CONTROL – A great acronym to remind you how you can take back control of your life!
This post is dedicated to all the people I have coached thus far who have made me realize the power of conscious thought.
Despite the high levels of scientific discoveries and developments, psychologists or neurologists have yet to understand the exact mechanism of why a specific thought comes into our brain. Some of us are just wired positively and tend to have happier positive thoughts, while others tend to look at the darker side of things or the worst-case scenarios. While we may not understand why a specific thought comes into our head or why we start to worry so much about some things, we do understand how we can consciously change an unhelpful thought into a positive one! Below are the steps that will help you identify your thoughts and change them, if required. The best way to remember the steps is to use the acronym CONTROL
Step 1: Be Conscious of your Thoughts
Sometimes it is almost unbelievable that we have thoughts that we are not conscious about. We believe that we have things under control and the thoughts that we are having are conscious enough for us to understand. However, that is not the truth. We get so used to things being the way they are that we do not realize how often we are thinking some things without evaluating them specifically. This tends to happen especially when you are used to a specific routine or lifestyle.
For example, how often have you thought of the manner in which your head space is organized and the amount of time you are giving to your work, your family, your child, your hobbies, or your dreams? How often do you question a thought that comes in your head about your future? How many times do you sit down with yourself to take a dive inside your head and assess the ideas and possibilities that you may be suppressing? The question here is – do you question yourself enough?
Being conscious of your thoughts means active policing. As with all things that you need to learn, it is not an easy thing to do in the beginning. You may feel that you are taking too much time away from the things that you need to do in order to just be aware of the thoughts. A good way to manage that is to be aware of the thoughts and then ‘park’ them away for an hour later which you will dedicate to thinking about them. It is also a good idea to carry a small notepad or write it down in an app on your phone to refer to them later. Call it a thought diary, if you will!
Step 2: Organize
After you have done the thought monitoring for about a week, look at what you have got. What you may find in the dump yard of your thoughts will be different from anyone else. This is the unique you, thinking about all the things that matter to you.
When you organize your thoughts, think of the patterns that appear. Are you thinking too much about one thing? What kind of thoughts are these? Are they thoughts about the future or the past? Is there something that seems to be holding you back from getting where you want to go? Is there something missing in these thoughts that you have identified like a possibility that you are not allowing yourself to feel, experience or explore?
Sometimes, analyzing these thoughts can best be done with a friend who knows you best and has an insightful way of thinking. Friends or supporters can help you see the things that you may be missing out on. This is important because when you are looking at your thoughts, you see what you have been thinking and it seems familiar and comfortable. When you get an objective and outside opinion, they can help direct you towards what may be an overwhelming obsession towards a specific tendency. If you do not think you have someone who can do this for you, a coach is a great idea since we are trained in being insightful, supportive and objective, while keeping your goals and desires in mind.
Step 3: Name it
The organization of thoughts will help you arrive at what you need to address to move forward in whatever area you choose to do so. For example, you may feel that you are not starting your project because you have a belief that you are not good enough or that your presentation is not sophisticated enough. You may be holding back from asking your girlfriend or boyfriend to marry you because you are afraid of rejection or scared of commitment. The list of things that we tell ourselves when we are afraid to do something is unending and unique to each person.
Naming the unhelpful thought is another tough step because it is so much a part of you that you do not realize it needs changing. For each of the broad areas of thoughts that you are having, it may be a good idea to ask yourself – Is this thought helping me move ahead or not? And if you discover a thought that you feel are holding you back, that is the one that you want to attack. If you find yourself coming with an excuse or any kind of justification, however obvious it seems, you need to address it.
Naming the limiting thought requires you to understand that a thought is just a thought and any one of those can be challenged. Some of the limiting thoughts that I have come across in my coaching include:
I am not smart enough
I have not done this before and so I will be bad at it
It is wrong to spend so much time and money on myself when someone else is suffering
This is not the perfect time to start a new project
I just do not have enough time to get it done
I have tried everything and there is nothing else left to be done
It is immoral to ignore other people’s needs
There must be something wrong with me if I have been rejected so many times
I cannot leave this relationship because I do not think I will find someone better
I have to work hard and provide for my family or else everything will fall apart
Step 4: Take it apart
Identify that one thought that is holding you back from your goal and the happiness that you deserve and then take it apart. This is the step where you ask yourself some questions that can have impossible answers – answers that you feel are not there within you. The idea is to force yourself to find those answers within; something that takes time, effort, motivation and willpower. While I do not promise that the process will be easy, I do promise that the results you get are amazing and liberating.
Ask yourself what is the proof that this thought is true? List as many things that you can that you have been telling yourself to convince yourself that these are immovable facts.
Then ask yourself whether there is an alternate way of looking at the situation? If you feel that you have to work hard for your family or else everything will fall apart, question yourself if you may be scared to stop because all your self-worth comes from being a provider. If you feel that you will be bad at something because you have never done it before, ask yourself how you will know if you have not tried? If you feel it is immoral to ignore other people’s needs, then ask yourself what it is to ignore your own needs?
Force yourself to think of alternate scenarios by putting yourself in other people’s shoes. Ask yourself what someone with a positive outlook would think like. Imagining a specific positive person who you know may be a good way to start.
Step 5: Rely on yourself
As you are questioning yourself, make sure that you trust yourself and rely on your thoughts. Sometimes when we analyze our own thoughts to such an extent, it is easy to get confused or start doubting everything that you are thinking. At such a time, you have to tell yourself that you are undergoing a process of cleansing where you decide your way forward by making a conscious choice about what to believe.
At this stage, you have to make sure that you do not engage in too much over think. A simpler way of looking at a thought is to ask if the thought is helping you achieve anything? If your answer is no, then you know that this thought is useless and not leading to any positive consequences.
A note of caution here about some warning signals that your mind may be sending you about impending danger or possible negative outcomes. If you ‘can’ do something to prevent a negative outcome, be sure to listen hard to that feeling and take action. These are the thoughts that protect you by motivating you to act. It is fine line that one needs to travel here!
Step 6: Out with the old
Having learnt what the limiting thought is, how it is not helping you and realizing there are other ways to look at the same situation, consciously decide to ditch the thought from your mind. Here is where the real policing comes in. You have to now look out for that specific thought when it appears in your mind, catch it before it takes you into a spiral of negativity and worst-case scenarios and stop right there. This is called the STOP technique that coaches ask your clients to use in order to maintain a healthy mindset.
Step 7: Learn new thoughts
Just asking someone to not think about the unhealthy thoughts does not work. The more we tell ourselves to not think about something, the more we end up thinking about the same negative thought. Which is why it is essential that we fill up our minds with other thoughts that are positive.
The first thing you can do is to find productive things to do in order to prevent negative thoughts coming in your head. Go back into time and think of things that you like to do and engage in those. Pick up a new hobby, learn a new thing online, get involved in giving back to society or read an inspiring book.
Despite these attempts to keep yourself involved in productive things, you may find that you still keep going back to worry or insecurities. At such times, replace the negative thought with a positive one and tell yourself that each time you need to shut off an unhealthy idea. This process works best when you have gone through the other steps of analyzing your thoughts and realizing that it is am assumption you are making that may not be true. For example, if you start to fret about how your presentation is not good enough, replace it by telling yourself that you are competent and capable. Say it loud to yourself and see how it actually changes your mood as you increase your enthusiasm in the idea.
As I finish off this post, I realize that I have tried to keep these steps as general as I could with examples thrown in to help people identify. I do understand that doing this exercise alone may be tough for some people. It is especially difficult to identify and challenge your own thoughts because you believe in them so deeply that they seem as true and factual as something you can tough.
Despite this understanding, I would urge you to go ahead and try thing on yourself. If you still feel you are not able to get ahead on your own, a friend, a coach, or a counsellor is always there to help. You may not realize it now but the progress that you can make in terms of controlling your life if tremendous!
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