Strategy One (carrots vs. donuts)

The funny thing is, if you get a pro on strategy one – you are a pro in positive thinking. Can it really be that easy? Yes it can. Once you get started you will be amazed how fast you proceed. Strategy one is something you will be doing many, many times every day. Always remember: It´s just 1-3 hours every day you need to get aware of and to change. (Check on The time factor in why it works.)

This strategy is “negativity proof”

How do you think positive? Is it hard to shift your thinking into positive? Usually people who want to think positive are trying not to be negative. They tend to learn little positive sentences. I think we all know the cliché: the business man standing in front of the mirror saying: “I am successful. I am rich.” In many cases this guy knows it is not true or it´s not true yet and I it elicits a negative feeling.

When I talk about negative or positive, I´m talking about the EMOTIONAL content of your attempts. So in my terminology, this is a negative thing: If you repeat something you want to have, but you are painfully aware that you are not having it, it is negative. Important is what you FEEL. So if you can believe what you are saying and you get that feeling of joy, it would work. But strategy one is an easier way to that, I´ll explain it further down.

Also usually people try to not  think negatively by telling themselves: “I don´t want to be negative”. Always trying to be aware of the negative things they say during the day. But that doesn´t work so good either. Because the focus is still on the negative. (Why does focusing on the negative reinforce negative thoughts? Check “why it works – activation gets chronical.)

Also these people tend to have very negative feelings. Once they notice they thought negatively agein they might be angry on themselves “Damn-I did it again- I want to think positive!”

 

So this can be very negative, too, because the harder it seems to change, the more negative the feelings toward change. The harder it seems to take control, the less you believe in your ability to achieve. You just strengthen the belief that it is hard and that it is not easy at all.

Everything you are thinking frequently has got an emotional component and when you think something very often and a solid emotional component is attached to it, we call it a belief. So if you want to really get positive you need another way.

Strategy one

Thinking is like a diet. You get used to eat certain things. And though you can chose freely, habit will do the job for you. So with no effort you´ll just pick the stuff you are used to. That’s how our thinking is working. Think of it: there are so many people always eating things they don´t like and complaining about it. Check on youtube for instance. There are people publishing videos of what they like- and others who don´t like it, but spend hours and hours of commenting negatively…staying in the mode of negativity so long!

If you want to think positive this is the most ridiculous thing you can do: spending your time with things you don´t like, complaining critisizing and all that negativity stuff! Because thinking positively  is not only about thinking positive about yourself and your goals, or thinking positively occasionally.  It´s about thinking positively in general! The time you spend with negativity is lost time. Every single minute you focus on negative stuff will raise the probability with which negative processing is in charge. Whenever you think a minute of something positive the opposite is actually happening.

Selective Scepticism

But now the first strategy that will make it. Never, ever complain about your negative thoughts. It´s ok that you think negatively. Let these thoughts be and focus on the first step:

Whenever you think something negative, think something sceptical afterwards.

Let´s say the usual approach is, not to think the bad thoughts. You could compare it to a diet, where you try to only eat healthy food. This is a very hard thing to do. Everybody knows that. To change your diet entirely from one day to the other you´d need to be fully aware of every single moment and be very disciplined. We don´t want to do this. That would be the hard way, but we want to do it the EASY way. That is why this strategy is different. And that is how we go about it:

It is like: everytime you eat something you perceive as not healthy for you  , you eat a carrot afterwards.  

I don´t know if that would work for eating, but it works for thinking, because thinking is very special. When you start to eat something it takes a little time. Thinking works in no time and the moment you realize you think something negative, it´s done and you can´t take it back.

At the beginning I thought: this might question my negative thoughts and influence my beliefs. But what actually happens is: it diminishes negative thinking to that extent that it even deletes many negative beliefs and they don´t show up anymore. It helps you to change your beliefs! In the following I´ll specify the strategy and give you examples you might want to use. But the most awesome thing about this is: you´ll soon know what it´s about and you´ll make your own examples. Think your own improved thoughts and get a deeper understanding of your thinking.

Strategy one examples: Donuts vs. carrots

I´ll just stick to the food-comparison now. I think it fits very well. So I´ll just keep the donut as a symbol for the negative thought and the carrot for a more positive one. Always remember: you can´t say in general which sentences are postive or negative. It is ALL about the FEELINGS that are elicited in the thinker. Don´t take it too serious. My examples might not always be perfect for you. But you´ll figure it out after a while.

Everytime you realize you´re thinking something negative, just think a more postive thought afterwards. If it doesn´t feel so right, do it kind of “mechanichally”- I mean, just DO it.

1. Simple contradiction

They don´t like me.	Maybe they like me.
I can´t do it.	Maybe I can do it.
It is hard.	Maybe it is not hard.
This will be a lot of stress	Maybe this will be easy.
I hate this.	Maybe I don´t hate this.
I don´t want to go out.	Maybe I want to go out.

 

There´s no need to convince yourself right at the beginning. There´s no need to believe what you think there. Believe me. Just the case that you repeatedly question your negative thought has a huge impact. The more frequently you are thinking the postive things, the more you will take them into account. You tune your network- so to speak-to another direction.

What that does now is, it is tipping your negativity: positivity ratio. Let´s say before you thought 57 negative thoughts on a certain day. (Just a guess, because I don´t have a clue… Funny thing about awareness- you will not know when you are not aware !) If you thought 57 negative thoughts a day and you learn to be aware of 15 of them and contradict them with something postive…you´ll just need 43 of postive thoughts to tip the ratio! (Before 57:43, after 57:43+15 = 57:58)  That´s what this theory is about! If your ratio is tipping, you´ll realize it. You´re more and more in positive mood and your postive connections get hard-wired. Or have you already been there? Many people experienced very positive phases in their lives or are having passions that really make them focus positively. You guys know! Think of it. You can keep that all up (or regain it again) by watching your thoughts and applying this strategy.

 

Get used to it and watch your feelings

Just do the carrot-after-donut thing whenever you realize you´re thinking something negatively. Be careful at the beginning, watch your FEELINGS! For it´s not about the content you are thinking, but about the feeling it elicits within you.

It is very helpful to put in some soothing words. Try it – and you´ll know what I mean. As you saw using “maybe” or “maybe & soon” can be very helpful.

It depends on your self-criticism. If a 5 year old thinks- “I can´t swim! Telling him: “You can swim” could work pretty well. But for an adult who had many experiences before, it is mostly not that easy. There might be topics, where you can just go “I can...” in your thoughts, but if not, use “maybe & soon“.

“I don´t know what to do.” “Maybe I know what to do soon.”

You can also stress the time factor to have even less pressure on that:

“I will never be selfemployed. This is too hard for me.” “Maybe there will be a day where I got all the skills that I really feel confident to run my own business.”

Also very, very soothing and very easy to use, because you can use your negative idea and don´t have to think a lot is when you add “not yet“.

Check out what is the most positive and easy for you.

I hate my job.	One day I´ll have a job I like.
I can´t just quit my job.	Maybe there will be the time where I can quit my job.
I can´t run a business.	I can´t run a business yet.
I don´t enjoy my work.	Maybe I´ll enjoy my work soon.
I don´t enjoy my work.	One day I´ll work at a better place.
I don´t enjoy my work.	There will be the day when I truly love what I am working.

 

Turning it inside out

The next part is really making me happy. Cause now it´s getting completed by the humanist approach. It really makes me happy, that you can NEVER get it wrong using this theory. You can´t misuse it, you can never use it for bad- humanism is immanent in this theory- and this is why:

As I told you, it only works as you train the positive connections and strengthen them. So it´s not about thinking positively of you only, but about thinking positively IN GENERAL. That means, it doesn´t help when you think 10 good things about you, when you think 20 bad things about others. It only works if you always shift into positive. Refering to the network theory, thinking good about oneself and thinking bad about others is the same like trying to teach a dog “Down!” next to the road, giving it food one time and kicking it the next time. It won´t work!

I started with thoughts about you, because it is easier. Somehow you know you got potential, somebody made you feel like you are awesome and it felt right. Somehow we know we are good. To use strategy one with issues you have about yourself feels very natural and right. With others we got a little bit of a problem. Because people are doing bad things. But still, there are so many like you out there. We are actually more equal than we think and you can train your network very good if you contribute to that fact.

So get into doing the Carrot vs. Donut strategy by thinking about the world and humanity.

Use many or some if you want to get contradictions.

People are bad.	Many are not bad.
People are greedy.	Some arenot greedy.
X is spiteful.	I know many nice people.
People are deadhearted.	A lot of people are very empathic.
Humanity is destroying nature.	Some people are trying to preserve nature.
People are ignorant.	Some are very deliberate.

 

Remember, you don´t need to convince yourself straight away. The aim again is to change the ratio. Therefore the amount of people also doesn´t matter. It doesn´t matter if you contradict whole humanity with just one person.

For example, “Humanity is egoistic”. –“Mahatma Gandhi wasn´t”. Even if you focus on just one person, you focus on the good. It is equally successful. Check on your feelings – the main thing is HOW IT FEELS.

For me the “one-against-humanity-carrot” is even more successful, because I am so grateful for those people. It is a very good feeling for me and I also believe “If one can do it others can make it, too”