binocular Trick.” Magnification causes you to look at yourself and your problems through a magnifying lens which grossly magnifies all your mistakes, faults, or problems. Then you turn the binocular around and minimize anything good you see in yourself.

With this faulty thinking pattern there is the tendency to magnify or exaggerate the importance of your problems. This is called catastrophizing. You either blow things out of all proportion or deny facing things the way they really are. This type of thinking destroys your self-esteem and sets you up for feeling overwhelmed by every situation that happens.

Some people use minimization to point out the weakness, flaws or shortcomings of others. They always insert a “but” into every evaluation. The problem with the “but” is that it negates anything good that may have been said before it.

Some parents use minimization with their children, thinking it will motivate their child to improve. “Well, I’m really proud of you, look at all these A’s on your report card but these B’s are sure a big disappointment. I expect all A’s from you. If you get B’s you’ll never get into a good college and you’ll never amount to anything.” Children want their parents approval and acknowledgement of their efforts, unfortunately the “but” erases any enjoyment or encouragement from your praise and robs the child of any sense of accomplishment.

Emotional Reasoning:
This type of distortion causes you to reason with your emotions or feelings. In other words, you assume that your emotions reflect the truth or things the way they really are. However, negative feelings or emotions can color your thoughts, and you may not be thinking objectively or rationally.

This is very apparent in people who are depressed. Sometimes, when a person is very down or very upset, they will think, “My family would be better off if I were dead.” They think this would be true because they are viewing everything from their upset emotions. If they were thinking rationally or objectively, they would realize that nothing good could ever come from doing something like that.

We should never make decisions based on how we are feeling emotionally, especially if those emotions are very negative or we are very upset. Rule of thumb: Feelings cannot be trusted, they do not always reflect the truth. Do not let your emotions or feelings determine how you behave or react.

“Should” Statements:
This type of distortion causes your self-talk or inner voice to be very self-critical of yourself and often very critical of others. Your internal conversations are filled with “I should” “I must” and “I ought to” towards yourself and “They should” “They must” and “They ought to” towards others. You generally have a list of rules that you feel you or others must live up to. However, these “ironclad rules” leave you feeling guilty when you don’t measure up to them and angry, frustrated and resentful of others when they don’t meet your expectations.

Do not try to motivate yourself or others with these words. It does not work. In fact, these words usually have the exact opposite effect and cause yourself and others to resist and/or retaliate against you — the “messenger” and the “message.”

Use better words to express your desires. Use exact expressions like: would like to, want or need. These are not critical or demanding nor controlling; they simply state what you want to express.

Labeling And Mislabeling:
This type of distortion causes you to attach a label to yourself, your behavior and your experiences, as well as applying labels to others that you believe to be true. Note: a label is a classifying name or phrase usually applied to a person or thing that is generally demeaning, all-encompassing and restrictive.

When you apply personal self-defeating labels to yourself — you create a negative self-image. Instead of describing an error or mistake you made as an experience (“I made a mistake”), you label or classify yourself as “I’m an idiot” or “I’m such a loser.” It is like all-or-nothing thinking, blown out of proportion. In the Oxford English Dictionary it defines “an idiot” as “a person so deficient in mind as to be permanently incapable of rational conduct.” Now, I sure that doesn’t apply to you!!! So why call yourself such a thing!

Labeling is very detrimental to a child. When a child is given a label, such as: this one’s a handful; or this one’s our problem child; or this one’s a trouble maker — these labels have a way of becoming a self-fulfilling. A small child believes everything you say; and they will live up to what you say about them. Children are notorious for labeling each other — something they generally learn from home. Listen to your child for clues about your labeling patterns.

Mislabeling is when you apply negatively charged labels to others. Mislabeling is generally used when describing an person or event when you are experiencing intense emotions. The descriptions and language used is highly colored and emotionally loaded. A secretary having a bad day becomes a “bitch”; a co-worker who misplaces a memo becomes a “moron”; and an inattentive driver becomes a “*#@%# jerk”; a wife becomes a “damned nag” and a husband a “heartless bastard.” Unfortunately, when you apply such labels to others it affects your ability to see them accurately, and distorts your relationship with them. You become critical, fault-finding and focused on finding their weaknesses to prove their worthlessness and your superiority.

Personalization:
This type of distortion causes you assume responsibility for things that are out of your control. Dr. Burns calls this distortion the mother of guilt! You feel personally responsible for the happiness or unhappiness of others. You take everything that people say or do as a personal reaction to you. This type of thinking, personalization and blaming, leads to chronic feelings of failure and false guilt. If you find yourself using the phrase, “If only” a lot you are probably prone to blaming yourself. Remember, you can only have an influence on others; you cannot control anyone else, nor should you want to. Blaming yourself for what others do causes you to fall into the victim role. This makes you vulnerable to how you perceive the way people treat you. The rule of thumb is: It’s not the event that causes your emotions, feeling or mood, but how you interpret the event. Stop taking responsibility for everyone else. You're only responsible for yourself! That’s it! It’s not your job to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Change Your Thinking! Change Your Life!
I believe this list has been helpful to many of you; I know it was for me. Recognizing distorted thought patterns is an important first step. Doing something to change them, is your next step.

In the next article in this series, Eliminating Distorted Thought Patterns, we will deal with the process of changing our thinking patterns in more details but here is a simple 3-Step System for getting started:

Step 1. Write down your thoughts as they come to you.
Step 2. Review the List of Distorted Thinking Patterns and identify which thought distortions you are affected by.
Step 3. Write down an objective, non-emotional response to the distorted thoughts you have identified.

For example:
You have a parking lot accident.

Step 1— Your thoughts:
“Why me? I always have accidents! If I were the only person in the parking lot, I’d have a car accident. I shouldn’t have come to this mall. If I hadn’t come here this wouldn’t have happened. I got no one to blame but myself. Nothing ever goes right for me and nothing ever will? It’s just a ding but I know this guy is going to sue me, claiming he’s crippled for life and I’m going to lose my home and my job and my kids won’t be able to go to college and my wife will divorce me. My life is ruined. I’m such a loser!”

Step 2 — Identify Distortions:
All-or-nothing, overgeneralization, mental filter, disqualifying the positives, jumping to conclusions, mind reading, fortune telling, catastrophizing, should statements, labeling, personalization and emotional reasoning!)

Step 3 — Objective, non-emotional response:
Accidents happen! I wish it hadn’t happened but it did. I’ve got insurance. I’m not hurt. The other person isn’t hurt. The damage is minor. Now, I need to take a deep breath and let it go. I will not go over and over this event wondering if there was anything I could have done to change it, because it has happened and nothing can change that. In future, I’ll be more alert in parking lots.

Once you can recognize a distorted thought when it comes to you, you’ll be able to start countering them with positive, realistic thoughts. When you start to think better you’ll start to feel better and you’ll have a healthier outlook on life.

Wishing you all the best that life has to offer!
— Lauren Sage Alexander —
© Copyright 2008

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