The first group of Ancillary Strategies helps you control negative thinking and worrying, and this is an important component of Effective Thinking.
It is important to eradicate
negative thoughts because they distract you from your intended goals. You may
be striving to obtain a particular objective, but unwittingly sabotaging your
own efforts through inappropriate, counterproductive thinking. Negative
thoughts also absorb valuable energy, create fears and doubts, and lead to stress
and health problems.
You may recall Principle 1 of
Effective Thinking: your sole purpose in life is to achieve goals. This is
inescapable; we are always engaged in some sort of goal achievement,
even though most of our goals involve minor, habitual tasks. Enjoyment,
happiness, and satisfaction are imbedded in these actions. Every time you feel
good, it is because you have achieved an underlying (commonly undetected) goal.
Negative thoughts are damaging because they direct your effort away from these
tasks and from your real intentions.
Our discussion of Principle 6 of
Effective Thinking (your thinking programs your subconscious mind) included the
statement, ‘The more you think a particular thought, the greater the chance
that the thought will be actualized.’ If you are thinking about a negative
event or a misfortune, normally aroused by fear or anxiety, then you
unwittingly contribute to having this event eventuate. Just by persistently entertaining
negative thoughts, you create your own misfortunes.
Negative thinking can have
devastating consequences, because it encourages the achievement of unwanted,
troublesome objectives (you can think of this as ‘negative achievement’). This
increases fear, apprehension and anxiety, resulting in even more negative
thinking and further negative achievement. Under such negative influences, you
risk becoming caught in a vicious circle.
Your subconscious mind cannot
distinguish between what is convenient and what is prejudicial for you. It just
follows the instructions in your mental representations, which are constantly modified
through your thinking, and motivates you to work towards the objectives
imbedded in these mental scripts, regardless of whether they are beneficial or
detrimental for you.
Therefore, you must remember that
counterproductive thinking causes you undue difficulty. We use the general term
‘negative’ thoughts, but we are referring to thoughts that are ineffective or
counterproductive, hindering your
goal achievement.
The first Ancillary Strategies
help you prepare to develop your mind power by cleaning the mind of negative
thoughts and worries.
Eradicating negative elements
from your mind is the groundwork; later on, you will program your mind for
success by imprinting goal conducive mental images (i.e. creating the ideal
inner world). This positive input will attract success and increase your
self-satisfaction.
Imagine that your mind is like a
garden. It constantly produces life – in the form of thoughts and feelings. If
you leave your garden unattended for a period of time, it will grow weeds and
undesirable vegetation. Likewise, if you leave your mind uncared for, it will create
negative and undesirable thoughts, leading to unwanted objectives and negative
feelings. Your first task is thus to clean your mind of these mental weeds, the
undesirable thoughts leading to stress and failure. In doing so, you cultivate
the ground ready to plant seeds that will grow into positive mental images and
direct your subconscious machinery towards success.
In cleaning your mind you replace the unwanted mental representations in your brain circuitry with new connections that make you feel more motivated to work on your intended goals and lead your subconscious mind to pay more attention to what is convenient for you, ignoring what is counterproductive.
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