This week, we will examine how you can become trapped in a negative mindset that is not conducive to living life to the fullest. We will also discuss practical ways to overcome whatever issues are causing your negative mindset.
Why Do People Get Trapped in a Negative Mindset?
For some, staying positive is easier than it is for others. Many factors contribute to overall mental health, but when it comes to a negative mindset, much of it comes from not understanding that you have control over your mind.
I don’t know how long I lived, convincing myself that life was just how it was and that there was no way for me to be at peace or be happy. Depression and anxiety were my lot in life, and I just had to suck it up until I died.
How miserable…
What I didn’t understand is that this didn’t have to be the case. If I had thought about it objectively, I could have gone back to my childhood and found a little boy who was carefree and loved life. Sure, there were moments of uncertainty, being scared or fearful or unsure how things would end, but I loved life. I loved the adventure of it.
Somewhere along the way, I got sideswiped by a negative version of reality. Then, it began to compound itself until I started to believe it. Once that belief set in, it became true to me, and from then on, without realizing what was happening, I settled into depression and anxiety.
Most people should be able to recognize a similar experience. It doesn’t mean it all goes the same. You may have been older or younger when you started to slip into whatever negative quagmire you find yourself in, but I don’t believe you were born that way.
Life happens, and along the way, you form opinions about it, whether accurate or not. You devise rational meanings and solutions to your experiences to preserve yourself without feeling like you’re drowning. Many of these beliefs come from subconscious programming.
1. Subconscious Programming
Essentially, everything we do is based on past programming. When you get up in the morning, you follow a routine that you programmed within yourself. This generally starts at a young age and continues into adulthood.
At various points along the way, you may “upgrade” or “update” the routine to suit your needs, but I’m willing to bet your current routine is very close to what it was when you were in your teens. If you are in your teens and happen to be reading this, then first of all, good for you! Secondly, pay attention and see how much it changes from now until you’re fifty or sixty.
Creating the Program
Every time you do something new, you create new neurons to help you remember how to do that specific task. Think about brushing your teeth. When did you last try using your least dominant hand to brush your teeth?
It’s probably been a long time.
Why?
Because it’s difficult, and you started programming yourself to brush your teeth a certain way from when you were young until now. If you switch hands, you don’t have the neural connection created to efficiently brush your teeth in a way that satisfies you.
It’s choppy and uncomfortable. You actually have to pay attention and think about what you’re doing, which seems like a massive waste of time and energy. In fact, if you try this the next time you brush your teeth, you can almost feel the amount of energy and resources going into this elementary act.
So, why don’t you feel that way using your dominant hand?
As mentioned just moments ago, it’s because you created a program or neural network based on “Brushing Teeth.”
When I watch my five-year-old brush his teeth, it looks like I do when I attempt it with my non-dominant hand because he’s still creating the neural network or program for “Brushing Teeth.” It’s sloppy and haphazard, and he looks like such a child! Oh, right. He is a child.
In a few years, though, he’ll brush his teeth while doing ten other tasks because the program has been written, tweaked, and saved for so long that he no longer needs to focus on the task consciously.
The same thing goes for your thinking.
Thought Programs
Over the years, you’ve created specific programs, or neural networks, based on your thinking.
Once created, they need a certain amount of repetition to help solidify them into your subconscious programming, but once you’ve done that, you no longer have to think about thinking or feeling a certain way; you just do so naturally.
Many times, you might not even be aware of the program because you created it when you were young. You might have experienced failure or criticism or had a traumatic event that began to hardwire a mental narrative about how people behave or formulated a limited perspective on how life works.
Through repetition and practice, these stories begin to ingrain themselves into your subconscious, subtly shaping your adult perceptions and reactions to the point where you now believe you are “X” (depressed, anxiety-ridden, angry, hopeless, stressed out, etc.). Conversely, you may think you are (peaceful, happy, carefree, loving, generous, kind, etc.). Either way, it comes down to your subconscious beliefs.
If you struggle with the negative aspects, you may feel that way, but you don’t have to continue to live that way.
Some of it comes down to understanding the subconscious programming you go through that cultivates that way of thinking.
You must understand that it’s about more than what you think; it’s also about how you feel.
Feeling Programs
Just as you’ve created a neural network, a program for how you think, you’ve done the same for how you feel. You’re feelings either get triggered by a lack of chemicals or a constant overload of chemicals and no, I’m not talking about illicit drugs; I’m talking about the chemical substances you create within yourself.
A neural network is activated to release those chemicals when you think specific thoughts or have certain experiences.
Recently, I heard someone discuss the idea that feeling can take place several seconds before a thought even occurs.
What does this mean?
It means your body is telling you how to feel rather than your mind telling you how to feel.
Another way to think of this is that you’ve conditioned or trained your body to feel a specific way, and now you don’t even have to think a thought to experience a feeling.
This is how the thinking/feeling loop can drive itself. Again, the mind creates a thought that elicits a feeling, which causes the body to feel. The more the body feels, the more it sends signals to the mind to continue feeling that way, leading to more thoughts.
However, the reverse is also true. The body can begin feeling a certain way, sending signals to the mind and generating thoughts corresponding to that feeling. As it does so, it creates an increased feeling, and round and round you go.
As you begin to understand how subconscious programming may contribute to your negative mindset, you can start to see how confirmation bias complements this programming.
2. The Role of Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias can be one of the key drivers of negativity. Once you adopt a negative mindset, you unconsciously seek evidence to support your beliefs.
This doesn’t mean the evidence is accurate or factual; it simply means it fits the narrative you’ve created for yourself.
However, by creating this confirmation bias, you may unwittingly ignore positive outcomes and possibilities because they don’t fit the program. When you have a positive experience and run it through your subconscious, it’s almost as if the experience is speaking another language.
Since you can’t truly understand or comprehend what’s going on, you pass it off as a one-off experience, or you’ll make excuses as to why it isn’t true.
It’s a self-reinforcing cycle. Essentially, it’s deepening the mental rut you’ve created for yourself, like a track through a field. After going over that track so many times, it just makes sense because it’s the path of least resistance. You know where it’s going, and there probably won’t be any surprises along the way.
Whereas if you go off the track, who knows where you’ll end up or what will happen?
Staying in the rut, however, only makes things increasingly difficult as you move through life. It may seem like it flows smoothly, but when you take stock of how things are going, you’ll see it’s one shaky bump after another.
Once you’ve solidified the programming and created the rut for yourself, adopting alternative perspectives or outlooks on life becomes difficult.
After all, your experience is true because it’s what you’ve experienced, and you don’t want to be made a liar after all those years of hard work creating the individual you’ve become.
Other roadblocks that may entrench you are societal and environmental factors.
3. Societal and Environmental Factors
You are not alone in thinking that the sources of all your problems come from “Out there.” It’s extremely easy to believe that your issues don’t stem from you; I mean, come on, you don’t want to feel like this, so why would you create this for yourself? You probably wish, pray, and hope these feelings will go away all the time. It’s because of your environment, circumstances and situations, relationships, and the people you work with that are the source of all your consternation! Right?!
Wrong.
I will consent that there can be cases or times when external factors don’t lend themselves to developing the most productive outlook on life. However, the majority of your problems don’t stem from these factors.
Sure, you may experience a toxic workplace or relationship. There may be moments when societal pressure seems to be bearing down on you, crushing you into comparison and resulting in FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). You may have unsupportive relationships that make you feel inferior, less than, stupid, unwanted, and unworthy.
All of these things can either develop the cultivation of or sustain a negative mindset. The external factor may reinforce self-doubt and whatever limiting beliefs you have about yourself. They may even dissuade you from seeking the help needed to experience change.
The only problem with accepting this line of thinking and using it as an excuse for why you think and feel the way you do is that it makes you the victim. It dissolves any power or responsibility you have over yourself in the situation.
Instead of realizing your internal power in a specific situation, you forget that you are a powerful, creative being who can choose to allow or not allow that circumstance to hold you down or send you spiraling into the depths of despair.
Marcus Aurelius said:
“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
– Marcus Aurelius
Yes, you may have gone through challenging times, but who hasn’t? Some have it worse than others, but the difference between those who come out with a positive mindset versus a negative one is those who decide whether they’ll let life rule them or whether they’ll rule life.
As William Earnest Henly wrote in his poem Invictus:
“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
– William Earnest Henly
Being the master of your fate and the captain of your soul means overcoming your negative mindset. So, how do you do that?
Overcoming the Negative Mindset: A Step-by-Step Approach
One of the first things you must understand is that everything you do happens in your mind. Yes, your body is the vehicle through which you experience the world around you, but the deeper reality is that your mind is what experiences the event.
You may say, but if I get burned, my body experiences pain, which, of course, is true, to a point.
The body experiences pain only when connected to the mind. If you remove that connection, the body no longer experiences pain.
It’s really your mind experiencing pain and sending a signal to the body to say this is where you’re experiencing that pain.
Why?
So it can protect itself.
After all, if the body isn’t available to cart your mind around, then you are what we call… “dead.”
Too many drastic moments of your body experiencing pain could mean the end of your life as you know it. Where you go afterward is still being debated by many people and is not the focus of today’s writing.
However, if we remove sensation from your hand and apply a flame to your skin, does your body feel anything?
No.
Because it is no longer connected to the mind.
When you touch a table, you aren’t really touching the table; your mind is. The same goes for when you see light or colors or hear thunder in the distance. Your eyes aren’t seeing the color, and your ears aren’t hearing the thunder; they are merely instruments that allow your mind to process information that streams through them.
As such, when you are dealing with experiences and people, it’s your mind that is going through the experience. Therefore, nothing can bring you down if you can learn to control your mind.
It all comes down to your mindset, and there are things you can do to help cultivate a stronger or more resilient mindset.
Steps You Can Start Taking Today
- Cultivate Awareness
- As Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “You have to become conscious of your unconscious thoughts.”
- Become aware of what you are thinking and feeling as often as possible
- Reframe Negative Beliefs
- Each time you think a negative thought, restructure it to align with how you would like to think.
- Instead of thinking, “I don’t have what it takes,” think, “What can I do to make this happen?”
- Practice Gratitude
- Research shows that by practicing gratitude, you rewire the brain by creating and fostering more positive thoughts.
- The more you can be thankful about things in your life, the faster you can break that negative mindset. After all, you can’t be angry, resentful, frustrated, etc., when feeling grateful.
- Surround Yourself with Positivity
- As much as possible, surround yourself with people who inspire, uplift and encourage you.
- Limit exposure to negative influences, whether personal relationships, social media, news, or negative self-talk.
- Invest in Personal Development
- Read, listen to podcasts, and find inspiring people on social media to follow.
- Take time to work on yourself. Practice makes perfect.
- Adopt Mindfulness and Meditation
- These two practices can train the brain to stay present and observe your thoughts rather than just going with them.
- It can create space for you to think instead of just acting, increasing your ability to control your thoughts and feelings.
- Seek Professional Helpal Help
- Sometimes, working with someone else, such as a therapist, coach, or mentor, can help you gain insights you wouldn’t usually have on your own.
- Working with others can also speed up the process of learning how to overcome your negative thinking.
Finding Freedom
Starting on this journey of learning how to overcome yourself and your negative mindset can be daunting. I know because I went through this process myself. It’s the reason I’m writing this in the first place.
One of the challenges you will face if you choose this path is learning how to overcome yourself. As stated earlier, your mind will create ruts for itself because it wants to find the simplest way to do things.
Just like trying to get a cart out of a rut on the road can be difficult, the same is true for your mind. You may start to slip back into old thinking and feeling patterns.
When you think you’ve beaten something, you might find yourself facing what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle, and you’ll feel like you’ve fallen face down in the mud. You may think about giving up, but the best advice I can give is this: Don’t. Give. Up.
If you don’t quit, you win. You may not see victory for a while, or you may see it next week. Regardless, what matters is that you start and continue for as long as it takes.
Part of the issue with our society is that we’ve become a culture of instantaneous appetites. We want everything we want right now without waiting. Forget patience. Instant gratification now, or we move on.
However, finding healing often requires you to go on a journey.
The Journey
The funny thing about a journey, if we consider it through the lens of a story, is that the characters never know when or how it will end.
There are many ups and downs, setbacks, tears, heartache, longing, and feelings as if they’ve made it only to find they’re still so far away, and then finally, they reach their goal.
Yet, you likely think your life is mere happenstance instead of understanding that your passage through life is a story. But there’s a reason you like stories. It’s because, in the stories, you see a reflection of yourself. You experience the story from the character’s point of view, and it makes you feel alive.
You’re okay immersing yourself in the story, even if the overarching timeline takes years or even hundreds of years, because you’re still experiencing it for yourself in a limited amount of time.
The hard part is understanding that your life is a story, too. Instead of experiencing it like you would a book or a movie, you must live it out day by day, month by month, decade by decade. That can be difficult because there’s no way to jump ahead and see what’s coming or how things end up, and it literally takes a lifetime to get through your story.
However, you don’t rush your characters through their story. If it’s a good story, you try to savor the moments. How do you feel when the story is over if it was an excellent story? Generally, you long for that story to continue. You wish there were another book, movie, or episode to consume.
So, why not look at your life this way?
You have some challenges you’re working through; don’t rush them. This doesn’t mean you don’t work on them. It doesn’t mean you stop taking steps to move forward; it simply means you don’t get down if you haven’t arrived when you think you should.
Give yourself the grace to experience the entirety of your story.
Keep Doing the Work
Finding freedom requires that you keep doing the work. If you stop before you’ve arrived, you’ll simply drift back into your old ruts of thinking and feeling.
Experiencing the change you’re looking for, no matter what it is, requires you to stick with the work needed to see that change come to fruition. Some people take longer than others, and that’s ok.
Don’t compare your journey to anyone else’s. Keep your eyes on the road ahead and take the positive steps needed to overcome. When you start working to find change, you may not immediately see what you’re hoping for, but you will eventually begin to see it.
If you are adamant about changing your life or finding freedom, you can absolutely get there if you continue trying.
Stick with it, and I wish you all the best.
Please share this message with your family, friends, and network if you found it helpful or insightful.
Until next time…
Josiah
