Reframing Negative Thinking
To Build Confidence
Negative thinking is a confidence demon – it’s easy to get into the spiral of negative thinking and can be a challenge to get out of it!
It’s tough to quieten the inner critic, mine’s called Betty and you can read more about her on my website, however, when we make a conscious decision to step away and to tackle or to reframe negative thinking, it feels better already because we’ve raised our awareness.
Negative thinking can create higher levels of anxiety, because it tells our brain, (that can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not), we are in trouble, so naturally the mind will start to come up with ways to protect us.
How to manage negative thinking
There are a few ways you can tackle negative thinking:
Acknowledge it
Our negative thinking is often in the subconscious and I’m sure no-one really sets out to do it. Pay attention to your thoughts and don’t let your mind or your inner critic get away saying something to you without you acknowledging it.
Each time you notice a negative thought, acknowledge it, say stop if it helps and then choose to have a new thought. Listening out for those negative thoughts raises our awareness of when they are happening.
Set an Intention
Sounds a bit fluffy, doesn’t it? I’d say give it go…. starting small will help you to get into a practice and help you on your way to creating a new habit. Set an intention for the day, or for the morning.
Maybe your intention is to notice your negative thinking, maybe it might be to make of note of your negative thinking.
Maybe it’s to practice Gratitude by journalling to counteract the negative thinking. Thinking about what you’re grateful for however big or small is the perfect antidote to negative thinking.
Something I saw a while ago for journalling was the acronym GLAD, I thought it was really useful if you want to journal and don’t know what to write or find it a challenge to write down your thoughts.
Each day using GLAD as a prompt you think about:
- What you’re Grateful for
- What you’ve Learnt today
- What you have Achieved or accomplished
- Who has Delighted you or who have you Delighted
Manage your consumption
Our negative thinking can be influenced by the stuff we consume around us, social media, the news, the people around us.
We’ve all been there where the endless scrolling sends us into COMPARISON or makes us angry because we know what we’re seeing isn’t real, insta vs reality! The news is a constant stream of “bad news” because the good stuff doesn’t sell as well.
We spend time with people we don’t really like and then resent the time that we’ve given them – why do we do this?!
Remember, we always have a CHOICE to manage our consumption, to stop scrolling, to consume the news in short bursts or not at all, to set boundaries about who we spend our precious time with. We always have a CHOICE.
Reframing
Reframing isn’t about turning a negative into a positive, it’s about looking a situation and challenging them with evidence to get a different perspective.
There are a few ways you can reframe negative thinking.
Once you’ve identified that negative thought, be curious, what it is trying to tell you? Find a more positive or constructive thought or perspective and focus on facts and use the strengths you have to think about it different.
A technique that I learnt while doing my NLP Practitioner training was Perceptual Positions to help you to see from multiple perspectives, and it goes like this:
Position 1: Find a position in the room and stand in your own shoes. Looking at the situation through your own eyes, what do you notice about the other person or people that are in this situation with you? Say or note down what it sounds like / feels like from your perspective only.
Position 2: Physically move to a different space in the room and consider what the situation might look like through the eyes of the other person / people in the situation. Looking at it through their eyes, appreciating their point of view. What do you notice about what you have now hears, how do it feel to stand in their shoes?
Position 3: Move again to another position in the room and now imagine that you are completely detached from the situation and are observing what’s happening from afar. How does this situation look from the perspective of someone who isn’t involved?
It’s important to note that all three positions are equally important, and the aim is to move freely between them taking the information from each to answer the below questions.
Now ask yourself:
- What did you notice in each position?
- What changed for you from the different perspectives?
- What have you learned?
- What action will you now take?
Unlocking Confidence with tools and techniques from NLP
This episode of the Confidence Conversations Podcast, I chat with Vanda Varga – A Tour Guide to your Mind and a Master NLP Practitioner. We discuss reframing amongst other tools and techniques used in NLP to help unlock your Confidence.
Key Takeaways from this conversation were:
- NLP helps individuals explore and remap their thoughts and feelings.
- NLP offers various tools to enhance confidence.
- Confidence can fluctuate and is situational, not a constant state.
- Curiosity is essential for personal growth and understanding.
- Reflection helps in processing experiences and building confidence.
- Learning from different perspectives enhances wisdom and confidence.
- Self-talk plays a crucial role in building confidence.
- Understanding the psychology and physiology of confidence is essential.
- Reframing negative thoughts can empower you.
- Borrowing perspectives from others can provide new insights.
- Practicing anchoring can help recall confidence in challenging situations.
- Your body language influences your confidence levels.
Missed an episode of the Confidence Conversations Podcast, you can catch up here.
