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UNDERSTAND THE FOUR PILLARS OF
THOUGHT: PILLAR #1—THE WHAT

Since thinking is perhaps the most powerful tool you have at your disposal to improve the quality of your life instantly, it will be important and helpful to you if you can gain an understanding of what I like to call the four pillars of thought. If you were to master each of the four pillars, you’d probably find that your life would become a whole lot easier and less complicated. You’d certainly feel less stressed, and would get along with others a little better. For that reason, I’m going to dedicate this and the next three strategies to these four topics.

Pillar #1 has to do with what you think about. Obviously, if you were to think nothing but angry, frustrated thoughts, twenty-four hours a day, your life would consist of mostly angry and frustrated feelings—a pretty dark existence. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to experience joy or laughter, or for you to be nice to anyone else. Luckily, most of us don’t think exclusively negative thoughts or anything close to it. Yet it’s also true that most of us probably have never spent much time or energy reflecting on what the nature of the majority of our thoughts are like either. In other words, do you know what percentage of your thoughts are happy, insecure, angry, stressed, jealous, productive, and fearful?

Imagine that you were trying to make some old-fashioned, homemade vegetable soup. You’d probably look for the freshest carrots, celery, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and peas. As important, you’d avoid all spoiled or rotten foods, and wouldn’t even consider adding a single ingredient that would ruin your end result. The reason: You would know, with absolute certainty, that if you were to deviate from quality ingredients, your soup would surely suffer. Likewise, you would be aware that by sticking to a proven recipe, success is almost guaranteed.

In a way, what you think about is one of the most important ingredients of your life. To a large degree, the thoughts you add to the mix determine the feelings you experience and the behavior you put into action.

This is very simple but powerful. Once you equate what you think about directly with the quality of your life, you’ll find yourself paying closer attention to the thoughts you allow to enter your mind. And when negative or hurtful thoughts do occur, you’ll find yourself dismissing them much more quickly or attaching less significance to them. A high school student, Jason, told me that this “soup metaphor” was more helpful to him than any other he had ever heard. He told me, “I’ve become very selective, almost selfish, about what thoughts make the cut. I think in negative terms only when it’s truly necessary.” By making this one small change in his life, he told me his life was “about a hundred times better in every sense of the word.”

Why put negative, hateful, self-defeating, angry, or frustrated thoughts into the mix when you know, with absolute certainty, that the result will be spoiled feelings? You’ll discover that, the more you ask this question, the more picky you’ll become. Let’s go on to pillar #2.