EP 145 | How to Reframe a Negative Mindset & Become More Positive

Do you ever find yourself focusing on the negative instead of the positive in situations?   In today’s episode, host Lisa Tarkington discusses the research behind negative thinking and  how having a negative mindset can impact your confidence and mental well-being. Tune in for Lisa’s tips on how to reframe a negative mindset to start your journey towards positivity and self-empowerment!

Chapters: 

• 00:00 Intro
• 05:53 - Research Behind Negative Thoughts
• 10:02 - Reframing our Thought Process
• 21:20 - Final Thoughts & Outro

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

According to research. This is interesting, guys. According to research, the average person has approximately 60,000 thoughts per day, which is truly concerning because 75% of these are negative and 95% are repetitive. Let's say that again. So an average person has 60,000 thoughts in a day, but 75% of these is negative and 95% of this is repetitive.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Welcome to the Confident Podcast. I am Lisa Targinton, your host of this podcast. If you found yourself hitting play on this podcast, it means it was meant for you. My goal is to help, empower and guide you to become a better version of yourself through conversation, advice and tips that are real, vulnerable and authentic. I am excited to have you join this journey with me, so let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Confident Podcast. I am Lisa Targinton and I am the host, and it's such an honor to be in the seat every week talking to you guys, learning from you guys and just hearing from you how you have listened to these podcasts and how it has resonated with you and how you've taken these things into your life. So thank you so much for continuing to be part of this community with us. I just wanted to say thank you, thank you for tuning in, thank you for showing up and thank you for working on yourself. I know that it is not easy. I have been on this journey of confidence and self-love for many years and I'll say time and time again, the journey is an up and down right, but the biggest part and the biggest difference is when you have the tools, when you have the strategies and you have the resources, you are able to get up quicker, and that is what I want from for you guys through this podcast. And so, if you have not already taken a moment to subscribe to this podcast, I want you to take a moment to do that, because not only do I wanna make sure that you become the best version of yourself, but because when you subscribe, it also helps other people see that too, and the more that we can help people get in front of this podcast, the more that we can help others as well, and that's what I want for each and every one of you guys tuning in today is to be able to take away tools and resources that really help you thrive, and that's so important. So thank you for joining me and being part of this journey with me.

Speaker 1: 2:26

So the reason we're here today is because we are gonna be talking about how to reframe a negative mindset. So, as someone who teaches confidence and self-esteem on a daily basis and that is in this field I get asked probably in every workshop that I teach Lisa, how do I reframe my mindset? How did you overcome the negative thoughts in your head? And when I picture trying to teach people this, I figured, well, I need to make a podcast out of this. Right, I need to talk to more than just the people that take my direct services, because I hear a lot of times people are struggling with this, and so I want to help you, when you are hitting that downward spiral and you're having all of these negative thoughts, be able to get out of that negative mindset, reframe it and push yourself forward better than you ever have before. So when I picture people kind of going into that downward spiral, I always picture a spiral, literally a spiral, kind of like that twirling a little bit and it's going downwards and the more that people are impacted and have the tools to help them reframe their mindset when they start to have those negative thoughts because, I will be honest, we will always have those negative thoughts, as just how fast we come back from them is that their spiral isn't as long as other people. So when people many times get into this negative mindset, they have the spiral and they keep going down and down. It's one negative thought, then the next negative thought, then the next negative thought comes to life. And raise your hand if that is resonating with you, because I know that sometimes when we have that self-doubt it kind of just creeps into many parts of our lives. But the biggest difference for those who have learned how to reframe their negative mindset is when they have that negative thought, they are able to know about it, they are able to notice it and they are able to take action where they're able to not only have maybe just one spiral down, but they're able to bounce back quicker.

Speaker 1: 4:17

And today that's what we're gonna be diving into teaching all of you guys to do that, because I know that it is not easy, right, I know that is a constant battle that many people have. So, just wanna be honest, it's gonna get uncomfortable, right? Changing your mindset, making change in general, is not easy, so give yourself that grace right now to know that it is not going to be easy. And through this whole conversation today, you're gonna notice that I'm going solo. Today. I am doing this podcast solo. We do not have a guest, and that is okay, because I have been working in this space for a very long time and I'm going to bring you guys the best, because I know that it is so important that when we can reframe our mindset, when we can get into that positive energy, our lives are going to change.

Speaker 1: 5:08

So are you guys with me on this? I hope you are, and so, if you are ready to take on this journey with me, I just want you to take a deep breath in, deep breath out, and I want you to be ready to really capture this moment, to get into that positive mindset. So maybe you are cleaning while you're listening to this, maybe you're driving, maybe you're kind of multitasking, that's okay. I still want you to take that breath anyways, because breathing just in general kind of already lets us get into a new mindset. It helps us just kind of take that pause.

Speaker 1: 5:37

And one thing that we don't do enough in our day is take pauses. Usually, even when it comes to a negative mindset, we don't even pause right. We are in that negative mindset and then the next thing happens and the next things happens and we have that negative impact. But when we pause, we take that deep breath in and we were able to refine our mindsets. It is a game changer. So we are already one step closer than what we were before because we are taking that deep breath in, we are setting that intention for what we want to get out of something and be like, okay, I took that moment, I need to clear that mindset, I'm gonna move forward. So I wanted to start out with teaching you guys, or at least telling you, that it is normal to have negative thoughts. I think many times what we do is we talk all about the positivity that comes and what we need to do, which we'll be diving into. But I wanna be real with you guys. I understand that these things come up I myself have these many, many times but, like I said in the beginning, it's all about having the tools and resources to help you bounce back forward, and that's so important. And so, according to research, this is interesting, guys.

Speaker 1: 6:46

According to research, the average person has approximately 60,000 thoughts per day, which is truly concerning because 75% of these are negative and 95% are repetitive. Let's say that again. So an average person has 60,000 thoughts in a day, but 75% of these is negative and 95% of this is repetitive. So many of our thoughts are in a negative space. They are kind of in a fight or flight part of our brain, and this is a constant barrier that we have when we have these negative thoughts, and they're repetitive, and this has a significant impact on our mental health, our happiness and overall quality of life. So that is not what we want for you guys. I do not want you to continue to have 95% of your thoughts be repetitive, negative thoughts Like that is not what I want for any of you guys, and so what we have to do is reframe that.

Speaker 1: 7:45

What we have to do is change that, and it is a constant journey. It is going to be uncomfortable, like I said, but the more that you can kind of step into this new zone of focusing on how to reframe your positive thoughts, it's going to be a game changer for you. But more importantly is, when we're thinking of our negative thought process, it's very easy to blame other people. It's very easy to say, well, so and so made me feel this, so and so made me feel that I can't get out of this negative mindset. But I am going to tell you something that it starts with you. It starts with you deciding how you want to reframe that mindset. Or even, if you do right, it's very easy to blame other people for our negativity and it's so important that we notice, hey, it has to start with me, it has to start with me showing up for myself, has to do with me choosing to have the positive mindset and it's going to be part of your whole journey. So the more that you can capture this into your life, it is going to be a lot better.

Speaker 1: 8:58

I kind of have my hands up and down, kind of like the up and down flow. It might just be have little bumps along the way when you choose and you say, hey, it starts with me. It's very easy to blame and push it onto other people, but when we choose to take ownership for the decisions that we make, it is a game changer. Because we are owning that, hey, I know that I need to make this change. I need to start with me, and then that ripple effect of positive change is going to happen to just kind of in a very flow way of that ripple effect onto other people. So the more that we can focus on the negative versus the positive, or, I'm sorry, the more that we can focus on our positive versus the negative, that is going to be a game changer. And so I think that the thing that we have to think about is the work that we do when we're talking in a negative way or when we're talking in a positive way is the same amount of work. People say choose your hard, and so you can choose to be in this negative mindset, and it's gonna take a lot of work. Still, we might only know that because we've been so negative that it might just sound easy to stay in that mindset, but it's still a lot of work to choose to be in that negative state or in that positive state. So choose your hard, and I hope that you choose that. Maybe it's gonna be a little uncomfortable in the beginning, but me choosing to put the work in to be positive, it's gonna get easier over time. So my question to all of you is what's the hard that you wanna choose? How do you wanna show up for yourself? And that is a powerful question that you'll notice throughout today is questions that you're gonna be asking yourself in order to make this change.

Speaker 1: 10:46

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Speaker 2: 11:41

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Speaker 1: 11:43

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Speaker 1: 12:15

So positive so let's talk about reframing our thought process and having that mindset. So, first off, to even reframe it, we have to think about three different things, and we're gonna dive into each one of these. But it's first off, noticing your thoughts. It's questioning your thoughts and replacing the unhelpful thoughts with more helpful ones, and that's what we want you guys to do today. So positive reframing involves thinking about a negative or challenging situation in a more positive way. This also is helpful because it not only helps you think about like well, how can I reframe this or how can I think about this differently, but the more that we are able to get into these mindsets, it helps us grasp how to handle challenging situations better. So I got some examples for you guys that I want to dive into before we kind of dive into how to handle the noticing your thoughts, questioning the thoughts and replacing the unhelpful thoughts with more helpful ones.

Speaker 1: 13:14

And so, for the first one is, think about this thought process. For a second, think about if you didn't get a job that you wanted. You're probably telling yourself, oh, I didn't get it because of X, y, z reasons. Right, you might be thinking, like all of the negative reasons of why you might not have gotten a job. But if you reframe it into thinking about, well, I didn't get this because the next one is going to be a better fit for me, or maybe I will use this experience to reframe or refine my skills or approach this in a different way to have future success. So, right there, you are not just thinking about that, you are not thinking about the negative, but you're thinking about okay, something happened to me, I didn't get the job that I wanted. But instead of thinking of all the negative around it, you are thinking about well, what can I do to make this positive spin, to actually make successful actions out of it? Maybe you're going through a breakup and you know that you need to kind of get out of that negative mindset of feeling hurt and sadness. So maybe this is thinking about a new opportunity to try something new, meet new people, make new friends, learn something, or ask yourself what did I learn from this relationship? And have gratitude for what you learned along the way and have gratitude about where you are going in the future.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Another one, which is all around feedback. I love to give thoughts around feedback because that's really where a lot of people have negative mindsets around. So maybe you have a boss that gave you feedback in a recent performance review. They gave you a ton of great feedback, but maybe one piece of an area that you need to grow in and guess what? Guess, what your mind probably thought about Is that one negative thought verse.

Speaker 1: 15:05

All of the great things that they told you about. Raise your hand if you've been there, because I know I have before and instead of just thinking about that one negative, where it's that repetitive thought in your head, I want you to think about it in a positive way. Think about all the things that they told you that you're doing great at. Maybe they pointed out your strengths. Maybe they pointed out things that they've seen you grow in, so the more that you can think about those opportunities and those things that they've showed you.

Speaker 1: 15:31

It is so important because you are not only getting the negative out of the way, but you are thinking about it in a positive light. And so when we think about things, when we think about getting out of that negative mindset to get to that positive mindset, it is all about reframing our mind. It's all about getting out of that negative a little bit. And so, like I said, it's about noticing your thought. That's number one. It's about noticing oh, that negative thought popped into my head. How am I going to stop that? What am I going to do? And some of the examples that I just gave you is a great, great way to start. And when I think about noticing the thought, it's about not allowing it then to keep going. Right, it's having that self-awareness, and I cannot tell you enough how important self-awareness is when it comes to reframing your mindset. It's all about, hey, okay, this popped into my head. I'm not going to keep going down the negative path. I'm going to notice it, I'm going to reflect on it and then I'm going to do something about it so that I can reframe that and to get to that positive light.

Speaker 1: 16:37

The next one is this question in your thought Okay, you have that negative thought, and so I just want you to take that in for a moment and think about it and asking yourself what do I want to do about this? Why is this showing up in my life? Maybe you need to ask yourself where is the positive in this? What do I need to take positive away from this? And sometimes, too, is I love to tell people. It's like maybe you just got feedback from one person or this is one situation in your life, so how do you question the thought that you're having of noticing like, is this actually true or is this just a story that I'm telling myself? And so the more that you can ask yourself questions and questioning that thought, you'll be able to bounce back faster as well. And then the last one, which we gave some examples already, is replacing the unhelpful thought with a more helpful one. So this is where you can ask yourself the questions that you need to. It's also thinking about well, I'm not good enough at this, and reframing it and giving yourself a helpful one that says, well, I learned a lot from this. What am I going to do in the future to get better in this area, or actually I did these five things really well. I'm not going to allow this one piece to take over my life or to take over my thought process. And the more that you can Notice those thoughts, question those thoughts and then replace those unhelpful thoughts with positive ones or helpful ones, it is going to help you reframe your mindset. So those are three key areas to really help you get out of that negative mindset to go to that positive mindset.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Now we all have bad days, right. There will be days where you're just gonna sit in the suck and you're gonna probably have those negative thoughts. We're all gonna have those days. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you guys that I still don't have those days, but I give myself. I have a rule still to this day I give myself 24 hours. Some days I'm not even allowed 24 hours. I'm allowed only 12 hours Because I do not think that it is healthy for me to sit in those negative thoughts for too long, because it does not help my confidence, it does not help my self-esteem and it definitely does not help my well-being or my mental health.

Speaker 1: 18:47

And we all know that when we have those negative thoughts, when we're having that negative spiral. We are in this place of negativity and everything around us kinda just shows up that way as well, and we don't want that for ourselves and I don't want that for any of you. And so, the more that you can reframe those mindsets and again, when I said, like, having crappy days, that does not mean you're allowed to have them all the time those 24 hour things, those are when things get tough and when things I just need a moment, but more than that, we're gonna have those negative thoughts coming in through our day. Right, we have 60,000 thoughts a day, so you're gonna have them come in. But it's about how are you gonna show up to be a more positive person? How are you going to show up to notice that thought, get that self-awareness in check and then be able to reframe that so that that downward spiral doesn't continue to go all the way to the ground right, like and I kind of have my finger kind of having the spiral, because I want to picture and visualize it For every spiral there's a negative thought that's coming into it. So if you have that one negative thought, noticing it, stopping it, reframing that and bouncing back and starting over throughout your day, cause there is so much good happening in our lives, but we always allow that negativity to kind of take over, and if you have noticed that you've been allowing that, please know that that is something that a lot of people struggle with, including myself sometimes, and so the more that we can practice these things and really work on that, you will see a game changer in this. And the last piece of this is really about examining the evidence. So this is kind of what we've already talked about, but it's about noticing a lot of the assumptions that we give ourselves right.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Thinking about. A lot of times we have these negative thoughts because we're wondering, oh, what does someone else think of this, or did I do this right, or did I do that right, and we're always worried about these negative outcomes that could occur. But what we don't think about is what actually is possible. So this is kind of like the worst case, best case scenario, where you just kind of examine things for a second. So the first thing when it comes to with changing your negative mindset to a positive mindset is again reframing that. But it's also important to examine the evidence, like I said, and that's because when we think about the worst case.

Speaker 1: 21:07

So it's very good sometimes to think about okay, I have this thought what is the worst possible case that can happen? Okay, we thought that was the best possible thing that can happen. Okay, we thought that, but what is actually going to happen? Right, and so we kind of meet that in the middle of the real life outcome of what could happen. And so that helps our minds a lot, because guess what we do Many times as we go right to the worst case, we go right to that and then that kind of drives our thought process for the whole rest of the day. And so it's very powerful when we can slow down, when we can kind of take that deep breath and, like we did in the beginning, and notice that, wow, okay, I can examine this thought process and really think about what that outcome is, taking that deep breath in and then pumping out that positive mindset where you can really reframe that to have a stronger outcome for yourself. And so you know, all of these things are extremely important, and I think one of the things that I wanted to point out too is I know that these are three powerful things right, having that positive thought mindset is about noticing that thought, questioning that thought and then replacing it with an un, replacing the unhelpful thought with a powerful one, the helpful one. And so it sounds simple, right? Well, it is, if we really want to make that change. Right, and it's gonna be uncomfortable in the beginning. We're gonna have some days where it's not gonna be really easy.

Speaker 1: 22:37

But the good life is a process. It is not a state of being. It's all about once you replace those negative thoughts with positive ones, you will see positive results. Think about anything that you might have started in your life where you've added positivity into your life, where you've made positive changes. You've probably seen positive things and positive results because of it. But when we don't stick with it, we kind of go trickle back into that negativity. And so when we think about this, it all kind of embodies into the confidence that we want, the wellbeing life that we want, the self-esteem that we want.

Speaker 1: 23:13

But it all starts with our minds. It all starts with us making that change, thinking about how, when negative thoughts show up, how we can be in charge of choosing to take that negative thought, reframing it and using it to make a positive outcome. There are many examples, like I shared already, about things in our lives where we've probably allowed the negative to kind of take over. I shared some about a breakup about a job, about getting feedback from a boss, and there's many other areas in our lives where we might not feel like we're good enough, or maybe we didn't get invited to something, or it's very easy to get into that negative state. But the more that you can think about it as an opportunity or how am I going to use this to grow in a positive mindset, how am I going to change this so that I can become a better version of myself that's where the real work comes into play. And so, like I said earlier, it is about choosing to make this change, and it all starts with you. It starts with you deciding do you want to really make this change into your life? And I hope that you're all nodding your head saying yes. And so I am here to be on this journey with you, because reframing our mindsets does take time, but when you add these things into your life, when you are conscious and you have that self awareness to make these changes, it is going to be a game changer in your life.

Speaker 1: 24:43

I have been doing this for years and, like I said, I still have my days of suck, but what I have noticed is that those days are a lot less than what they were years prior to where I am today. I'm, in a way, better state because I actually do this in my own life, and one of the things that I have found to be very true as well is asking myself questions, lisa, did that really happen? Is that a story that you're telling yourself? What is the positive from this? What is something that you can take away from this? What is a lesson that you learn throughout this process? And when I get into the mindset of I'm not good enough or I'm not XYZ, I instantly have to notice that thought and make that trigger into my life, in my head, to flip back to the positive, and I've noticed that the more I do that, and I've even embodied that with that ripple effect of positive change into other people, it's been really awesome to see how me changing my mindset affects other people in a positive way as well.

Speaker 1: 25:44

And so if you have a servant heart, if you are always trying to strive to help other people as well, I recommend you starting here in your heart, with you, here in your mind, with yourself as well, because then, the more that you can focus on yourself, take care of yourself, you will have that ripple effect of on other people.

Speaker 1: 26:01

Okay, guys, I feel like I just kind of had to repeat a few of those things because I have such a passion for helping people get into a positive mindset. So some key takeaways from today is taking care of yourself is important. It starts with you having a positive thought. Reframe mindset is so important. Again, it's noticing your thought, questioning that thought and replacing that unhelpful thought with a helpful one. So if you can do these things continuously in your life, you will see that you will start to have a positive mindset for yourself and you will be able to reframe those negative thoughts and I promise you you will see that trickle into your life. So thank you so much for spending time with me today to learn about how to overcome a negative mindset, to become more positive and have a positive mindset. So, as I always say, continue to spread love and kindness to everybody that you meet and have a great day.

Speaker 2: 26:59

Thank you for tuning into the Confident Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, follow the Confident Podcast on Instagram and TikTok and share it with those who might benefit. Also, if you were looking to work one-on-one with me, message and follow me on Instagram at Lisa Tarkington official. Stay confident, stay inspired and until next time, keep striving to be the best version of yourself. Take care.