Most of us have read about the importance of our inner dialogue (“self-talk”) at some point in our lives. I think that even people with no contact with personal development material have an understanding that what they tell themselves in their head effects their feelings.

Though you might not consider yourself to be a negative person, and though your dominant thoughts may not be negative – it is likely that you can still catch pockets of disempowering thought and emotion pop up irregularly in your life. 

You might have internal and external dialogue that is very positive in its framing of your experience (For instance, you might frame a flat tire as a challenge instead of a tragedy, or a barking dog as an attention test instead of an annoyance) yet still find loops of thought that restrict you from joy and growth.

These don’t have to be times when you break down in sadness or throw silverware in anger, just little blips that ripple on the screen of your conscious / unconscious.

• It could be looking out a window – remembering familiar joyous scenes from your past – and finding yourself feeling blue because you’re focusing on how you will never get that time back.
• It could be thinking about a recent weak attempt at changing your behaviors – followed by thoughts of past attempts that failed as well – followed by accompanying feelings of helplessness.
• It could be driving home from work and noticing yourself feeling down – thinking about how rough the next few days are going to be.

Identifying these blips and bringing them into conscious awareness allows us to re-program our thought loops so that these disempowering thought loops – be they old or new – are eliminated or used as empowering fuel.

Here’s a good way to work towards reprograming yourself to take the empowered perspective:

1.   Be aware of your thought and identify what its telling you.

Understand precisely what emotion you’re feeling and what thought loop it originates from. It is likely that the emotion will be your first cue, although you may catch your thought loop before any significant emotional effects are felt. 

2.  Come to see what you would rather be experiencing:

What kind of feelings and thoughts do you want to be living in right now? If your current patterns make you feel like not taking action, settling less than your potential, feeling sad, then what DO you want your expereince to be like? What would you rather experience and how would this new feeling effect your present reality? Ask yourself these questions and gain insight into your own ideals for in this moment.

3.  Immediately take on the thoughts that would enable your ideal experience: 

So you want to feel excitement? You want to be able to brainstorm new ideas for business success? You want to feel at peace? Determine what you would have to be thinking in order to feel the way you want to feel. Imagine how a new mental focus would guide your faculties to action and change your experience.

These very basic steps can be done in your mind at any time, although it may be quite useful (especially as you begin using this tool) to write out the steps for yourself.

Now that this quick process has been explained, lets go into a few examples:

      Lets suppose you feel a subtle sinking sense of despair, and come to realize that it emanates from thoughts of a romance now gone. You feel a sense of hopelessness as you think about your past mistakes and your inability to find another partner.

      You determine that you’d much rather feel excited to meet new people and take what you learned from your past engagements into future relationships. You want to feel energized instead of down, enthusiastic instead of hopeless, eager to expand instead of eager to hide. You recognize these feelings to be empowering for you, they will not only make you feel better in the present, but they will bring about a habit of healthy thought and action to follow through on your value of meeting new people.

      You decide that in order to feel the way you want to feel, you would need to focus on the excitement of meeting new people and applying what you’ve learned form the past. So you focus on organizing some parties, who to invite, and how fantastic it will be. You think about meeting interesting and attractive people and become excited and enthusiastic by recognizing its value to you and taking action in that direction. 

Here’s an example of a write-up of this process – in other words – this might be what it looks like when you write out this process for yourself:

      As I sit planning out my day this morning, I know I feel down – but I wasn’t initially able to put my finger on it. Through a little more introspection I realized that my thoughts continually travelled to specific times in the past when I allocated my time improperly. I thought about how all of my time studying my past career could have been used to study topics that are more relevant to my current career and other important aspects of my life. These regrets were the course of my sinking, lazy feelings.

      I want to feel compelled towards the future and not stuck analyzing past actions. I have nothing more to learn from them and would be better off letting go. I want to feel involved and ready to take action on my current goals – on what I want to learn and contribute. I want to feel optimistic and happy, too.

      The thoughts that will result in the kinds of experience I desire are ones focused on present action and my compelling current and future projects. I decide right now to think about what really excites me about my current projects. Reviewing these factors and honing my mind into what’s exciting will empower me, and bring me to take immediate action. I can think about the past to learn from it (and I recognize its value in this regard), but I also recognize that I want my resources available to me here and now to do my productive work.

Even after just learning this skill, you can apply the idea immediately the next time you catch a disempowering thought loop.

The idea is to get your mind used to immediately identify and alter any loops that don’t bring your faculties to focus on what will bring about your growth and enjoyment. Consider it to be like a game, whenever you feel a twinge of negative emotion, this new pattern will intervene and find out the best way to bring you to a desirable state, mentally and emotionally.