ERASING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

 “We all have dreams, but to live our dreams, we have to pass ‘some kind of test’ by honoring our commitments in the face of many temptations”

 If you are sincere about improving your finances, you have to start by improving your thinking.

 “Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires,so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts.”

Like weeds in a garden, negative thoughts keep popping up from time to time because the seeds (which were planted in our minds years ago) lie dormant in our subconscious until one day, booing, a handful of negative thoughts. As a gardener, it’s your job to dig up the negative thoughts and replant healthy, positive thoughts in their place.

One of the ways to do that is a technique I call Effective Erasing. Whenever a negative thought enters my mind, I imagine the sound of fingernails clawing down a blackboard, followed by a giant eraser wiping away the negative thoughts. That imagined sound reminds me to erase the negative thought and replace it with a positive one. I encourage you to think your own Effective Eraser.

Ex. Imagine the sound of a garbage truck backing up to empty a garbage can containing negative thoughts. The key is to think of a sound and an image that eliminates the negative thought. Sound corny, but it works.

Excuses: The Hardest Weeds to Kill

Just as there are there are hundreds of hardy weeds in a garden, some are harder to get rid of than others. Same goes for negative thoughts, and the most stubborn weed of negativity is called excuses.

We’re all prone to excuse making because excuses allow us to rationalize/lessen our failures. Excuses are weeds because they encourage us to give in and give up, instead of remaining positive and thinking of ways to overcome obstacles. People generally make excuses in one of the following seven areas:

Excuse #                                  Self-Talk

#1 Fear of Failure                “I won’t try because I might fail.”

#2 Pain of Change              “I’m not comfortable doing that.”

#3 Self Doubt                      “I’m not very good at (fill in the blank).”

#4 Blaming Others              “Mistakes were made by (blank).”

#5 Justifying                       “Everybody cuts corners, so I did, too.”

#6 Complaining                   "The problems is (company, products,  etc.).”

#7 Lack of Skills                 “I’ve never been able to talk to people.”

Excuses might make you feel better in the short run, but in the long run, they won’t you get R.E.A.L. and get rich.

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