The Power of Our Thoughts
Coaching Tip #43
Do you ever notice your thoughts cycling around and around in your head? Are they loud and persistent or subtle and emerge at seemingly random and sometimes inconvenient moments? If you do stop and acknowledge your thoughts, do you also stop and decide what actions you can take from them?
Our thoughts can be an incredibly powerful and positive force behind our actions.
To operate at our highest capacity, we must learn to control what we can and let go of what we cannot. Awareness is always the first step. This isn’t easy. The space between thought and action is purvey of the whole mediation and mindful industry. It is a never-ending pursuit that begins when you notice a thought rambling around and then, bring an active awareness to it by pausing and asking yourself this incredibly powerful question: “What is the influence this thought is having on me.”
Is this thought creating motivation, acting as a detractor, starting an incubator process, or simply floating through your consciousness similar to clouds in the sky? Note that I did not ask what kind of thought it was, just the influence it has over you. There is a reason for this that I want to explore.
Motivating thoughts are formed out of all kinds of situations and include the emotions derived from those situations. Success, failure, anger, fear, neglect, power, acceptance, stress and love are all examples that can produce a deep positive motivational action. Unfortunately, the same thoughts and emotions can also create actions that detract from your objective. In this coaching tip the focus in not on kind of thought it is, but what you do with your thoughts.
Not all thoughts arise from emotions and situations. We can have thoughts and not have any idea the reasons behind them. Think back on a random thought that that created an idea that you acted on. It might have been asking someone on a date or answering a random email. It could be a moment where you shared a vulnerable feeling or provided support to someone in need. Your intuition says pay attention and subsequent action results in ideas that incubate and create further action. Think about incubator thoughts as “What if thoughts”
In my case, the incubator thought was simply “what if I interviewed 100 high performers that positively transitioned from one type of success to another, what would I learn”. It took 8 years but without that thought, the awareness of it and then the decision to act, I would not have published my book “Personal Next”.
And then we must recognize that not all thoughts need a reason, and in fact the preponderance of these thoughts are what I call floater thoughts. Like the clouds that pass overhead, they float by and eventually disappear. I bring this to your attention because we must also learn to let go of some of our thoughts. When we accept that the influence of a momentary thought has no bearing on our long-term happiness and growth, we again take control. Awareness does not always mean engaging.
We are all unique. There is no cookie cutter answer to how your thoughts influence your actions. What is significant thought for one person may not even be on the radar for another.
Our thoughts do have the potential to be one of the most powerful tools we have available to us. Here are 5 thoughts to start maximizing the use of this tool.
Bring an awareness to your thoughts. Work hard at this; it is a huge challenge for most of us to develop our mindfulness.
Ask: Is there is a pattern to these thoughts?
Get curious on how these thoughts influence your actions
Decide if that influence helps you or takes away from who you are and/or the objectives that you are striving toward.
Don’t try to suppress random thoughts. Decide if a random thought is meant for you to explore a “what if” or let them float away.
Melinda