What you think about matters. And if you want to change the trajectory of your life, you need to change the way you think about it.

Our thoughts influence how we perceive, feel and react to the world around us.  

Thoughts are something we can learn to consciously control.

You can only think one thought at a time.

It is impossible to think of two things at once. You can flip back and forth between these two thoughts, but you can’t think them both at the same time.

Have you ever been reading, while something else is on your mind? When you stop you realize you can’t remember a single thing you read. Your thoughts were somewhere else.

Have you been in a conversation only to notice you don’t even know what is happening?

You can engage in behavior that is automatic while you think about something else. But you cannot think about more than one thing at a time.

Thoughts play a significant role in our emotions.

There are many theories of emotions examined in psychology today.

One of the most widely accepted explanations was compiled by Richard Lazarus.  He hypothesized that we first label or think about  a stimulus, and then the emotion is triggered. Often this happens without any conscious thought. The emotion, that result from the label given to an event, leads to action or behavior.

Therefore, the aspect of experience or interaction we chose to focus on, leads to how we interpret the situation. The thought label guides our emotions and directs us towards the action we choose.

Thoughts and Relationships

You might have an interaction with another individual who snaps at you.

You may think:

“What a jerk! ”

or you may think.

“He/she must be having a bad day.”

As you think “What a jerk!” your emotions will turn to hurt, anger or sadness.

If you think “He/she must be having a bad day,” your emotions may turn to compassion, a sense of caring or a desire to do something to help that individual’s day improve, or just understanding.

How we cognitively label our experiences–the story we tell about why it happened, begins the process of our emotional, physical and social reaction to the event.

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To learn about other strategies to help your relationships, check this out.

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Our thoughts about ourselves impact how we feel about ourselves.

You make a mistake, like everyone on this earth does. You now choose how you view the consequences of the mistake.

If you say to yourself, “I’m so stupid, I never do anything right,” you will feel discouraged, depressed and unhappy.

If you say to yourself, “I can try again and I bet I will get it right next time,” you have changed your emotions to optimism, encouragement, and determination.

It’s easy to believe our environment yields control over our mental wellness. It does impact it, but ultimately thoughts are the guiding force resulting in how we feel about and react to our environment.

Perhaps Victor Frankl, a victim of Hitler’s concentration camps said it best, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

To choose your attitude, to choose your emotions–take control and choose your thoughts.

It takes a concerted effort and you have to stop and consciously recognize your thoughts and how you can change them. But, it is one of the strongest catalyst for altering our emotions from harmful to healthy, from negative to positive.

Changing one thought at a time has the power to completely change your life situation as it dominoes into your behavior.

So, the next time your thought takes on a negative tone, take a minute to recognize it and decide if you are choosing the most helpful aspect of your situation to focus on.