In my personal opinion, it’s pretty difficult to regulate the thoughts that come across my mind. I know that there are plenty of people out there who have control over what they listen to as their thoughts go through their minds. These people practiced and practiced until they were able to come to a place where they could decide which thoughts they were going to continue to listen to and which thoughts they were going to just let pass away.

I haven’t gotten to a point where I can ignore the thoughts that I shouldn’t be listening to, and I’m sure that some of you out there who are reading this haven’t reached that point yet either. There are probably some of you out there who have never even tried very hard to regulate your thoughts. And the thing is, if all of the thoughts that we had during the day were positive thoughts, then there really wouldn’t be a need to try and regulate the thoughts that we have. But, unfortunately for us, negative thoughts creep into our minds from time to time, and many times, we may actually choose to listen to these thoughts as if they were true. We choose to listen to those thoughts because we think that they are true. But no matter how much you may think that they are true, the truth of the matter is that not all of your negative thoughts are true. Just because you believe something is true doesn’t mean that it is true. I mean think about it, there was probably a point in your life where you thought that there really was a jolly fat man in a red suit who lived in the North Pole and flew around the world in 24 hours in a giant red sleigh pulled by flying reindeers that helped him to deliver toys, that were made by tiny little elves, to all the good boys and girls. And there are definitely some of you out there who believed that there was a little woman with wings who would fly around and take your baby teeth that had fallen out of your mouth and give you money in exchange for them. Now that you’re older, you know that Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy aren’t real, but for some reason you can’t see your unreal negative thoughts for what they are.

Positive thinker, become mindful of your thoughts as you’re having them. Be present in your thoughts as you have them because when you focus on them then you can identify the thought that are worth listening to and the thoughts that you should just ignore. Yes, some of those negative thoughts that you have do have validity, but, generally speaking, when those thoughts come along you know that they are real and you do what you need to do so that they don’t take up too much of your time. It’s the thoughts that are negative and untrue that seems to give us the most trouble…

It’s those “All or Nothing” thoughts that tell you that you’re a loser because you messed up on one thing…

It’s those self-deprecating thoughts that tend to show up when you’re at your most vulnerable…

It’s those “Should” statements that make you feel like you’re not far enough along with your life goals

It’s those thoughts that belittle the positive things that you do do right in your life…

These are the types of thought that you need to be aware of. And these are the types of thoughts that you need to ignore. It’s difficult to stop validating these kinds of thoughts, especially when you’ve been doing it for a lifetime, but it’s something that you need to stop doing if you want to stop your negative thinking from taking away the joy that you experience in your life. These thoughts are NOT true, and this is what you need to tell yourself whenever this type of thinking comes and sneaks into your mind. And you’re probably not just going to be able to tell yourself this one time. You’re going to need to tell yourself over and over again that this negative thought is untrue. You’re going to have to tell yourself this until you believe what you’re telling yourself. You’re going to have to find something in your life that invalidates that negative thought, and once you find that thing or those things that make that negative thought untrue, hold on to it so that you can finally push that negative thought to the side.

Remember positive thinker, “You’d never invite a thief into your house. So why would you allow thoughts that steal your joy to make themselves at home in your mind?”