If I can keep your undivided attention for the next 2 minutes, that’s approximately 40 random thoughts you’re going to miss out on. Don’t worry, statistics say that 75% of those thoughts were going to be negative, and 95% of them were going to be repetitive thoughts you’ve already had before.

Keep reading and I guarantee I’ll give you much more valuable thoughts to replace the ones you’re going to miss.

One of the best ways to create thoughts worth thinking is doing intentional reframing with the thoughts you’re given. I purposely say “given” because our subconscious is often responsible for most of our thoughts that surface in a day. I’m not a brain surgeon, but consciously thinking up 20,000 thoughts in a day would probably fry our motherboard.

So when we’re given a lot of negative thoughts that aren’t serving our servers, what should we do about it? This is where conscious reframing comes in.

Recently, we did this exercise with our team at FitTown. We took a few minutes to write out NEGATIVE thoughts we’ve heard ourselves say in recent history. We then reframed these thoughts with a POSITIVE perspective. We each shared the reframes we were comfortable sharing.

I’m not going to share specifics, but it’s incredibly interesting to hear someone you admire as a coach and parent say they’re insecure and feel incompetent at both of those jobs.

As a friend and teammate, my initial reaction is to support them with words of encouragement. I want to tell them how FALSE the first thought is and how TRUE the reframing really is.

This goes against what most people think about reframing. Many think the positive reframe is the make-believe, eternal-optimist, utopia-lens version of what’s really going on. They think the negative is what’s real, and the positive is just a dream.

Because our minds have a negative bias in order to keep us alive and safe from possible threats, we pay more attention to the negative. The news media knows this bias well. And because we pay attention to the negative so much, we give it more belief than it deserves.

We also have a bias toward the first thing we think. This bias, called primacy bias, occurs when we give greater importance or weight to the first pieces of information we encounter compared to information received later.

It’s too bad our subconscious minds don’t throw us positive softballs all day to crush over the fence and build our confidence. Instead, we have to take on the tough task of reframing our thoughts to make them positive, and often bring them closer to the actual truth.

Let’s try this reframing challenge for yourself…

Think of 2-4 negative thoughts you’ve thought about yourself in recent history. Write them down.

Now, what would you tell a friend who said these thoughts?

What would you tell your son or daughter if they said these thoughts?

Would you tell them make-believe positivity or would you tell them TRUTH?

I’d bet a lot of money that you would rescue a friend or family member from a negative thought in a matter of seconds. Why not do this for your own self? We tend to be so much harder on ourselves than we are with others.

When you reframe these negative thoughts, repeat the positive reframe over and over again. Say it with your heart and believe it fully. Believe it because it is TRUTH.

With enough repetition your conscious reframes will become your subconscious thoughts. You won’t exterminate negative thoughts, but you will become more biased toward positivity.

You are an incredible parent.
You are an amazing coach.
You are capable of being a national bestselling author.

Oh sorry, looks like my positive reframes made their way into my post.

Let’s get to writing, reframing, and repeating yours.

– Coach Tony