Positive thinking and positive pre-meditation of specific tasks and activities is a powerful tool used by elite sportsmen, successful business executives and those we know that seem to be successful in everything they do. Some people use power of positive thinking without really trying, most of us have to train ourselves to consciously overcome our own stresses, inhibitions and poor self confidence.

Many of us have times when we think nothing will go right. We often feel hopeless and out of control. Do you remember when you last said "I can't do this"? These are all types of negative thoughts that lead to negative emotions and following this, negative behaviours.

When we think, we think in pictures. Each and every day we experience situations that cause pictures to be presented in our brain. Stress can alter our pictures and change our thoughts in our head to become more negative and it's these negative thoughts and images that can cause you to react with anxiety and lead to negative behaviours. The bottom line is that our emotions and thoughts have a huge impact on our behaviours and our overall quality of life.

Are you shooting for the lake or the fairway?

Imagine this scenario: Picture yourself standing at a golf tee looking down the fairway. You take the new ball from its box and place it on the tee. You pick up the club and look down the fairway at the green. You look at the ball, shiny and new, and you look at the fairway. You notice how close the lake is to the fairway. You look at the lake and then look at your ball. You think of how badly you've been slicing your shots lately. You bend down and replace your new ball with an old one. You have already decided where your shot is going to go!

Talk to any pro-golfer and the thought process is different: Take a new shiny ball, as it will strike better, picture the club striking the ball perfectly and imagine the 'ping' resonating from the strike, see the ball's trajectory – high and long hurtling towards the green, now the ball lands one metre from the pin – slight back spin to counter the forward momentum. The golfer now approaches the ball in a strong confident way, he already knows how the shot will play out.

The body orients itself towards pictures in our head. Messages travel along nerves to large and tiny muscles in response to the picture of "the lake" making the direction of your shot predictable. This helps explain many phenomena, such as why you can easily walk along a narrow board if it is near the ground but cannot if it is meters in the air. In the air, we think of falling and the body orients itself accordingly.

It's the positive thoughts

By now you have probably realised that controlling or improving your thoughts, as well as the images you put in your head, can have a significant impact on your emotions (your feelings), on the way you respond to situations (your behaviours).

Turning your negative thoughts into positive (helpful) thoughts takes practice. You must first learn to recognise that you are having negative thoughts, and identify when they are occurring. Identifying that you are having unrealistic and unhelpful thoughts could be enough to allow you to move on without those thoughts affecting your emotions. If not, once you identify them you need to challenge them and you have to do it straight away with a positive thought.

The only way to avoid having negative thoughts is to create an alternative positive picture. This helps explain why life seems easier and we feel happier when our thinking is positive, because we are orientating ourselves to positive goals. It also explains why negative thinking increases our chances of unhappiness and negative things happening in our lives. This in turn can increase our stress levels.

It's important to note that not everybody responds to stress in the same way, therefore a one-size-fits-all treatment for stress won't work either. The techniques to manage stress and negative thoughts vary greatly and what works for one person may not be appropriate for another.

For more information on your Mental Health go to www.lifestylemedicine.net.au.

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