I was on a run the other day listening and singing along with my favorite music when a line stood out to me. It was from the song by Jason Mraz titled “Hello, You Beautiful Thing” (I love his music and his lyrics always ring so true to me). Towards the end of the song, he sings “But my thoughts are all I got so I try to make them brave” and it got me thinking how we choose to think about things, really becomes the reality that we live in. Our thoughts create how we see the world we live in and everything in it. Thoughts really do matter!
So let’s play with this idea of thoughts creating our perception of our world. Let’s take snow. People have all sorts of opinions of snow and I’m going to take to two opposing thoughts.
Thought 1: Snow is fun and exciting
Thought 2: Snow is cold and such a nuisance.
If I think snow is fun and exciting to go play in… I will feel excited when it snows, and look for opportunities to get out and play in it.
Or if I think snow is cold and such a nuisance… I will probably dread it when it snows, and find all the ways that snow really is cold and how annoying it really is.
Do you see how these two different thoughts really do create your experience of snow?
But it’s not always easy to make a big switch from one end of the thought spectrum to the other end. And it’s not even necessary to change the thought if we don’t want to. BUT it is an option, if you want it. What you really want to look at is “is this thought helping me, and do I like the result it produces for me”.
So with the instance above about snow, I could ask myself, “is it helpful to think that I don’t like snow” when snow is a reality for me and where I live. Thinking that thought really creates a lot of misery for me because then every time it snows, I feel dread. But maybe it is helpful for me to think “snow is cold” because then it reminds me to dress appropriately so I can be comfortable out in the weather. So alternatively, I could choose to think “snow is cold and I’m so thankful I have warm boots, hat, gloves, and coat to go out and do what I want to do today”. This is a much more helpful thought. And it’s not even necessary to get all the way to the other end of the spectrum to think “snow is so fun and exciting”. That might not ever feel true to you and if it doesn’t feel true, the new thought won’t work for you.
You can choose with intention what you want to think about things. And it won’t always be happy and wonderful thoughts because we are human and sometimes we don’t want to be happy about things. But we can choose to think something more helpful to bring about the result we really want to create in our life. And that might be a thought that just brings us to acceptance or gratitude or motivated or empowered or a host of other emotions that might help us be the kind of people we want to be.
And in the end, isn’t that what matters, how we show up in the world? And guess what, it starts with our thoughts.
This is what life coaching is all about…. Looking at our thoughts without judgement, seeing if we like the results these thoughts are producing for us, and then putting on different lenses to see if there are other truths out there that feel accessible to us and that can create something different for ourselves. Let’s have our thoughts work for us and not against us. They are powerful!
If you would like a shift in perspective in any area in your life, life coaching may just be the thing for you!
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