Controlling your negative thoughts


Very few people realize that productivity and success go hand in hand but also that your way of thinking is the biggest dominator in this relationship.

Most people will sit for years admiring the success of others but never attempt to use their thought for their own advancement towards success.

Thinking that changing your mindset for success may sound like a cliche marketed by gurus but it does carry some weight in the process.

How your brain affect your productivity and success

  • Why is staying productive important?
  • What makes a person productive?
  • How does being productive lead to success?
  • Develop productive habits aligned with success
  • The impact of negative thinking on personal success
  • How do some people manage to be more productive?
  • So how does my productivity get affected?
  • What are the consequences of negative thinking?
  • How your brain affects your productivity and success - Conclusion

Why is staying productive important?

Productive means active which is what humans need for stimulation and development. By being active you are creating a purpose for yourself to do the things you love to do.

Without purpose, you can have no goals and no reason to be productive.

In order to achieve life goals and fire up ambition, it is important to remain productive as it fires up positivity. It also focuses the mind on the things that matter the most to you.

What makes a person productive?

No matter how you look at productivity and success it all comes down to a positive mindset. If your mind is filled with negative thoughts you are destined to fail. This positivity creates the mindset that enables you to:
  • Identify opportunities
  • Set goals
  • Pursue targets
  • Eliminate problems
  • Improve critical decision making

Identify opportunities

A positive and productive person will always be able to look at things in a different way and therefore will recognize an opportunity when it comes along.

Set goals

Being productive it becomes easier to set clear and positive goals for oneself. Being able to think clearly will make the separation between goals based on value and those that are artificial.

Pursue targets

Being more productive also increases your focus on the end goal and it becomes easier to remain on the course you set out from the beginning.

Eliminate problems

Because of the focus, it creates the time to identify and eliminate problems that will prevent you from achieving goals.

Improve critical decision making

By being productive your mind will develop a greater awareness of your environment and therefore it will be easier to make decisions. At times it will be a necessity to make quick decisions that might impact others but because of your state of alertness, it will be no problem.

All of these characteristics will develop through productive learning and experience.

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How does being productive lead to success?

We have already seen how being productive can develop great leadership characteristics and at the same time create a positive mindset. Most successful people have positive mindsets that will always make them more productive than others.

Being productive makes the mind develop positive thoughts which in turn will motivate you to achieve your goals. We all know that success comes from achieving goals you have set for yourself.

Achieving your goals motivates you to restructure and set new goals that will improve your standard of living. This cannot be achieved if you don't remain productive and positive. There is a big connection between productivity and success that cannot be ignored.

Develop productive habits aligned with success

Not being productive originates from bad habits that we develop. These bad habits become your time wasters in life that distract you from achieving your goals.
It is therefore important to develop habits that will encourage you to be more productive in your daily routine. In order to be productive, your habits must ensure that you:
  • Are well-rested
  • Remain focused
  • Avoid negativity 
  • Be realistic

Well-rested

Not being well-rested will cause the brain not to function at its best. Feeling tired will cause you to think of ways to not be productive so you can rest. Having a good night's rest will ensure that your brain is fresh and ready to do what you have planned for the next day.

Habits that will help with this are

  • Regular exercise
  • Enough sleep
  • Chill time

Remain focused

To achieve success it is important to be well organized and focused on your main goal. Losing focus is your brain diverting you to less important matters that offer no reward. In order to improve your focus, you will have to develop habits such as:
  • Planning 
  • Tracking progress
  • Critical decision making
  • Outsourcing 

Avoid negativity

The most important habit you can develop is avoiding negativity. You will never find successful people surrounding themselves with negative people even when they are doing negative things themselves.

Negative people will place you into negative situations which will escalate into negative thinking. Positive thinking will encourage you to be more productive and success will follow.
  • Avoid negative people
  • Turn negative situations into positive solutions
  • Spread positivity
  • Enjoy what you do

Be realistic

Be realistic in your planning allowing for other activities such as relaxation, sleeping and unforeseen interruptions. Not planning properly can make you totally unproductive as your brain will automatically give priority to the least productive activity.

Overcrowding yourself is not multi-tasking it is counterproductive and your brain knows that.

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Why do some people manage to be more productive?

There are often times we read about the success stories of others who have or claim to have made it big.

What is significant about most of these stories is that almost all of the success stories focus on the individual's failures before achieving success.

So we ask ourselves the question "What made them keep trying after all that?". The answer is simple, failure is just an experience and once it is over it is time for the next experience.

Life is basically a chain of experiences and whether it is positive or negative is up to the one going through the experience.

Some people just have the ability to look at negative experiences from a different angle than the next person.

The same experience viewed by two parties can have both positive and negative labels attached to it depending on the mindset of the individuals.

The way experiences are processed depends on the way your brain allocates these memories.

I am honest when I say that I am not an expert on brain functions but based on research it has to do with the way The Prefrontal Cortex, Inferior Frontal Gyrus, and Limbic System process these experiences.

In layman's terms, it comes down to having a negative experience but turns it into a lesson learned through positive thinking.

So how does my productivity gets affected?

Not being able to do the same will have a direct influence on your productivity and eventually on your level of success. 

In most cases the brain will convince you that:

  • You have done something wrong
  • You will never get anything done correctly again
  • Everybody is aware that you failed
  • Other people's opinions of you will change
  • Another person would have succeeded in the same task
  • You do not have the skills to succeed
  • You should not attempt something similar again

What are the consequences of negative thinking?

By generating these negative thoughts your productivity will sink to new levels. A mind full of negativity will:

  • Affect your ability to make practical decisions
  • Slow down your performance because of extended thought periods before action
  • Increase your inability to plan ahead
  • Affect the performance of your team
  • Prevent your personal growth and therefore prevent you from being successful

How do I overcome negative thinking?

By changing the way you think. See failures as exactly what it is, a temporary setback allowing you to realign plans, correcting what needs to bring you closer to your goals.

This might be difficult as there will always be someone to remind you of your so-called failures.

Distance yourself from negative people like that and treat them with the ignorance they deserve.

Focus your energy on maintaining your productivity levels and believe in yourself to achieve success through positive action.

It is ok to fail. We live in a society filled with failures and negative experiences. The only thing that keeps most people motivated is the power of the mind.

Allow your mind the freedom of generating positive thoughts by identifying only the positives in bad experiences.

Easier said than done but what difference will it make if bad experiences are left behind quickly in order to start your next adventure?

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How your brain affects your productivity and success - Conclusion

It is a known fact that your brain is manipulated by the way you think and negativity has a big impact on productivity. You can change your path to success by learning positive habits which in turn will make you more productive.

Productivity and success are a direct result of a positive mindset with specific goals. That unfortunately is the way humans were designed. It has nothing to do with waking up early as claimed by the gurus.