Choose Your Thoughts, Or They’ll Choose You

Our lives are a product of our thoughts. Our thinking directly latches onto tangible things in our lives. And whenever we think about our thoughts it’s always after-the-fact (introspection, therapy, etc.).  But some thoughts we know do not lead to good outcomes (non-negotiable), and are thus not worth struggling with. In this episode I argue that there is no point in allowing thoughts that we know lack utility, or lead to poor outcomes, into our lives. If we don’t choose our thoughts, they’ll choose us. I put forward a disciplined approach to actively choosing our thoughts, and thus improving the quality of our lives.

Transcript

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Our lives are a product of our thoughts, right? It all starts from our thoughts. Whatever action we take, whatever tangible thing we do in life, whatever decision we make, it has to start from one or more thoughts that reside in our mind, right? And what I want to make clear in this episode is that our thinking directly latches onto tangible things in our lives. Maybe that's obvious to some people, but I think we usually think about thinking kind of in a hand wavy way or kind of a too soft a way. Like, yeah, it's good to have positive thoughts. I guess. It's good to have some control over thoughts. But then when you think about your real life and the real actions you're taking, you're thinking about, well, what environment do I place myself in and what people do I, you know, who do I interact with? What decisions do I specifically make? It's kind of all just more specific, more precise, more tangible. And of course, that is important because that is your real life. But still, all of those things really precipitate out from the thoughts in our mind. And so having control over your thoughts is a really, really big deal. It's a very practical deal. It's not something that's, well, you have your thoughts, and then you have your actions. People get very dualistic about that. They create that separation. To not control your thoughts, not just know your thoughts, but really control your thoughts, is to not control your life, is to not have some level of control and discipline over the actions you take over the opportunities you run into and ultimately, the quality of your life. And so that's what I want to talk about in this episode. So let's begin by just talking about this kind of first premise, that our lives are a product of our thoughts. Our thinking directly latches onto tangible things in our lives. Let's think of some examples. Well, your thoughts about money, budgeting and investments, for example, will directly impact your financial situation. Intangible assets. I think that's true in a lot of cases. Sometimes you meet people who just have a very poor literacy of money and kind of shines through, doesn't it? Or really shines through. Maybe they don't do any level of budgeting or any level of kind of thinking about the prices, and they just kind of spend whatever, and you're looking at that person and, you know, you don't really make that much money. I'm not sure you should be, I don't know, driving a luxury car. I don't know if you should really be going on all those vacations. I think we all know people like this. Maybe people listening are like this. And it's not to judge, it's just to say that there seems to be a disconnect between kind of the reality of the situation and the decisions that they're making. I think that's an example of someone's thinking directly latching on to tangible things in their lives. In this case, the thinking being about money, budgeting, investments, and it's kind of misaligned to maybe what they should be doing from an action perspective. What's another example? Thoughts about career skill development. Right? Job opportunities, those are going to influence your professional life and your income, right? Not necessarily good, not necessarily bad. Maybe it's kind of neutral, but it definitely does impact it. Right? If you meet someone, maybe they're not happy in their job. This is a negative example, and they complain all the time. And then you talk to them and you learn about their thoughts, about careers and about skills. And maybe when it comes to skills, they think, well, people are just kind of born a certain way and other people are not. And they kind of easily put themselves down because they just have this, what I would consider kind of a bizarre notion of how skills work and not realizing just how capable they might be, or the skills that they already have and not understanding how to transfer those into kind of a new domain, that kind of thing. It's another example of their thinking directly latching on to tangible things in their lives. And again, in a negative way. Right. Think about diet, exercise, overall well being from a health perspective, let's say physical. You meet people, sometimes they think they eat healthy, and then you look at what they eat and you're like, wow, I don't think your understanding of nutrition is really that good. As I go through these kind of examples, I want to be clear. I don't think I'm perfect and I'm judging everyone else. We all have our own versions of thoughts we allow into our lives that negatively impact it. Right? So I'm not trying to paint myself as perfect, but you'll need someone who maybe thinks something is healthy, and it's pretty clear that that's not healthy. Why do they have those thoughts? Is it their upbringing? Is it the way they're taught? Maybe they just don't care. Think about thoughts and attitudes towards stress and mental health. Right. People get stressed out about a lot of different things. I heard a story from someone a couple of days ago about someone who runs software product demos, and they got so stressed out that they had to take a few days off just because they had to give a demo. And I don't mean to laugh, but I think that person and everybody can realize if you step back and look at that objectively, that that's pretty ridiculous, right? It's just a demo. You're not going to lose your job because a demo goes bad, at least if you can, and then you're working for the wrong company. That's a thought and an attitude that that person has about mental health, stress, job that isn't good, but it leads to a direct, tangible result. That person goes to give the demo. They're stressed out, they're nervous. You see that and that's just going to trickle and tendril out to all different areas of their life. Again, thinking directly, latching on to tangible things in our lives. How you think about communication that can affect the quality of relationships. Obviously, in a relationship with an individual, you think you have certain thoughts about the way that's supposed to go, the way that other person is supposed to be, the way communication is supposed to happen. That's going to impact, for better or worse, the relationship you have with that person. Right? Thoughts about time priorities, productivity, those are all going to directly, often impact how you effectively use your time and results. Again, just think about people you meet not to judge, because again, we all have our own version of kind of quote unquote bad thoughts leading to not great outcomes in our lives. Right. But I think a good way to notice that because it can be hard to kind of notice it in yourself sometimes, unless you really do a lot of contemplation and introspection, is to just think about the people you know and the way that they talk and think. You know what? I think that person's thinking is kind of causally connected to how their life is maybe not going that well. And the reason they complain about it, but they don't seem to kind of realize that connection. Sometimes it takes someone from the outside looking more objectively in to notice that one's ability to think critically, solve problems, that's going to, again, directly affect efficiency and effectiveness. And in many ways it's indirect as well. But I'm, I'm stressing that word directly because again, to what I said at the beginning, people kind of have the world of thoughts and then they have the world of actions and they think these are kind of very different things. They're very, very connected. The decisions you make in life, the outcomes that you get in life are truly connected to the thoughts you have in your mind. Okay, what does that mean? Well, that's a big thing in life because we're talking about outcomes. We're talking about quality of life, happiness, contentment. I think most of us understand, let's say, the importance of introspection or contemplation. I say I go for long walks often, and I think about my thoughts, right? Kind of operate at that meta level. I think about my life. I think about things that are going on. And in doing that, I know that not all those thoughts are good, right? Because there are things that I think that I realize, you know what? Maybe that doesn't lead to great outcomes in my life. And you kind of start to filter a little bit. You think, okay, I'm realizing that this seems to work and this doesn't. And then a good thing to do is to try to kind of fold that into actions you might want to take. And then, as I often stress, actually put it into a very specific technique that you can employ in your life and then work on that technique because it's something quite specific. It's a rule. So that's what I'm going to touch on in this episode, but let's continue this a little bit. So the first point I made was, look, our lives are a product of our thoughts, and our thinking directly latches onto tangible things. And now another main point I want to make is that whenever we think about our thoughts contemplating introspection or maybe therapy, right? Maybe some people go to therapy online or in person just to have someone to kind of talk about their lives with. Whenever we think about our thoughts, it's always after the fact, okay? The thoughts have happened or they're happening, and we're kind of looking upon them and then analyzing them in some sense. So if you think about introspection, as I've used previously, it's the process of examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and motivations, right? So I think a lot of us will do this in life in one form or another. Hopefully. Hopefully. You do take time to kind of think about your life and think about how it's going and to look upon your feelings, your emotions, the motivations that you have, the thoughts that you have, and just think about them, right? Kind of operate at that meta level. I think that's important thing to do in life. And then when you do that, you can say, okay, some are good and maybe some are not. And you can imagine maybe a counselor or somebody kind of helping somebody do this as well. Maybe some of you do counseling, or maybe it's just going for long walks, or maybe a mixture of both. But you're kind of analyzing the thoughts that you have your life. What about this? What about that? And then you realize that some are working and some are not. And then maybe there's kind of an action you can take and then hopefully a technique that you can kind of fold into your life. But it's all after the fact. The thoughts have happened. They've grown, they've germinated, they've precipitated out, and they are now affecting your life. That's why you can do this introspection. That's why they are worth thinking about in the first place. Right. But it's all post hoc. It's all after the thoughts have come into play. Now, why am I talking about that? Well, the third point I want to make is that some thoughts we know do not lead to good outcomes. They're what I would call non negotiable. So let's use an example of a hypochondriac. A hypochondriac is someone who constantly fears that they're unhealthy or that they have a disease or that they're sick, right? They hear about symptoms. Maybe they, I don't know, social media or commercial on television or on the radio. I mean, we're always bombarded with health news, health news. And a hypochondriac is someone who just latches onto those and just can't stop thinking about bad outcomes. And sometimes they go to the doctor all the time, or maybe they avoid doctors altogether. But the fears of the hypochondriac, those emotions, they never lead to good outcomes. Right. We can say, at least, I would argue, that they do not improve the quality of the individual's life because we're not talking about, let's say, a healthy level of precautionary action, right? I mean, there are times to have fears. There are times to take precautions. A bit of paranoia can actually be healthy even at the superstitious level, right? Those can exist for evolutionary reasons, but there are some fears that are just so irrational on any level that not only do they not improve your life, they most definitely damage your life. Okay, so I'm going to use the hypochondriac as an example. Someone's going through life, they could be a professional and maybe they have a good job and they've got these skills and they're otherwise a very regular person, but they have these deep seated irrational fears that keep coming. And as per my first point, they're going to directly impact the individual's life. Now, this individual can undergo their introspection, which they obviously do, because a hypochondriac is constantly thinking about symptoms and, well, do I have this and don't I have this, and did I feel something? And they're going through this process, and maybe they go to counseling and they're talking about it, and in doing so, they kind of highlight the damaging thoughts. Okay. It's not that they don't realize this is wrong. The hypochondriac realizes this is not a good way to think, and they realize that here's the good stuff in my life, but there's this thing that kind of holds me back or really holds me back, and then they might think how to take action on it, right? So they might say, okay, well, I'm going to try to just maybe lose myself in my work or involve myself with other things, other community, or maybe even involve myself with other hypochondriacs. I don't know, other people who are going through the same thing. And that might help. And then there's probably mental techniques. Maybe they borrow something from some kind of cognitive behavioral therapy or something that will help them try to get over this. And none of that is bad in terms of the action, the technique, involving with the community. But at the same time, we're not talking about thoughts that are necessarily worth wrestling with. We're talking about thoughts that are so irrational any way you slice them that there cannot possibly be a value in having them or in wrestling with them. So this brings me to my fourth point. There is no point in allowing thoughts that we know lack utility or that we know lead to poor outcomes. In other words, out of all the thoughts you can have and that you can contemplate and that you can maybe go to therapy for or kind of fold into your level of introspection, there are some that just absolutely only have one outcome, which is poor. And I'm going to argue that there's no point in even allowing those thoughts as a mental discipline into your life. The first point, I said, is that our lives are a product of our thoughts. Our thinking directly latches onto tangible things in our lives. It's not just, oh, yeah, we should think positive. No, this is a really, really direct thing. It really, really impacts the quality of your life. It really, really impacts your health and how much money you can make. Not that you need to go make a bunch of money, but whatever your idea of success is, it all emanates from your thinking. And if you just kind of allow thinking to happen and then after the fact, post hoc, you say, well, then I'll think about it and I'll contemplate it, and then I'll think about this and I'll think about actions. Yeah, you should still do that. But there comes a point where within those list of thoughts you have, there are some that definitely do not lead to good outcome. The hypochondriac is never doing anything good. It's always irrational, it's causing stress, it's lowering the quality of their life. And then those are the direct things, then indirectly, that can affect so many things because everything's connected. Their ability to talk to people, their ability to go out, their ability to get a good job, their ability to make a public presentation, their ability to create, build, feel contentment, and on and on. There is no point in allowing certain thoughts that we know lack utility. That is going to decrease, under any definition, the quality and success of your life, that hypochondriac example, there can be no benefit to remaining constantly afraid of some existential crisis, or however you want to say it, that can only bring a lower quality of life. As we go through life, we take a lot of actions, we make a lot of decisions, we undergo introspection, we think about how our life is going, but within that thinking, there is a set of things we're doing that maybe are not good. And if you think about the thoughts that those emanate from, those thoughts are obviously not good. And you don't even have to make the causal connection. You could forget the actions and the specific decisions, just focus on the thoughts, be logical about it. Is there any possible good outcome that could come from thinking this way? Whatever it is, a lot of listeners probably are not hypochondriacs. But whatever your version of this is, I think we all can make that list. And there is a set of thinking in there, or a set of thoughts in there in that list. It that we can say, I can't even imagine how this could lead to a good outcome, but I can definitely imagine how it could lead to poor outcome. You might think about a certain type of people a certain way. Maybe you had a bad experience in the past with a certain type or kind of person, and this has sat with you and you don't think it affects you anymore, but it's still in your mind and it still kind of festers. And if you're being honest with yourself, maybe that is actually having a negative way that you treat certain people over the other or whatever. You have to do this list for yourself. And kind of think. But I think we all have versions of something. How you think about skills, how you think about money. Remember those examples I gave at the beginning? We can realize what works and what doesn't. We can take action, and we need to fold that into a technique. Okay, so here's kind of the main argument of this episode. If we don't choose our thoughts, they're going to choose us. And what I want to be clear about is the difference between just thinking about thoughts that have already happened versus recognizing that some thoughts are absolutely not improving our life and choosing to not have them. Choosing to specifically not have the thoughts. It's a mental discipline. It's a rule that we put in place as a formidable skill, a formidable mental discipline, because in removing thoughts that do not lead to good outcomes, we are setting ourselves up for much better opportunities, much better levels of contentment, and so on. Think of an example that a lot of people talk about is impostor syndrome. I know a lot of people talk about it, but it's kind of a good example for this. This is where individuals doubt their accomplishments, and they have this persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud. Right. Despite there being evidence of their competence. So you might know someone that you work with, or it might be yourself, and you look at them, and they're really good at what they do, right. Maybe they're a computer programmer or a manager or whatever, right. Systems engineer or something, whatever it is. And you say you're really good at what you do. I can tell this, but this person feels like an imposter. They feel like they are maybe giving presentations about content that they don't feel they know that deeply. Maybe they feel like, yeah, I'm helping, I don't know, program the computer, but I'm doing a lot of pair programming with someone. If it wasn't for the other members on the team, I wouldn't be able to do this, whoever it could be. A politician, maybe. I don't know. Probably less likely in that sphere, but maybe they give speeches, but they know someone else helped write the speech. Other people see them as highly capable. They can see their talent, they can see their skill, but they themselves feel like an imposter. Right. Well, I would say impostor syndrome is an example of a thought that cannot possibly benefit your life and yet has direct impact on your life. Undoubtedly, it is lowering the quality of your life if you have impostor syndrome. And that's one that I've never suffered from, for whatever reason. But I can see pretty clearly, and I see it in other people, that if you do that and you're in a board meeting or meeting, whatever, you're not putting your hand up, you're not letting your voice get heard, you're not putting your opinion out there. And a lot of people say, yeah, well, I don't always have to speak up. It doesn't matter now. I think it does matter, probably in more ways than you can imagine. Someone hears you give an opinion now, they kind of associate that idea with you. Then some other opportunity a week or two later comes up and they think they make that connection. There's that kind of analogical reasoning, oh, they were kind of good at this. Now I'll put them here. And it goes and goes and goes. I think we underestimate dramatically just how much small differences in our lives can lead to really, really big outcomes. And of course, that's true for the positive and the negative. Right. I think impostor syndrome can have very, very dramatically bad influences on your life. It's a thing that really directly and indirectly lowers the quality of one's life. Perhaps the biggest tragedy of all just doesn't allow people to truly live up to their potential. Because if you want to really live up to your potential, tap into your own innate genius or whatever, quote unquote genius, the community kind of has to help you with that, not to kind of like help you necessarily create or build things, or that might be true, too, but you need a community to get to recognize what you do. They have to fold you into the systems and the infrastructures that are in place to help promote what you do and give you feedback and kind of say, I like this, I didn't like this. It's a dynamic thing that has to be part of a community. Even if you're just the one kind of creating the stuff, you still want to inject that into a system that speaks to other people and on and on. And so if you have something like impostor syndrome and people don't even know your ideas and they don't even know what you're capable of, or they can see you're kind of afraid, you're kind of timid, it's going to have a lot more consequence than I think a lot of people realize. It's not like, oh, I just won't ask for a raise because I'm not confident. No, it's way more than that. It's way more than that. And I think imposter syndrome is an example that through introspection, again, I think you have to do that kind of post talk analysis originally, go for the long walk, or maybe talk to a counselor, talk to yourself or someone or both, and kind of realize that, yeah, okay, this is not a good thought to have, and it has all kinds of consequences in my life. But instead of keeping it there as something you keep kind of pining over or ruminating on. Right. It's an example of one that you probably just shouldn't be struggling with to begin with. Right. As we go through life, we do introspection, we notice there are certain thoughts we have that are just so damaging, they're non negotiable. I call these kind of non negotiables. It's the same reason you don't negotiate with a terrorist, right? There's all kinds of reasons to negotiate, but some groups of people are just not worth negotiating with. You don't negotiate with cancer, you cut it out. There are certain things in life that are just non negotiable. They're not worth struggling with. They don't converge. They don't lead to anything. In fact not. They do lead to things, but it's always negative. There are times when you have to just cut it out. There are certain things in life that are so non negotiable that you just have to remove them. You have to stop talking about them, stop analyzing them, stop injecting them into therapies, and they just have to be removed. And that's the action and technique I want to focus on now. So if it's true that if we don't choose our thoughts, they will choose us. To be clear, what I mean by that is, again, it's not just enough to have thoughts and notice them after the fact. If you don't explicitly choose the thoughts that are part of your life and therefore leading to the actions and type of success that you want, then those thoughts are going to choose you. The hypochondriac is going to be the hypochondriac and all the negative side effects that come from it. The person suffering from impostor syndrome, it's not like they're just going to be a person that, oh, just happens to have impostor syndrome. No, that's going to be who that person is. They're going to be living like an impostor, even though they are skilled, even though they have a lot of competence, because the thoughts are choosing them. It's choosing their decisions, it's choosing their actions. It's choosing their quality of life. If we don't choose explicitly through a mental discipline, our thoughts, then our thoughts are going to choose us. Our thoughts are going to make our lives for us, and we won't have much of a say in it specifically. And I'm focusing on the negative thoughts because you don't want to stop positive thoughts from coming in. You don't want to just have this kind of strict list of thoughts that are allowed because part of being creative and doing new things, you have to run what if scenarios. You have to have a lot of creativity there. But on the negative side, there are definitely things to remove, I would argue. So if it's true that if we don't choose our thoughts and they choose us, then we should make, quite literally a list of thoughts. Think about the different thoughts that you have and think about the ones that don't lead to who we want to be, and then actively implement, one, nip those offending thoughts in the bud, and two, replace them with something that we know has utility and leads to good outcomes. So that first point, nipping the offending thought in the bud. I kind of talked about this nipping temptations in the bud episode, right? When you get something really, really early, it's not much of a struggle. It's far easier. It's like that poll example I had in a few episodes, right? Someone's balancing up on the pole and you got three people or whoever kind of balancing that pole. As long as they keep the attention on, it's very easy to balance the pole. But the more they allow deviation from that attention, it's going to be that much harder. It goes up exponentially. The restoring force is that much greater. It's like that. So if you know there are thoughts, impostor syndrome, hypochondria, whatever it is, whatever your version is, right. The way you think about certain companies or certain people or whatever, that just cannot possibly increase the quality of your life, but definitely decrease it. Then you got to nip those in the b*** and you might, you can't just do it. But if you do it early as a mental discipline, I think it is, I know it gets a lot easier. It gets a lot easier. And then you can replace that with something that is positive. Right. So again, just choose your example. Right. The hypochondria says, oh, I'm starting to think about symptoms. Okay, that's not allowed. Right. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to replace that with, let's think about how healthy I am, actually. Look at me, I'm walking around and I'm looking at things and whatever, right? The impostor syndrome. Right? It's not okay to just focus on being an imposter. That should not be something that's allowed. You have to implement rules in your life, and it should be a rule because this thing definitely always leads to bad outcomes, to not allow that thought to fester. So as soon as you recognize it, replace it with something like, I'm going to think about my skills and just do it. It's a simple thing, and it is simple, and it is easy if you get it early every time you recognize it. Don't allow it to be something that you constantly therapize over. Use therapy over, something that you constantly commiserate or pine or ruminate over. It's not okay to do that. You can't just keep thinking about things that are obviously, demonstrably wrong. There are things that need to be cut out, like a cancer. There are things that need to be not negotiated with, like a terrorist. Lots of things are, but there are some things that are not. And it has to be a specific action you take. Rather than constantly ruminating and pondering over something like imposter syndrome or whatever your version of wrong thinking is, choose to not allow it. Choose to not allow it. Nip it early. Replace it with imagery of your competence and skills or the kind of positive version of what you're focusing on. Okay. We all go through life. We all do introspection. We understand there are some damaging thoughts that are directly and indirectly related. We can realize what works and what doesn't. But so much of that is after the fact. So much of that is once the thoughts have festered when it comes to taking action and comes to employing a technique that actually leads to good skills. Make a list of thoughts that don't lead to what you want in your life and nip those offending thoughts in the b*** and replace them with something that we know has utility. Something that we know has at least a far better chance of leading to better outcomes. Okay, so I said at the beginning, our lives are a product of our thoughts. Our thinking directly latches onto tangible things in our lives. We have to remain cognizant of that. It's not, oh, just think happy thoughts, or, yeah, it's good to have good mental health. This is not a wishywashy thing. It really, really impacts your lives. You have to get control of the way that you think if you want to have any level of success. But whenever we think about our thoughts, it's always after the fact. It's always post talk, right? Introspection is good. You got to start there, but it can't stop there. You can't just allow negative thoughts to keep entering and then think about them at a later date, which I think a lot of us do. Some thoughts we know do not lead to good outcomes. They are non negotiable, and they will reduce the quality of your life. There is no point in allowing thoughts that we know lack utility or lead to poor outcomes into our lives. They're non negotiable. They need to be cut out. They cannot be negotiated with. If we don't choose explicitly, specifically through a tangible, real world technique, if we don't choose our thoughts, then they are going to choose us. We will become how we think we do become how we think. It's really important to have mental discipline around the way you think. It is a very tangible, real thing. It will affect you. And if that's true, then we should make a list of the thoughts that don't lead to who we want to be. Nip them as a technique, literally, as soon as it arises. Observe it, don't allow it. It's a rule that doesn't allow them to fester in the mind. You have to be on it, right. You have to be on top of it. Right. Not just hope for the best. It's a very specific rule through mental discipline that you will get better at. You nip it in the bud, and then you replace it with something that has a far higher chance of leading to good outcome. Focus on the good parts of your health. Focus on the good parts of your skills. Take your version of what is definitely demonstrably lowering the quality of your life and replace it with something positive as a mental discipline. Okay, so that's all I wanted to say in this episode. Thinking about thinking is really important. Having mental discipline over your thoughts does have a direct impact on your life, and it's important to have the mental discipline to control it. Okay? So thanks so much for listening. Until next time, take care.