You are well prepared for the next day’s client meeting and you are super excited and confident about striking a deal with that client for the next mega project. Suddenly, you are informed that the meeting got postponed to next week. You get low and frustrated because you had huge expectations from that meeting. You think, “I had spent hours together to prepare the PowerPoint Presentation for the client and now I have to wait for one more week to get the project confirmation. This is annoying”. Your negative thought processes take charge and you slowly get dominated by those thoughts that break you down leading to less productivity for the rest of the day. Instead, if your thinking is “Oh, that’s hard luck that I can’t do the sales pitch today with the client, but good that I have got more time to fine-tune my PPT and gather more insights on the market trends and nuances for better presentation next week”. These alternate thoughts help you come out of the negative thought processes thus making you more productive and confident. Creating alternate thoughts is the best way to scoot off from your negativities, frustrations and stress. How effectively and potentially you can create these alternate thought processes is crucial in your personal and professional wellbeing. You would be thinking, how is it possible to tactically switch from your destructive negative thinking patterns to constructive and powerful positive thought processes when the first one is quite dominant. Yes, it’s indeed a cumbersome exercise to shift from a default negative thought process that’s quite dominant to a positive one. Even if these thought process conversions are not executed on a Zen percentage rate, at least 60 percentage achievement would certainly push you to humongous growth dimensions. Treating situations more realistically and understanding the crux of it that impact your personal growth is more vital in deciding the thought switching patterns. There are mainly three types of thought switching that directly or indirectly affect your personal growth and wellbeing.
A.Dealing with your provocative and triggering events in life that are caused by unforeseen or unexpected situations.
B.Dealing with forceful life interference events that are created willingly by us but end up unconsciously affecting our life’s peace and serenity.
C.Dealing with our mind route.
To explain these three cases, I am taking the aid of three classic but simple examples.
Explaining Situation A.
One fine morning you get a shocker that You have been laid off by your current employer and that you have got just one month of notice period to serve. This is a completely unforeseen event for you and you end up entering into a frenzy negative thinking zone provoked by your insecurities and dilemma about the future. You think, “What the hell have I done that I lost my job. I think I am not too good at what I do. I don’t think I can get a better job than this”. You are provoked by negative thoughts like this. That’s one of the instances in your life that demand effective thought switching. How is that thought switching possible during such a predicament situation? Conditioning your mind to accept reality and routing your negative thinking patterns that slowly shape up to positive thought processes is inevitable to avoid your frustrations and stress. If your thought is “I have lost a job and position in which I was pretty comfortable with. But gone is gone. Looks like this is the right time for me to rethink and pursue my career growth by exiting the comfort zone. I can look for a better job opportunity and position with my years of experience and proficiency that could lead to forming new acquaintances, work culture, salary structure and networking. Hmm…With just one month’s notice period left, I need to get geared up and zealous in preparing myself for high profile job interviews by investing more time on preparations and studies to secure a better paid job than this with a better working environment that could upgrade my personal growth and lifestyle too. These alternate thoughts kick out those negative thinking elements that creep in forcefully.
Explaining Situation B
Getting into a set of friend’s circles that mainly has a group of Naysayers who continuously make negative remarks and forceful destructive criticisms for every little endeavor that you venture into. You consciously get stuck in that group imagining the emotional aspect of friendship and end up getting impacted by their negativities and demotivation instincts. You think “I am getting a lot of negative vibes from them even if I do something productively. I need to get out of this group full of negativities that hinder my personal growth. But how can I get out of this circle? I have known them for quite a long time and will they feel bad if I start moving out from this group whose priorities are not at all matching mine? No. I think I need to be with them even if it is disturbing for me.” If this is your thought, that’s going to make you getting stuck in that negative zone consciously with deliberate willingness. But you end up falling in a detrimental state unconsciously afterwards deteriorating your personal growth, peace and wellbeing. Instead, if your thought is “I have a good friend’s circle that’s good for leisure hangouts, but not too good for frequent meet ups and productive career growth discussions. I need to slowly get out of this negative thought infusing group and start building a circle of friends who care for each other’s growth and give constructive suggestions and feedback. I can spend productive time with at least those two friends who impart positive energy rather than spending more time with 10 people who inject mostly negative vibes into me”, it eliminates creating negative thought patterns and replacing it with positive thoughts.
Explaining Situation C
This situation is the most tricky but vicious one. Mind route has many dimensions and outcomes. It is majorly triggered in a minor way but can take your thoughts subtly to minimal impactful stages that in turn lead to bigger impactful growth hindrance processes. You are getting a call from your lady boss on a Sunday afternoon while you are chilling out with your wife and kids to inform them that she needs to meet you first thing in the morning the next day. From the time you have received that call, you start interpreting about many things. Your thinking might be, “I have submitted the proposal to XYZ company in time, but was there any problem with the commercial segment? Was it not sent to the right person? Had the message that I intended to convey her as a compliment after seeing her in saree, went wrong? Is there any problem with my working style? Is she planning to transfer me to the Mumbai Head office where I need to live without my family? Am I not good at my working skills? Have I done any major mistake in my costing that I had submitted the client? These negative questions arise in your mind that keep on disturbing you until next day when you meet the lady boss. That’s going to ruin your holiday mood and the quality time intended to spend with the family for the rest of the day. Your negative thoughts push you to a more frustrating mind state that disturb the peaceful home environment. Instead, if your thought process is “Oh. I got a call from my Lady Boss that too on a Sunday. What would be the reason for the call? Whatever it is I should not ruin my private space and fun time with my family. I should not think anything negatively because I have done my assignments perfectly. Even if not, I am not going to think anything negative until I meet her. Maybe She would like to meet me after that compliment that I gave her when she wore a saree. Or she liked my proposal that I had sent yesterday and want to appreciate me in person. Or she wants to discuss on my appraisal and promotion?” These alternate thought switching help you skip from entering negative thought creations.
These small examples give you a miniature knowledge on switching thought processes through alternate thinking mechanisms and patterns. Taming your thought processes is an art which can be achieved through rigorous thought travel methodologies. Travelling through different positive thoughts by means of positioning your right thoughts rightly is achieved through a variety of processes. Thought Travel is the new variant of meditation that has its distinctiveness in upgrading and reconditioning your thought processes through characteristic mechanisms, activities and methodologies to boost your positive thought processes, cognitive thinking, self- awareness, social awareness, productivity, wellness and attainment of life goals and bliss. Gaining strength and developing effectiveness in consistently switching your negative thoughts to positive ones can be mastered through ‘Thought Travel’s ‘thought control enhancer exercises’ carried out mostly at 5 in the morning. Your wellbeing is directly proportionate to the way you switch and tame your thought processes.
