Cover of Zig Ziglar
I’ve been trying a little experiment lately. I’ve been monitoring my thinking both for negative output (what I think and say) and input (what I read, watch and listen to).
There is a whole field of psychology dedicated to our internal thought processes or how our thoughts affect our moods and emotions – cognitive psychology. “Cognitive” comes from the word cognition which means the process of knowing or perceiving. Taking the time to truly monitor my thought processes has been interesting.
So I encourage you to monitor your thoughts. Are they positive? Are they negative? What about your words? What do you say to others? Would others see you as an encouraging person? And what about what you allow to enter your mind? (TV, radio, books). Who are your friends? Who do you hang out with on a regular basis? Do those folks build you up? Do you build them up? Do you allow yourself to be affected by these inputs in a negative way? Do you recognize negative input? I know these are a lot of questions, but ones worth asking yourself.
There’s a great scripture in the Bible that talks about this very topic, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” The author is encouraging us to think about specific things because of how powerful our mind can. What we think affects how we feel and what we feel impacts what we do and say.
Just taking the time to do this can be totally mind opening. Once you realize your tendencies you can work to change them. You can refuse to allow negative stimulus to enter your mind (at least the stimulus you have control over). You can fill your mind with positive things. There’s a saying, “garbage in, garbage out”.
“One of the greatest gifts is the ability to choose the way we think, act or feel…” – Zig Ziglar
You can also choose to be an encourager. You can choose to say positive things to others. You can lift others up instead of dragging them down. According to Zig Ziglar is his book, “Top Performance”, “It’s a fact that you can’t tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations before they arise.”
So begin monitoring your thinking. Start to look at what you allow into your mind (by what you hear or see). Guard your mind and think about the “right” things and you’ll be amazed at the results.
