By: D. A. Slinkard
Life can be a struggle. Life can be hard, but at times life can be easy. What I know is there is a battle going on within each one of us concerning our minds. This is more of an accurate statement than most people realize, especially as life tends to be 10% of what happens to us and 90% of how we handle what comes our way. The battlefield of the mind is an important aspect of our lives that we must learn how to handle, and we must learn how to control it. There is a war being waged against us, and we must learn how to overcome the battles taking place in our own minds.
I do believe attitude is important; however, you must learn how to control your mindset to have a great attitude. Most people living their everyday lives have not been able to master this concept; therefore, life can be a little difficult at times to deal with. The question becomes — How does a person master their mindset? How can a person go from out of control to becoming in control with their line of thinking?
The truth is that to have success, it will take work and a lot of it. If it was easy being able to control our thoughts, everyone would be walking around thinking positively. Everyone would be living their best life ever, but this is not the case. It is easier to think negatively than it is to think positively. Thinking positively takes a lot of hard work that most people are not willing to put the time into. It is just easier to be negative. Because it is easier to be destructive with our attitudes, most people never can pull themselves up by their attitude.
To change your mind from thinking negatively to being able to have a positive outlook, you are going to want to train yourself to recognize when your thinking grows more negative. It will take concentrated efforts to realize when you go from thinking positively to thinking negatively simply because we often do not even give it a second thought when our thinking goes dark. We just think this is a way of life and as I have already written – it is much easier to think negatively than what it is to think positively. You will want to focus on something that brings happiness in your life. Take the time right now and think about what brings joy into your heart. Is it a family member? A spouse? A child? Grandchild? Activity? Whatever it may be, the next time you start to go negative, I want you to immediately focus on the thing or person that brings joy into your life.
It may sound crazy, but this is going to take work. The next time you get stressed out, start thinking about the things that bring joy into your life. Remember, the entire purpose of this mental exercise is to change your way of thinking. By changing your way of thinking, you will also be able to change the direction and course of your life. You will find this is much harder than what most people realize, and chances are you will not be very good at changing your thought patterns…in the beginning at least. However, the more you do this exercise, the more you will be able to control your thoughts. You will then be able to realize when a thought pattern is about to change negatively in your life and be able to head it off.
If it sounds psychological, it is. We are all going to have bad things happen in our lives; it is inevitable. There are going to be things happening that we cannot control. However, you must realize you will always have the ability to be in control of yourself. Life is truly about the way we respond to the events happening around us. Will we allow negativity to change our attitude? Will we allow the event to alter the course of our day? Life is about perspective and which perspective you have been taking? Is the glass half empty or is it half full? I believe our approach and our attitude about life dictates more of what happens in our lives than what we realize. We become the thoughts that we think, and there is a battle going on, and it is in the mindset. How will you prepare for the battle? Will you mentally prepare to win this war?
By: D. A. Slinkard
D.A. Slinkard would love your feedback. You can contact him at da.slinkard@gmail.com
November 1, 2024
