by Robert Leary
Gratitude is a powerful thing for the mind. It can instantly turn a stressful, bad day into something positive and hopeful. Instead of concentrating on the challenges you are facing and the things you don’t have, think about all of the wonderful things in your life that you can be thankful for. Even the small things. Is the utility bill paid for this month? That is something to be thankful for. Do you have friends who care about you and that you have fun spending time with? Lots of people don’t—so be grateful. Is your bed nice and soft with clean sheets? Look forward to sleeping tonight and be grateful. There are a thousand reasons all around you to feel grateful and it is important to start noticing them, each and every day.
Gratitude comes with a lot of wonderful, warm feelings. It also forces you to refocus your mind on what’s going on right in front of you and around you in the present moment. A lot of us get stuck in thinking about yesterday or the week before or even years before…then our minds shift to tomorrow and what’s happening this weekend and next month and next year… How often do you just sit down and look around you and feel thankful for where you are in life? This is so important and I hope you make this one of your top priorities as you build new positive life habits.
Chapter 7: Remove Negative Influences
This may be one of the toughest chapters, and I’ve waited to write on this topic until this point because I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed. Having a little momentum going before getting to this point may help you see clearly, now that you’ve taken a step back, evaluated your thought processes, and begun to change them through better, healthier habits.
Removing negative influences from your life encompasses a great deal of space that is filled with different things from person to person. Negative influence does not look the same for everyone, so again, it is important that you not get caught up in comparing yourself with others. No one out there is better than you because they don’t struggle the same way that you do. I guarantee all those people who appear to be living perfect lives in social media are struggling with their own personal obstacles. Just as we’ve focused before in previous chapters, it’s time to focus on you and to chase out those distractions that are holding you back, or worse, forcing you to move backward.
Go ahead and get out that list from a few chapters back detailing all of the sources and causes of overthinking in your life. You may have mentioned things that have happened to you in the past that you continue to carry with you, past trauma, or bad treatment from others. Maybe you wrote down things like a bad boss at work, or friend who keeps trying to get you to get high with her, or videos in your social media feeds that show you images of the person you’re supposed to be and it’s making you sad. Now that we’ve walked a few steps forward in the process of turning overthinking into focused achieving, it’s time to look at your life and determine how many of those negative influences are still present. You may have eliminated some big sources of overthinking, stress, and negative emotions, but are there a few still present in your life that is holding you back from your goals? For each reader, this list is going to look very different and I’m not trying to take the place of a counselor. But with a clearer mind, you should be able to see how certain influences continue to cause you more harm than good. It is up to you to make changes in these areas, but I can offer a little advice for you along the way.
First of all, it’s never easy to cut ties with something or someone who has been present and comfortable in your life for a long time, even if this presence is ultimately harmful. A lot of times, people see what they want to see and avoid anything too challenging. That’s probably where you were at the beginning when you first decided it was time to make a change.
Getting rid of negative influences in your life is very important to your progress. It is very easy to embark on a journey like this, succeed, then slide back based on the negative influences you let take ahold of your life again. Confidence is important, but it is also important to not underestimate the power of other people and influences in your life. Even the smartest of us are fooled sometimes, whether it’s a marketing scam or a lie from someone we trust. If there is someone in your life who is having a negative influence on you, it may be time for an important conversation.
Talking to friends
First, let’s talk about how to approach friends. A lot of times in a strong friendship, we learn to overlook little things about the person’s personality or character that we may not think are perfect. Nobody is perfect, and your friendship is more important than a lot of those little imperfections. You may have had bad arguments and disagreements, but if your relationship has lasted through these, you know that the bond you have with the friend is very strong. But sometimes, the things we overlook are actually a lot bigger than we make them out to be and need to be addressed.
There are many different kinds of negative influences that can be introduced from a friend. Your challenge is to determine whether these negative influences are hindering your progress toward becoming a happier, more functional person. If the answer is yes, as hard as it may be to accept, it may be time to have a talk with your friend about removing the influence, or else cutting ties completely.
This is never an easy decision to make and it may hurt at first. But if you give yourself a good amount of time to think it over and keep coming back to the same hard truth, it really is a good idea to move away from that influence.
Try not to make the meeting confrontational. Even if the discussion ends up being a difficult one, the best way to approach it is through the lens of how much you value the good times you’ve had with your friend. Sit down together and approach the subject by explaining thoroughly what you are trying to do in your life. Explain that you are making a lot of difficult changes in order to live a fuller, healthier life. Explain that you’ve struggled with the same mindset for so long without results, and now it’s time to remove influences that are keeping you from your goals.
It may not be so serious as to have to cut ties completely with your friend. Perhaps it is just a behavior or tendency that you need to ask your friend to stop bringing up around you. If they tend to gossip nonstop and talk negatively about other people and you find that this feeds your cycles of obsessive thoughts and overthinking, then tell your friend you don’t want to talk about those things with him or her anymore.
Perhaps it is drug abuse, alcohol abuse, or some other physically harmful influence your friend keeps bringing around you. In both of these situations, a friend who truly cares for you and your wellbeing will understand as long as you approach from an honest and genuine place. Don’t come out accusing your friend of purposely causing you harm. They may believe their lifestyle works for them and they have no intention of stopping. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be willing to adjust their behavior around you in order to help you reach your goals.
Think of another possibility. You may begin talking to your friend or friends about what you are trying to do with your life, and they may light up at the idea of trying it themselves. Through having an honest discussion with your friends, you may just gain a strong ally and partner to continue down this path to clarity. Don’t be afraid to talk from a place of vulnerability and earnestness. You may just prove to be a powerful and positive influence on their lives in return!
Talking to a loved one or partner
Talking to a friend about how they may be negatively influencing you in some way is hard, but talking to a loved one or partner is probably going to be far more difficult. If you are lucky enough to be surrounded by supportive, positive influences in your life, then count yourself very fortunate indeed.
However, if you are suffering in a toxic relationship to any degree, it is very important to address the problem as soon as possible. And while grappling with a decision of whether or not to cut ties with someone close, it is important not to confuse something that is fixable through discussion and communication with those things that are not. Everything needs to begin with clear, honest communication.
Research shows that a large percentage of marriage problems stem from bad communication habits. Miscommunication can turn a minor misunderstanding into something devastatingly painful. If something your partner or loved one has said or done caused you pain, perhaps it was simply a miscommunication on their part. This won’t be the case for everyone, but if you’ve experienced a mostly positive, supportive relationship with that loved one, then there is a higher chance that it is something as simple to fix as miscommunication.
However, if you’ve experienced a long history of constant abuse in one form or another, then it is time to gather up some support and confront the negative influence head-on. Don’t disappear without a conversation unless the current situation is putting you in physical danger. If this is the case, it is imperative to leave the situation immediately.
But if it is a matter of breaking up with a boyfriend or communicating with your partner or loved one about how to break some bad habits that are hurting you, your best route is to set aside a large amount of time for some serious discussion. Again, it is going to be very important that you not begin the discussion by being confrontational. Be honest and offer some background and context for why you need to talk. Confusing your loved one is not going to help you.
As with a situation where you need to talk to a friend, honesty and vulnerability are the best policies. Don’t do all the talking, give your friend or loved one a chance to talk and explain how he or she is feeling as well. If the relationship has strong redeeming qualities and is worth working on, then you should end up at some kind of understanding and agreement for moving forward.
Give yourself time after a break-up or cutting ties
If your decision was to break it off with the negative influences in your life, then you need to give yourself some time to recover and move through those emotions. Don’t try to get right back up where you left off if you are hurting and need time to grieve the loss. This is completely normal, even if what you’ve rid your life of was negatively affecting you. Human beings are creatures of habit, and anytime a regular presence is removed abruptly from our lives, we’re going to feel effects as we readjust. You may need a day or two or a couple of weeks or even a month. This is okay. When you are ready, come back and refresh yourself on your goals and keep moving forward.
The worst thing you can do is try to cushion your emotions with a rebound. There is nothing more harmful to you or another person than using someone else and their emotional attachment just to soothe your own emotions. Even if this is tempting, it is important to support yourself and find more healthy tools for moving through your feeling of loss after a bad relationship. Trust and depend on those people in your life who will love and support you. Don’t turn to a stranger.
Other negative influences
Now that we’ve gotten through some of the tougher topics, let’s talk about some other possible negative influences that may still need to be addressed in your life.
We talked a bit about healthy eating in the chapter on healthy habits. Bad food habits are some of the most difficult habits to break because they are so immediately gratifying. The same is true for habits like drugs and alcohol, which offer immediate feelings of inhibition and euphoria. Don’t let guilt come into play as you evaluate your food habits. Everyone struggles with eating healthily, and the fact that you can’t seem to stop getting that chocolate bar from the vending machine at work every day doesn’t make you a bad or weak person. The fact that you recognize it as a bad habit is a great place to start.
Here it is again—take baby steps. Don’t decide that from now on, after having eaten chocolate every day for the past two years that you are going to never touch chocolate again. I promise you…it isn’t going to happen.
Instead, limit your chocolate intake by one day per week. That’s right. If you literally eat a Twix bar or something every single day, choose one day out of the week and set a goal of not eating chocolate that day. It’s as simple as that to start making healthy changes to your eating habits. Although this chapter is all about removing negative influences completely, we still must consider that changing behavior and eliminating bad habits is not something that happens overnight.
If you buy your chocolate at the same place every day, then there are additional steps you can take to help you start eliminating this habit. Find a different route to your desk, even if it is longer, that does not pass that vending machine or the snack counter or the cafeteria at work. Obviously, this will be adjusted according to your environment, but just seeing a place that offers chocolate is a bad influence on your behavior because seeing that place triggers in your brain that it is time to eat chocolate.
The same principle applies to advertising. When you see those images of juicy hamburgers in TV commercials, it’s not just because they’re trying to show their products—they are subconsciously influencing your cravings and placing a connection in your brain that associates being hungry and craving hamburgers each time you see this commercial.
To remove this negative influence, try to limit your exposure to these ads. It may be difficult, as these ads are everywhere. But with a little creativity, I’m confident you can find ways to remove a lot of this influence from your day-to-day routine.
As we’ve discussed previously, a lot of negative influence stems from media and the images we find there which affect us emotionally as we associate positive things with the advertising we are bombarded with every day. Removing as much of this influence as possible is going to do a lot toward improving your self-esteem and positivity. And again, all it takes is one small change at a time.
For example, at the grocery store, instead of staring at the magazines and perfect bodies on the front covers, challenge yourself to listen to the voices around you, maybe strike up a conversation with someone else in line as we’ve discussed before. This is going to remove the pattern of seeing an image and immediately judging yourself in comparison with what you see.
The same influences exist on your phone and other mobile devices. It may be harder to avoid these ads, but a good start would be to go through your social media feeds and stop following personalities who advertise workout or nutritional products and then flag ads that keep appearing in your feed that you don’t want to see anymore. And, of course, the best way to remove this negative influence from your life is going to be limiting the time you spend on your phone in general. Replace the hours you usually spend on the internet with something more mentally healthy, like something from your new list of interests and healthy habits to introduce into your life. It may be difficult at first, as breaking off any bad habit always is, but you will immediately start to see and feel the positive difference of clearing your mind of those influences.
Another negative influence may be difficult to pinpoint at first, as they present themselves as helpful and vital to self-improvement. If you are prone to listening to someone else in your life and seeking out their advice, it may be time to try and break off that dependency in favor of becoming more independent in your thought process and habit forming. Like I said before, no one knows you better than you do, and just because something works well for someone else, doesn’t mean it’s going to work perfectly for you as well. So, stop watching Dr. Phil and get out your journal. Listen to your mind and body. It should be a lot easier now that you’ve done so much to clarify your path to a better you. Also, be proud because you’ve done all the heavy lifting yourself!
Changing your job or career situation
In the realm of negative influence, nothing can be more insidious than the slow, gradual death of working a dead-end job. If you left high school or college with big ideas and plans for your life, only to see them disappear as you settled for that boring but dependable job at a company you don’t even care about, it may be sucking you dry of any and all motivation, passion, and energy.
If this is you, rest assured that you are not alone. Our society today encourages and even praises those figures who are willing to work themselves to the gr
ound for a nice paycheck. We are inundated with the message from a young age that success equals money and responsibility. But, as we’ve already reflected on, the more you gain, the more you clutter your mind and home and the more stress you introduce into your life.
Life isn’t about gain. As we discussed in the previous section on minimalism, fulfillment in life does not come from possessions or climbing a ladder in a career. If the career is not something you love or are passionate about, it’s not worth your entire life’s commitment. Life is way too short for that.
This may be the last and biggest obstacle standing between you and your new self. As we near the end of this book and your new confirmation as a refreshed human being with a clear mind ready to be filled with positive influence and experience, make sure that the one place where you may be spending the majority of your time throughout the year is somewhere you truly want to be. Don’t do this or pursue that because other people tell you it’s the right thing to do. Do it because it’s where you want to be.
Chapter 8: Mindfulness
As we approach the end of this journey, I hope that by now you have learned a great deal about yourself, your emotions, and your personal way of thinking on a daily basis. Hopefully, you have become intimately familiar with the areas and experiences in your life which trigger overthinking. The interruption technique we went over earlier is an invaluable tool for breaking the cycle of overthinking, and cultivating new, healthy habits on a daily basis is a great way to replace those old useless habits.