Rebooting Your Brain for a Positive Outlook
Change Your Future by Renewing Your Mind
Your mind is the first critical arena in which you must do battle in order to escape the trap of negative thinking and adopt a positive attitude. If you’re going to enjoy all the benefits of a positive outlook—an increased sense of well-being, more joy, greater opportunities, deeper relationships, and a higher level of success in life—you must first renew your mind. But how? Negative thinking is more than a disease; it’s a pattern, a rut that’s etched onto your brain from years and years of practice. If you’ve ever tried to break a longtime habit, or make sweeping changes in a tradition-bound institution, or quite literally teach an old dog new tricks, then you know that long-ingrained patterns of thought are extremely difficult to break.
The good news is that it can be done. Many people before you have made the journey from negative thinker to ebullient optimist, and you can too. To begin that journey, we’ll find direction in a place that has been a source of hope, inspiration, and positive change to countless people—the Bible.
One of the most powerful statements in the writings of any faith tradition comes from a man named Paul, who wrote many of the Christian scriptures. In his longest and best-known writing, Paul said this: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”1 As a young person, I discovered those words, and they’ve truly changed my life. The secret to gaining and keeping a positive attitude is contained there, and it’s so simple. These words confirm what we’ve already noted both from psychological research and life experience—if you want to make a positive change in your life, you must first change your mind. Your thoughts are the key.
A second important element is contained in that statement also, right at the beginning. Notice the words “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.” In other words, to transform your life you must be willing to separate yourself from the culture around you, which is largely negative. You must recognize the ways in which you’ve been sucked into the whirlpool of negativity that surrounds you and break free from the patterns of thought, speech, and behavior that go along with them.
So taking Paul’s words as a guide, the first step to rebooting your mind so you can adopt a positive attitude is to break the old patterns of thought, and the second is to develop new thinking. Let’s put some practical steps behind each of those objectives so that you can reboot your brain, renew your thoughts, and adopt a positive outlook.
Break the Old Patterns
My home in Oklahoma is surrounded by greenery, and I sometimes watch the birds that come and go through the seasons. Hummingbirds are my favorites. These little magicians flit here and there, pausing to hover in midair as they look for something sweet to imbibe through their delicate bills. They’re attracted to the color red, which is why hummingbird feeders typically have bright red on them somewhere, and they love nectar. That means hummingbirds are easy to attract: All you need is sugar water and red food coloring. They’re always attracted to what’s bright and sweet.
There’s another type of bird that shows up on my property from time to time, and it couldn’t be more different from the hummingbird. These birds are much larger, and they can often be seen soaring high overhead or perched on the very top branches of a tree. These birds ride thermal currents in the air and use their keen sense of smell to locate rotting flesh. I’m speaking, of course, of the turkey vulture. These scavengers fly over much of the same range as the hummingbird, but they don’t see bright colors and savor sweet smells. Instead, they’re attracted to what is dead, decaying, and foul.
In seeking to adopt a positive outlook, you’re undertaking the arduous task of transforming yourself from a turkey vulture into a hummingbird. You’re moving from a lifetime of thoughts, words, actions, and habits that focus on the negative—what’s not right, not hopeful, difficult, and discouraging—to seek what’s bright and sweet: hope, joy, gratitude, kindness, and the other attributes of a positive attitude. In short, you must break the old negative patterns of thought.
Here are three steps to doing just that.
Take a Mental Inventory
Your first step in breaking old patterns of negative thought will be to take a mental inventory. Your goal here is to assess your thoughts and determine exactly where you need to change. To do this, I suggest that you adopt the same technique used by successful dieters and budgeters. It’s been proven that people who keep a food diary, that is, who write down everything they eat all day, are far more successful at losing weight than those who don’t. Also, people who keep a record of everything they spend are far more successful at living on a budget. There’s something about putting your behavior in black-and-white that clarifies reality and motivates change. You can leverage that power by keeping a thought diary. Try this for a week or longer. You’ll need some place to record your diary, but it doesn’t have to be fancy. A small notebook, your smart phone or computer, or a simple piece of paper will do. The important thing is that you record your thoughts.
To keep your diary, it’s not necessary to record every word you think all day. That would take too much time and space, though it would be revealing for you to read. It will be enough to pause no fewer than three times each day and record your thoughts and reactions for the previous period of time. Give special attention to these things:
• your mood
• your reactions to the things people say to you
• your reactions to the things that happen around you (including the weather, traffic, happenings at home or work)
• your reactions to ideas that are proposed to you
• actions you consider taking
• your words
At the end of each day, assess your thought activity by asking yourself these questions:
• Was my mood generally positive, negative, or neutral? What accounts for that mood?
• Were my responses to people mostly positive or negative? Why?
• Were my responses to the things that happened today mostly positive or negative? Why?
• Were my responses to new ideas mostly positive or negative? Why?
• How much did I engage in any of these negative types of speech: complaining, naysaying, criticizing, belittling, arguing, using profanity?
• To what degree did I engage in any of these positive types of speech: complimenting, affirming, encouraging, suggesting, consoling, motivating?
• Which of my actions, or planned actions, were the result of negative forces, such as fear or anger?
• Which of my actions (or planned actions) were the result of positive forces, such as hope and joy?
• How much did I worry today? What effect did it have on me or others?
• Overall, did I display an attitude that was more negative or more positive today?
After just a few days of this exercise, you’ll begin to see the ways that negative thinking may have a grip on your life.
Take a Media Fast
The negativity of the world around us affects us in a variety of ways, many of them quite subtle. Complaining, naysaying, and gossiping may arise chiefly from our immediate surroundings at home, work, or school. Yet there’s more to negative thought than complaining. Materialism, a victim mentality, insults as humor, and the culture of outrage all come to us from beyond our person-to-person conversations; they come to us through the media.
Your consumption of mass media and social media has a tremendous impact on your thinking, whether you realize it or not. What you see and hear on television, videos, the Internet, social media, and good old-fashioned print media all pull you inexorably toward the culture of negative thought. Think about it: How much of what you see in the media is positive and uplifting? Most of it is sensationalized, sexualized, or steeped in controversy. Why? Because that’s what gets attention, and the communications media thrive on attention. The cumulative weight of the negative images, bawdy humor, anger, and disparaging comments are bound to affect your mental outlook. You simply cannot break the patterns of negative thinking in your mind unless and until you address your consumption of negative words, sounds, and images through mass media, Internet, and social media.
To jump-start your shift to a positive outlook, declare a total fast from the media for a period of time. I recommend three weeks, but even a few days will be enough to show you how great a volume of negative thought you receive through these channels, and how much better you feel without them. This isn’t to say that the media, Internet, and social communications are bad in themselves. Far from it. They can be tremendously positive tools in our lives if we use them that way. For that to be the case, you must first see how negatively they’re impacting you. To do that, you need a period of media silence.
Your mind is probably rebelling at that prospect. You’re wondering, How can I live without social media? The very fact that you’re asking that question should indicate how deeply these communication channels are embedded into your life and your lifestyle patterns. That alone should give you a reason to take a break.
Here’s how a media fast works. First, set a time to fast. Don’t be afraid to make this challenging. If you think you can’t last longer than a day, set it for a week. Make your goal longer than you think you can tolerate. That’s the first step in breaking this pattern.
Next, enlist the support of those around you. Tell your family members what you’re doing and why, and ask for their help in achieving your goal. Enlist the help of a friend who can act as an accountability partner. Telling others will both garner their support and give you an added reason to stick to your fast when it becomes difficult.
Third, consider the minimum communication you must have in order to function in your various roles—in your family, as a student, an employee, or a boss. If you need to be available by phone, keep your phone on; just disable or hide the communications apps. If you need to use the Internet for work, do so. Just be sure that your use is for legitimate work purposes only.
Fourth, shut down. This will take a bit of time and planning, because these communication tools are woven so tightly into our lives. Shut off the alerts on your phone, and don’t carry it with you every moment. You may want to move the television out of your bedroom or living room to break the daily habit of switching it on.
Fifth, replace the time spent on media and communications with more positive thought activities. Rather than surfing the Internet, read an uplifting book. During your commute, spend time planning your day rather than listening to talk radio. Conversation, recreation, exercise, napping, housework—all these are positive alternatives to soaking up the negative thought and energy you would otherwise receive through the media.
Sixth, reflect on your experience. What aspects of the media did you miss? Why is it so difficult to unplug? What are you learning about yourself? What do you notice in others, now that you’re not constantly wired? What negative thoughts, images, and attitudes are now beginning to fade? How do you feel about the experience? What will you want your media experience to look like moving forward?
Seventh, plan your reentry. A media fast isn’t intended to be permanent. It’s an adjustment period to identify and break old patterns of thought and behavior. You’ll return to media consumption at some point, so plan what you’d like your media use to look like. How will you limit the time spent on social media? What will you do to limit or counter the negativity you’ll hear each day through the news? What permanent deletions will you make from your media consumption?
As a warning, let me say that your first time consuming media after a fast will be jarring. You’ll realize that you’d been soaking up a lot of negativity—complaints, insults, sexualized advertising, angry rhetoric, and the like. You may wonder how you ever coped with that constant flow of negative thought! That jarring experience will be a confirmation that you’ve taken positive steps to break the patterns of negative thought in your life.
Select Companions Carefully
Just as the media has had a great effect on your thinking, so do your friends and associates. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn teaches what he calls the Law of Averages, and one aspect of this is that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Think about that for a moment. Who are the people you’re around the most? Who has the greatest input into your life? Whose voices do you hear most often? Whose status updates do you most often read? Who are you taking your cues from?
Without realizing it, many of us have surrounded ourselves by negative thinkers. That shouldn’t be surprising if you’ve been mired in negative thought yourself. You surround yourself with people who think as you do, and you begin to think as they do. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. To break free from negative thought, you must set boundaries on the time you spend with negative people. You cannot immerse yourself into a break room filled with complainers and hope to escape with a positive outlook. If you hang around people who gossip and think negatively about others, you’ll begin to do it too. Carefully select the company you keep. Breaking the old patterns of thought may mean breaking, or at least altering, some patterns of association.
Breaking old patterns of thought and behavior is the first step in transforming your attitude. The second step is to renew your mind. It isn’t enough to simply throw out the old; you must replace it with something better.
Give Your Self-Image a Makeover
We conquer destructive feelings by identifying them, rejecting them, and replacing them with healthy thoughts. That includes negative thoughts about yourself. Many people are their own worst critic. The voice they hear telling them that they won’t amount to much or can’t succeed isn’t coming from a parent, a coach, or a boss, but from themselves.
To break that pattern and improve your thinking about yourself, begin by making an honest assessment of your harmful thoughts and failures. Do you have a tendency to say, “I’m so stupid!” when you make a mistake? Do you look at the mirror and think, Ugh, I’m ugly! Your first step to change is to be aware of what you’re doing.
Next, turn away from those thoughts. Simply reject them and replace them with more positive—and true!—statements about yourself. When you make a mistake, say, “Everybody’s human, and I’ve gained a valuable lesson here.” If you’re unhappy with your appearance, tell yourself, I’m beautiful, just as God made me. And I’m going to get myself in the best possible shape! Fill your mind and heart with true, positive thoughts about yourself. Never allow yourself to dwell on failure, talk yourself down, or believe that you cannot succeed. Give your self-image a makeover.
Many people find it helpful to make positive affirmations about themselves, particularly during stressful or difficult times. This isn’t hokum, and there’s no magic to it. It simply means repeating aloud the positive things you know to be true about yourself. The effect on your self-esteem will be tremendous. The next time you’re nervous about a presentation at work, look yourself in the mirror and say, “You’re well prepared, and you’re going to shine!” When someone insults you or ignores you, say to yourself or someone else, “I am a good, lovable person. There’s nothing wrong with me!” This isn’t a denial of your problems. It’s simply a rejection of the false opinions that you or others have had concerning yourself.
Choose Positive Inputs
We’ve already talked about how negative input can skew your thinking toward the negative. The same is true in the opposite direction. Positive input into your mind will build your positive attitude and help you maintain it.
Here are three critical areas in which you must carefully screen your inputs and choose to dwell on the positive.
Friends. The power of negative friends to pull your life in a negative direction is obvious. Positive-thinking friends will likewise help raise your positive mental attitude. Who are the most positive people you know? At work, who’s the “can do” person? Which of your friends seem to have the most joy? Which ones seem the most successful where it counts—in family, relationships, and integrity? Choose to spend more time around these people. Look for ways to be in their circle and soak up their positive thoughts and influence.
Media. After your media fast, you’ll have a good idea where the negativity is coming from in your reading, viewing, listening, and use of social media. Where are the positive sources? Which radio stations play the most positive music? Which news outlets present the most balanced, hopeful vision of the world? Which social media platforms fill you with hope, humility, and a positive vision? What authors inspire you to be the best you can be? Choose to invite more of these voices into your mind. It will change your thinking for the better.
Private thoughts. Perhaps no input into your mind is more powerful than the private thoughts you choose to entertain. If these thoughts are negative—anger, revenge, envy, coveting, and the like—you’ll be dragged into negative thinking no matter how many good external inputs you have. To be fully successful in adopting a positive outlook, you must choose to dwell on positive thoughts. No one can control this but you.
Choose to invite positive thoughts into your mind. Whatever is wholesome, positive, hopeful, inspiring, and challenging, whatever fuels you, motivates you, and lifts your sights to a better future, think about such things. Review your achievements at the end of each day, making positive plans for tomorrow. Talk about the message or craft of a movie or book with a friend. Engage the thinking of others through reading thoughtful blogs.
Don’t ignore negative thoughts or experiences. Simply notice them, learn what you can from them, and move on. Let your mind rest on the positive thoughts that will feed your positive attitude.
Stretch Yourself
A third way to renew your mind is to continually improve it. You can do this by committing yourself to being a lifelong learner. Stretch your mind by considering new ideas and having new experiences. Challenge yourself to meet new people and learn how they think. Look for opportunities for learning through your work. Don’t allow yourself to become complacent intellectually. By constantly challenging yourself to grow, you’ll learn new things, gain fresh insights into old problems, and create a steady stream of positive thoughts and ideas into your mind.
It’s Time for a Mind Change
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale wrote, “And now we get down to two magic words that tell us how to accomplish just about anything we want to accomplish, two powerful words that can change any situation, two dynamic words that all too few people use. And what are these two amazing words? Do it!”2 Now is the time for you to do it by putting the learning from this book into action. Up to now we’ve been talking theoretically about the power of your attitude and drawing the connection between your outlook, your thoughts, your words, actions, habits, choices—your life. Now is the time to form your own practical plan for combating the power of negative thinking in the first critical arena of your life, your mind.
Let’s begin with step one in your battle for the mind: breaking negative patterns. When will you begin your thought journal? Who will you invite to join you on this process? For what period of time will you commit to journaling your thoughts? Will you begin today?
When will you schedule your media fast? How long will you fast? Who’ll encourage you and hold you accountable in this?
Begin now to make an inventory of the friends and associates who have the most input into your life. Identify those who are the most positive so you can maximize your time with them. Also identify those who are negative influences on you. How will you reduce or eliminate that negative input?
Now let’s talk about renewing your thoughts. How much of your negative thinking stems from a negative view of yourself? Is this view accurate? With whom can you discuss your feelings about yourself to test their validity? Who can offer positive, constructive comments about you and your attitude, both the things that are positive and those that may need to change? When will you seek out this person?
What are the positive sources of input you can feed into your mind? What lifestyle changes must you make so you can spend more time and energy gaining from these sources?
Finally, how will you challenge yourself to keep growing? Your mind must be continually fed, just like your body. How will you stretch yourself, challenge yourself to new learning, and expose yourself to new ideas and experiences? What lifestyle changes will you have to make in order to do that? When will you begin?
I believe in you. You have what it takes to win in the first arena where you must battle negative thinking in order to establish a positive attitude. You can win the battle of the mind. Let’s do this!