Your Thoughts Affect Your Actions

Your thoughts cause your feelings, and your feelings lead to your actions.

You think, “I’m bored.” You feel restless. You call a friend to chat or go out.

You think, “That was a long crappy day.” You feel stressed. You overeat or overdrink.

You think, “This guy is not going to cut me off.” You feel irritated. You speed up and don’t let him merge.

How about this.

Scenario 1:  Your alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. on Monday, and it is the beginning of another work week. You feel dread and you hit the snooze button several times, delaying the start of your day as long as possible. 

Scenario 2:  Your alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. on Monday and it is the beginning of your vacation. You feel excited, you jump out of bed raring to go, as soon as the alarm goes off.

The driving factor in what you do in response to the alarm going off is how you are thinking and feeling about the day that lies ahead of you.

And if you regularly examine those thoughts (go back to my last email), or even stop in that moment and think about how you’re thinking about the situation, you can decide if that is okay with you. If that is the way you want to think about the situation. 

And you may be thinking now, yeah I want to think about it that way because my commute is long, my boss is mean and my coworker is crazy. But I would offer, your commute is a certain number of miles/minutes, your boss is a person on the org chart above you, and your coworker is someone employed by the same company, and that is it. 

How many buts did you just throw at me? But my drive is 45 minutes each way. But my boss finds fault with everything I do. But I hear my coworker on the phone talking about all her drama.

Someone else could look at the same situation this way. 45 minutes to learn French in the morning and 45 minutes for the latest NYT bestseller on the way on the way home. My boss helps me see where I have opportunities for improvement.  And if I change the names to protect the innocent, I could use that drama and write the next NYT bestseller.

It is all in how you spin it.  So why not spin it to improve the quality of your days and life. 

I’m not asking you to be a skipping Pollyanna, I’m just saying you hold the power! There is real power in your thoughts! So frame those thoughts so they work for you, not against you.

Next, we will explore adopting new thoughts and beliefs.