• How you think creates your life; negativity poisons everything in your world.
• Changing negativity requires a degree of metacognition (thinking about thinking) and a leap of faith to do something that hasn’t been done before. Anyone can change their thought patterns; it requires only honest awareness and a willingness to take conscious and inspired action.
• Our mental shortcuts, assumptions, biases, and stereotypes are great at saving time and effort, but are not one hundred percent accurate one hundred percent of the time. The “all-or-nothing” disease is when we overextrapolate from one experience to other experiences we haven’t had; we are making an error.
• Words have power, and our speech reflects our thought patterns. “Out of power” language is passive, self-victimizing, doubtful, angry, unconfident, fearful, excuse-making, or pessimistic, and can create a self-fulfilling prophesy.
• Become aware of your internal verbal habits. Then focus on what can be done, embrace nuance and shades of gray, and speak to yourself like you would a loved one.
• A cognitive distortion is a persistently incorrect belief, perception, or thought—for example, mental filtering, personalization, jumping to conclusions, mind-reading, catastrophizing, and using “should” statements and labels.
• Positive thinking is not just the absence of distortions, but thinking that helps you feel calm, hopeful, curious, grateful, stable, and confident.
• To challenge your inner critic, commit to not allowing your thoughts to dominate you. Gain psychological distance by labeling the thoughts as thoughts, not reality, and have self-compassion.
• Change happens outside your comfort zone, so realize that at some point, you’ll need to take the leap and try something new.
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