How to Change a Negative to a Positive Mindset?
Video – VLog #45
How do you train your mind to think positive?
Ways to create a postive mindset
How to practise positive thinking?
Script – VLog #45
David Logan: Here we are viewing the Techno Dinosaur Meets the IT Geek. Video series week number 45. My name is David Logan the IT Geek the guy who takes the complexity out of technology, the jargon out of technology. For you, the home worker, the home office worker. This week with us is my usual prime suspect. My partner in crime Willie Nicol. So, Willie where are you and how are you?
Willie Nicol: Thank you David I am very well and based in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland, UK. I am the Techno Dinosaur due to my being technologically challenged but I am also a personal development life coach.
David Logan: Fantastic and I am based down here in Annan South West of Scotland where the sun always shines. Willie I had a thought this morning I was driving this morning and I was in a good mood but the question to you this week when I need to pick your brains. How can we change from a negative to a positive mindset?
Willie Nicol: Yes David well you mentioned the word thought there, a lot of our mind set is based on our thinking. But I am going to talk about state of mind. So what is your mind? We can talk about our brain we know what that is its that kind of big mass of blubber inside our head but our mind what is our mind? So I resorted to going online here is the Wikipedia definition of mind. The set of faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence blah blah blah .. Right? The Cambridge dictionary defines it as a state of mind is a persons mood and the effect that mood has on the persons thinking and behaviour. It is maybe an easier way of looking at it.
David Logan: I understand that.
Willie Nicol: So we are all creatures of thought that the suggestion that thought on our thinking controls our life. So we have a thought where do they come from it pops into your head. Now the premise is that thought creates an emotion and that emotion generally propels us to take some form of action and as we know if there is an action there is a reaction or a result. So you are talking about sunny Annan I can tell you here in Troon it is wet its windy and it is cold in shortness miserable. So imagine this scenario. I got up this morning opened the curtains it is blowing a gale, the rain is pouring pounding off the window and I am freezing cold. So I have a thought “ohh my god what a day look at that weather”. And that creates an emotion a negative emotion and I get some negative thoughts from that “ohh my god I will get wet if I go out, perhaps the car won’t start, I have lost my umbrella what am I going to do”, and before I know where I am the action is I am in a negative state of mind and the outcome of that is I am just miserable and that is a bad start to my day. However look at it this way, I open the curtains I look out it is wet and miserable cold and windy. I think oh well. I have got an umbrella I know where it is, my car always starts I wont have a problem and push comes to shove my skin is waterproof so I can go and do whatever I want to do. You see the difference? Right, so just flipping your thinking as it were, can have a big effect on state of mind. Now this is not something that happens overnight you don’t just click your fingers and think positively as apposed to negatively. You have to in effect kind of train yourself to do this. Another aspect would be for example when I drove all over the place in my last job and someone would cut me up on the motorway and my immediate thought was well I cannot repeat it but you can imagine right and that thought created an emotion I got angry and that emotion released I am going to race after that idiot and probably give him some hand signals right but the out come of that was I got annoyed and I maybe exceeded the speed limit so that was not a good reaction to the initial thinking Now I think what an idiot having learned from my past behaviour and that is it passed no anger no racing after him no negative state of mind. Does that make sense?
David Logan: Perfect.
Willie Nicol: So you can go onto the famous interweb and find all sorts of information about state of mind. How to change your state of mind and I have taken some notes here and I will send them to you and you can put them on our website for people to parous. You asked how we change a negative state of mind to positive and we have covered a lot of ground before about stress and anxiety, have some exercise, do some breathing change your state of mind from negative to positive by doing else preferably positive, so take a pause – make a cup of tea. Do something enjoyable, go for a walk, do something which is going to flip your mindset or your state of mind from that negative thinking to more positive thinking and again it takes practice your mind is almost like a muscle the more you exercise it the bigger it will get if you exercise it positively it will have a positive outcome.
David Logan: That is great so it is as easy as taking the mind get it to look at something different because it is something different rather than what it was looking at.
Willie Nicol: Yes Effectively so we are as humans kind of conditioned to be a bit negative when you were a kid you were told to be seen and not heard, you were told don’t be a big head, don’t blow your own trumpet. So they were kind of negative and we grew up thinking what if followed by a negative and we covered this when we talked about language what if this doesn’t work what if I get soaking wet going out in this horrible rain what if what if negative but what if I am using I am using that phrase again we follow that thought with a positive. Like what if my car will start, what if I get wet? So what my skin is waterproof what if that doesn’t work well what if it does? So in a set of circumstances on like a rainy day we make up a wee story in our head which is invariably negative. I will get wet my car wont start I cant find my umbrella and we change that around going well what if it is all good despite the bad weather despite the negativity I can make this positive. So our conditioning kind of gives us an excuse but we don’t need that excuse we can get rid of that and train ourselves to become more positive and when we recognise ourselves getting negative we identify it and, say oops there is some negativity coming in lets flip that around and become positive again.
David Logan: Great Willie fantastic that is us for this week that is us headed towards our allotted time. To you the viewer any questions on the subject matter speak to Willie send him a private message add the comments down below website, YouTube Facebook page drop the comments on and will forward them onto Willie or technical on the other hand send to me private message or comments down below. Last comments Willie?
Willie Nicol: Well as usual David I will say to everyone stay safe and stay well, look after yourselves and you can train yourselves to change negativity into positivity. Also remember have a bit of fun along the way. Goodbye from me.
David Logan: Thank you Willie to finish off everybody, to you the viewer like our social media go on our social media channels search for the Techno Dinosaur meets the IT Geek we have got a youtube channel where you need to subscribe down here we are still looking for that 100th subscriber. Willie is giving you a Troon he has a special course for you. For you the viewer be safe be healthy be well have a great week bye for now.
