You must guard your thoughts to get what you want. Your mind is hungry. Your mind goes after whatever stimulus you put in front of it. Garbage in really does equal garbage out! If we feed our minds with negative news, conversations, people, and music, our output becomes negative. My dad always told me, “If you want to soar with the eagles, you cannot hang out with turkeys.” Surround yourself with people and experiences that make you feel good about yourself. You will never outperform the expectations of those you hang out with.
How do you show up to other people? Do others feel good about themselves after talking to you? If we don’t consciously choose what goes in our mind we are losing. Many of us are grumpy, exhausted, and broke. Many of us are this way because we allow others that are struggling with the same things to confirm with us that this is what life is all about. We allow our minds to continually get programmed that this is normal. We soon become fine with being average. Once we are fine with being average, complacency sets in. Complacency is a lot like apathy. It is extremely dangerous. Bind it and get it out of your life, like NOW!
The reason we need to guard our thoughts with incredible vigor is because our minds tend to take the path of our most common repetitive thoughts. Our minds get lazy and continue to think the way we always think. Based on the thoughts we have most of the time, neural pathways in our brain literally get stronger. When you think a certain way consistently, that thought pathway becomes the path of least resistance for more of the same thoughts.
For example, when we spend time with negative thoughts like: destruction, inadequacy, weakness, hurt, anger, and frustration; this tells our minds to hang out there more often. Conversely, when we spend time with positive thoughts like: joy, love, proactive-ness, abundance, strength, and happiness; this tells our minds to hang out there more often.
Never let a negative sentence get completed in our heads. The moment you feel yourself beginning to think about negative thoughts, say “STOP” or “CANCEL” and move on to your next thought. The negative thoughts will fade and leave room for the positive ones. A beautiful flower garden is only a beautiful flower garden when we regularly pull out the weeds.