6 Ways to Improve Your Thinking

Every single day, happy people are thinking thoughts that help them to be happy, and unhappy people do the opposite. I’ll add a disclaimer here that I am, once again, not speaking about people with clinical reasons for their depression. I am speaking to people whose unhappiness is caused by inaction, unhelpful attitudes, and other reasons  that can be addressed with a few positive changes.

Many of us tell ourselves things like:

You are not desirable.

The future is hopeless.

You can’t make it through this.

We all must do the important work of defining the belief systems that will guide our lives and thinking. As a Christian, I am programmed with God’s truths like, “You are my child and nothing can separate you from my love–even a rejection.” Or, “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” Or, “There is certainly a future hope for you.” My software tells me to keep going and God will be with me.

The fruit of the efforts of developing such a belief system are that individual events will not have power over you. Instead, you will have power over them. The power of your thinking is more powerful than anything that can happen to you. Successful and happy people are not overcome by their circumstances, losses, setbacks, or other events. Unsteady, they overcome them by thinking in the ways that God has told us to think–ways that breed hope, faith, and love.

Observe Your Thoughts

To have our thinking “transformed,” we must first observe it and see where it is off, where it is subject to having been conformed to negative patterns. This often hurtful world can teach us to believe some harmful and untrue things. Some significant relationships in your past may have programmed your mind to think those ways, and you may need to have those belief systems transformed in order to have all that God has designed for you. I have every confidence that you can do that. But to do it, you must become aware of the truth about those thoughts, that they are lies and have come from this world and are not the “ways of God.”

It sometimes takes work to get our thoughts in line with the way God tells us to think and believe, but the work is worth it for sure.

Here are 7 ways that you can work on improving your thinking:

Avoid All-or-Nothing Thinking

Treat events as they are: single events. If you fail at something, so what? No one who has ever succeeded did not sometimes fail. The person just saw that failure as one event and tried again. Losers see the failure and think, I fail at everything. They burn the rice and say, “The whole dinner is ruined.” They say things like, “I never do anything right,” or, “I always get it wrong.” All-or-nothing thinking and happiness rarely reside in the same head.

And if you fall short of a moral standard, don’t make yourself out to be “all bad.” God says that there is not a righteous person who never sins. When you make a mistake, accept God’s forgiveness and move on.

Watch the Negative Thoughts

Negative thoughts have power. Everyone has them, but happy people let them fly by like a bird instead of catching them and inviting them to move into their heads and build nests. Unhappy people attach to negative thoughts and treat them as if they are reality. They allow those thoughts to dictate their actions. But remember, they are only thoughts.

Do not grab them, attach yourself to them, or let them have any power. Just let them go by and do not think anything of them, as they are only thoughts. One of the most researched and proven techniques of changing moods is to dispute your negative thinking with the truth and with positive thoughts. One way to do this is to refute negative thinking with what God says. If a thought says you are a loser, dispute that with the truth of God’s word: “I am not a loser. I am a child of God, loved by him, and promised by him to have a future and a hope.”

Avoid Catastrophic Thinking

Catastrophic thinking is seeing something as horrible when it does not have to be seen that way: “If I don’t get this job, my life will be ruined.” “If he doesn’t like me, I will never find anyone like him again.” In reality, there are few catastrophes in the bigger picture of life, and even when we encounter them, by faith we can make it through. But most of the time, catastrophes are only catastrophes in our heads.

“If I fail at this, I will never be able to face my friends.” “It will be awful if…” Really? Is it really that awful? Those kinds of extreme assessments of normal life occurrences make people unable to negotiate the ups and downs of life and remain happy. They make taking risks almost impossible as they tell themselves, It would be horrible if this didn’t work out. Happy people see those occurrences as part of life and say, “Oh well, that was a bummer. Let’s see what I can do now.” They shake it off and move on.

Do Not Overgeneralize from One Instance to All

Sometimes people will take one bad occurrence and overgeneralize. For instance, if they have had a bad relationship, they can believe things like, “All men (or women) are like that,” or, “Every company is out to use you and doesn’t care.” When you do that, it closes you off from all the goodness God has for you. The Bible says that God has a “good and perfect gift” for you, but if you generalize from a few bad experiences or people, then you will not be open to all that he has for you and your life.

The same holds true about you and your own performance. Just because you have a few failures, do not generalize from there to all future performances.

See Both Sides

The reality is that every person experiences good and bad. Unhappy people tend to block out the positive of many situations and see only the negative–about themselves, about others, and about experiences.

Happy people do not allow the negative to ruin things for them. They see the cons of situations, but they are able to still love and value the positive aspects. They do not allow the imperfections to ruin things for them. Happy people are not perfectionists who cannot enjoy anything that is less than perfect. Happy people are the ones who are happy even when there are flaws, missteps, and mistakes. The party can still be a huge success even if the cake flopped. The school can still be wonderful for their children even if they don’t like the teacher or the soccer coach. Do not let little things that will always be there ruin the experience for you.

God is Bigger Than the Negative

Remember, God has told us that we live in a world that will always have imperfections. But he is bigger than the negative and wants you to still enjoy all the good that is here. Grasp his hand and do what he does. He stays involved and is able to bring good out of everything, even the negative:

We know that in all things God works

for the good of those who love him,

who have been called according to his purpose.

Watch your thinking, and don’t allow the negative to get you down. If you do that, you will be a much happier person. Arm yourself with this promise: “I will not allow my thinking to conform me to this world, but I will be transformed by the renewing of my mind.” Take all your thoughts captive and “think well.”