Are you a victim of negative thinking? Do you find your self upset, feeling down or even depressed and you don't know why? Well consider this, our feelings, our emotions, and our results in life are all a mirror of our thoughts. To be more specific it is not just our thoughts but what we think about constantly that creates our reality. Whatever we think about is what we get more of in life. Now people would argue that they constantly think about what they "don't" want, rather than just how bad things are. Where they are correct in knowing that thinking about what is wrong will not make things better, what they miss is the idea that thinking about what you do not want will never bring you what you do want. For example: If you say "I don't want to be over weight anymore." That statement is still negative, the word don't is negative, as well as over weight that phrase tends to be more negative than positive don't you think? So saying something like "I want to have more health." Or "I want to have more muscle." Those statements are much more positive and can help get into a state where you can really make them happen. So I challenge you to learn and apply the next three steps, not only will your positive thinking increase, but your manic negative thinking will be a thing of the past.

1. Awareness

When it comes to self improvement learning to be aware is absolutely crucial. Why is awareness so important? Well, if we are not aware of the things that hold us back, that bring us down, what lock us up, then we are destined remain victims of their result. So take it upon your self to be aware, listen to your thoughts, monitor them. Start to watch out for negative beliefs, negative thinking, negative feelings, and negative actions. Look out for people, places or things that are negative, and make an effort to detach your self from them. Try to be conscience of the vocabulary you use, begin to rephrase anything words or statements that are negative and restate them as positive. Example: "I hate my job." Rephrase and say "I would love to find a new job." This is such a powerful skill to develop, the more you can be aware of your thinking the more design your life. So take this first step to heart and truly work on being aware. I believe we all have the right to choose how we want to feel, how we want to experience life, and being aware is a great place to start.

2. Responsibility

A large challenge we face in this day and age is that we all from time to time play the blame game, you know what I mean. When we point the finger away from our self, we blame our job, the weather, our family or anything else to take the attention off our self. We do that because it is easy, its easy to point the finger at someone else it takes the weight off of our shoulders. The funny part is we don't take responsibility for our feelings, we pass them off onto someone, or something else yet we still feel bad, is this clue maybe? Of course it is, this tells us that moving the blame onto someone or something else will never be a successful solution. Maybe it eases things in the moment but it is never a solution. If you asked a hundred people if they would like more happiness in their life I can almost guarantee that they would all say yes, but how many of them are willing say look at them self and say they are the main source of their unhappiness? Close to none, that is what separates those who are truly successful to those who encounter success every once and a while. So if all that is true than taking responsibility for your thoughts, your beliefs and your actions becomes huge. It shifts from everything being someone else's fault and you not being able to do anything about it, being powerless, to having total control because you know happiness is a choice and no matter what happens you can decide how you are going to perceive the information and what you are going to do about it. Now you are much more free, you are less of a victim. And that my friends is an incredible thought.

3. Commitment

Now make no mistake the final step is just as important as the others. You are now aware of your thoughts; you take full responsibility for them. True self master comes when you decide to make to total commitment. Now this is not short order, it takes some time and it takes some stick-to-it-ness. Trust me I know it is difficult to start on a new path of thinking, especially if you have a strong history of negative thinking but I promise you the reward you get, the value is worth far more than what it will cost you to achieve it. All it takes is complete ownership of a few new beliefs to get you off and running, and those beliefs could be something to the effect of; the past doesn't equal the future, or all the power I need is within me now. Anything that will jolt your thinking into a new direction. So keep your chin up, no matter how tough things get. Hey listen, we all have bad days but we can drastically reduce the amount of bad days we have by making a total commitment to thinking positive and owning our thoughts. Got it? Now go out there and really live!