13 Ways To Control Negative Self Talk

Hey everybody, Brad Schipke here, and today I'm going to be talking to you about 13 ways to control your negative self-talk. Now, controlling your negative self-talk is so important because, especially in today's world, we are just constantly consuming negative things. You know, whether it's on your phone, on social media, whether you're watching Netflix, or just talking to a friend about negative news or negative gossip or things like that, all of those things are being inputted into your mind. And then are changing the way that you think and change the way that you think on a habitual basis. So getting control of not only your environment to make it positive, but also disciplining your mind to be more positive is so important because if you do not do that, you will get flooded by the negativity. You will be in total control of the negativity and you won't have control over your mind or your life. And this is the state that I see a lot of people in, especially with people who have gone through trauma. You know, that's just weighing more and more and more on your mind. And it can get to a point where you just feel completely hopeless. And I've been to a point like that too, where like you almost feel like you don't have control over your own mind because the negative thoughts just keep coming and coming and coming and coming. But today in this video, I'm gonna show you not only the theory behind changing, you know, your mind to make it more positive, but I'm actually going to give you 13 actionable tools that you can actually put into action today to start changing that. And after going through these tools, if you feel like you have no control of your mind right now, or if you feel like you're just constantly thinking about negative things, this video is 100% for you. And these tools and this theory behind all of this is going to absolutely change your life. Now, I made a quick reference sheet here that I'm going to be referencing and walking you through in this video today. So the first thing that I want you guys to know is the goal. What is the goal of this whole thing of, you know, even trying to change your mind from negative to positive? Well, the goal is to create an automatic positive mindset, right? So right now, you— maybe you— most people— I'm not going to make assumptions about you, but many people have an automatic negative mindset. So when they're put in any situation in life, their mind automatically goes to the negative. So our whole goal, and my goal for you in this video, is to give you the tools and help you build a positive mindset, right? So now, how do you actually go about doing that, right? Well, there's, um, there's been a lot of science done recently, and there's something called neuroplasticity, which basically means you can change the wiring in your brain. So if you think negative thoughts then you are more likely to think more negative thoughts, right? But if you start thinking positive thoughts, you're more likely to continue thinking positive thoughts. So there's this really simple diagram that I can draw for you to kind of illustrate this point right here. So let's just say you are over here, right? So that's you. And then Let's say up here we have the negative, this negative spot right there, and then down here I'll put these 2 positive spots. So, and I'll draw a line between these as well. So what this represents, just like in theory, is Inside of your mind, you know, whether or not you choose to go down the negative path or choose to go down the positive path in your mind. So let's say you over here, let's say you constantly think about negative things, even in positive situations. You just think about something negative, so you start going down this path. Every time that you go down this path, the negative connection in your own mind gets a little stronger. So let's say you have one negative thought. Then that connection right there gets a little bit stronger. And another one. And let's say you keep having these negative thoughts and they just keep swarming and flooding your mind again and again and again and again. And then soon what happens is since you've made the decision consciously or unconsciously to think negatively, now whenever you're put in a situation, um, for thinking, which is all the time, the negative route becomes automatic to you, right? So this is where a lot of people are found, is that no matter where you go, you just keep layering, you keep like drawing a thicker and thicker cable down this negative path because you keep thinking about the negative consequences. You think about all the things that will go wrong. You think about all the mistakes you made in the past. You think about all your failures in the past. You think about how all these other people are to blame, how all these people are wrong and how all these people judge you and how you judge people, and then you hate yourself and you hate other people and you hate the world. And then you're just strengthening— every time you have thoughts like that, every time you go down that route, you're strengthening this negative pathway in your mind, and eventually that becomes positive. But now what I'm going to be teaching you in this video is I'm going to be teaching you 13 tools. So let's say you start using these tools. Every time you use one of them and start to choose— start to go down the positive route, every time you choose to not go negative and you go positive, you not only remove the strength and reduce the strength of the negative pathway, but you start to strengthen the positive pathway. So then over time, and you keep making that choice, and it's hard in the beginning, right? Because you're going against all this momentum that you have in negativity, but Yep. Once you're disciplined, you have the right tools to make the positive choice, you start making this negative route weaker and weaker and replacing them over here to the positive one. So then once you get to this point, then the negative route is no longer automatic, right? Now when you're put in a situation, you automatically think of the best-case scenario. You're no longer thinking of the worst-case scenario. You're not thinking of all the ways things will go wrong in your life. You're not thinking of all your past failures, you're thinking of all your past wins, right? You're not, you know, imagining everything going wrong. Are you always being hopelessly hurt or in pain or broken? You're thinking, hey, I can do this, I can find a solution. And you start thinking this way automatically. And like I said before, this is the ultimate goal. And it really does come down to the actual science and the neuroplasticity of your mind. And that allows you to change your brain, to literally change the wiring inside your brain so you can change your brain to be less negative and more positive, and more importantly, automatically positive. So this is the end goal, and I always like to start with the goal in mind. So this is what we're aiming for, and the rest of the tools that I'll be walking you through is going to help you achieve this outcome right here. Now the next thing I want to talk to you about Again, is the basic process that I'm gonna be walking you through throughout the rest of these tools. So I'm gonna draw another picture of you, probably you, and then I'm gonna draw some other bad pictures over here for you. But this is the actual process that you go through to change your brain. So this is the basic formula. So you have inputs that you input into yourself, and that determines whether or not you have a positive or negative output. In your mind. So all we're going to be doing throughout these next tools is we're gonna be altering this input to be making this— making these all positive inputs instead of negative inputs. So then this 100% negative brain starts to get a little bit more positive, right? So then we're gonna keep piling on the positive inputs into your mind to give you a more and more and more positive mind. So really all it is is altering what you're inputting into your mind. And like I said before, everywhere you go, you are being inputted with something. Your mind is being constantly being inputted information. You know, like I said, whether you're talking to your friend, that conversation could be a totally negative conversation about gossip, judging other people or judging yourself or just being mean or making weird negative jokes or whatever. Or it can be a constructive conversation about goals or something like that. You could be watching, you know, um, what's another example on Netflix? I don't know, Game of Thrones, right? You could be watching something that's gory and many other things that are beyond what I want to say on this video. And you could be inputting those things into your mind, or you could be inputting a positive documentary that actually inspires you to change and make difference in your life and in the world. So all we're going to be doing, basically how you, how you shift from the negative to positive at a high-level view, is just altering the inputs to get a better output on this end. And that really is the simple formula that we're going to be going through today. Now let's get into the good stuff. Let's get into the, the actual tools. So Let's see how far I can go up here. So the first thing that you need to realize before anything else is that you, you are in control, okay? You are in 100% control of your mind, and you It is a choice. And as much as you do not want to admit it, as much as you don't want to admit it, you can make the choice to change your thought to the negative to the positive. I run into people every single day who, who just feel, because they've been thinking for so long down that negative pathway, and that negative pathway has become automatic, that they believe that they have no control over your mind. But the first thing you need to realize is that you are in control. And that it is going to be hard because like I showed you before, if you've been thinking negatively for a long time, you've been strengthening that negative pathway in your mind again and again and again. So starting out, it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard to see the positive in your life. It's going to be hard to switch from negative to positive. But the thing I want you to know is that it is possible and you are in control. No one else is. It's no one else's fault. You are in control and you can do this. Now, the second thing, and I have to say that I have to say that because— and because when we coach people, sometimes, like in our PTSD recovery program, some people come in and say, hey, I just cannot see the good in this situation. And then we just ask them questions and be like, okay, well, if there was a good thing, you know, what would that be? Or be like, what's— and then we give them some examples too. So you first have to know that you are in absolute control. And if you do not believe you're in control, then the rest of this stuff will not work. But usually just knowing that it is supposed to be hard and that it's not supposed to be easy in the beginning will let you believe that. Now, the second thing here is a lot more constructive— are affirmations. Now, those are basically forced positive thoughts in your mind about yourself. So affirmations are things that you say about yourself. I'm sure most of you guys know what affirmations are, and they could be anything. The most important thing is that they resonate with you, that they resonate and hit an emotional chord with you. So if you have this belief about yourself that you're not good enough, then you might want to craft an affirmation, be like, I am always good enough no matter what anybody else says about me. Or I'm a failure. You know, maybe that's a belief that you have in your mind. You could craft an affirmation, be like, there's there's no way it's impossible for me to fail unless I quit. So I'm never a failure because I will never quit. But the biggest thing around here is that you it needs to be specific to your situation. You can go online. And find like lists of hundreds of affirmations. And some of them might be good and they might be good for your situation, but you want to make sure that you're crafting them around you, that they have an emotional— they resonate with you emotionally and you actually feel it, right? So you feel different when you say the affirmation or when you think the affirmation or when you write it. And it doesn't really matter what you do. It's really on a case-by-case basis. You can write it, you can speak it, um, or you can just read it. Whichever works best for you. Now there's also different like ways that you can kind of build this into an everyday habit. You can, you know, have an affirmation list. Like I said before, you can speak it every morning or something like that. You can have affirmation cards. We have people in our program who make affirmation cards and they literally have a deck of like 100 index cards that they go through and they read every day. And the last thing you could do is make a recording of it and listen to it while you're in the car, right? So on everybody's phone, you have— everybody has a recording app or something. If you don't, you can download one and you can just record your voice saying them, you know, write them down on paper and then just read them off into your phone and then you can listen to them. You can listen to them like right before bed, when you're working out, when you're driving, anything like that. So the second one here, Is affirmations. Now the third thing that you can do is a very, very simple exercise, but it is incredibly powerful, and you guys will not believe me because it is one of the most simple, simple things you could do. And I call it the thought swap slash Inversion. Now this, this guy right here, that guy is very, very powerful. And basically what it is, is it's kind of a management tool. So when you become aware of a negative thought like, I hate myself, what you want to do is invert that thought or swap that thought with the exact opposite positive thought. So if it's, I hate myself, It could be, I love myself. Now, that sometimes— and again, it's supposed to be uncomfortable because if you've been grooving in your mind like, I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself, like when you make a mistake, you're like, I'm a failure, or I hate myself, I hate my life, those things, that if you've been ingraining that in your mind for a long time, it's gonna be hard again to make that swap. But it's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to feel uncomfortable because it's not your natural pathway. But the fact that it's uncomfortable is a really, really good thing. So That's actually a sign that you should keep doing it. If it's uncomfortable and you're like, oh, this doesn't feel right, that's good. That's good. Because what feels right to you is the negative pathway. And if we want to change that, we have to do the uncomfortable thing and start, um, not forcing, but start inputting these positive things into your mind regardless of how it feels, you know, regardless of whether or not it feels a little uncomfortable or not. And this is so, so powerful. And I remember this time when I first discovered this tool, I became aware of— I used to think like I was a failure a lot of times. So I became aware of like, you know, I hate my life, I'm a failure. And like, that was kind of like the cycle that I was going through and I became aware of it. And that's actually one of the most— one of the hardest things when it comes to this exercise is that you have to be aware of the negative thought. So I became aware of the negative thought. I'm like, holy crap, I'm stuck in this negative cycle. I just keep spinning and spinning and spinning in all these negative thoughts. And I'm like, I'm just getting more and more anxious. I'm getting more and more scared. And, you know, I can feel like just on edge and like jumping at the smallest things. And I'm just like, wow, my life sucks. And I just keep like layering on all the negative things. I'm like, my life sucks because, you know, and like have like this giant list, bigger than Santa Claus' list of negative things about myself. But I became aware of that and I was like, crap, I need to do something. So then I literally, I was like around other people at the time, so I left the house and I just went into my car and went for a— I didn't even really go for a drive. I just like drove down the road, parked. I just like lay there, closed my eyes and started taking deep breaths. And and became aware of the thought, you know, I hate myself, I'm a failure, whatever that was, I'm a failure. And then I swapped it for the positive, and I kept repeating that, that positive thing again and again and again. And I didn't want to, and it felt uncomfortable, and it was weird to keep saying something positive when you feel so negative. But a magical thing happens when you keep repeating that positive thing. You start— instead of finding all the reasons why you are this terrible person, you start finding all these reasons why you're a good person. So After you keep saying the positive thing in your mind, your mind automatically starts to find reasons and supporting evidence of this new positive thought. And it's amazing. And not only do you find other reasons, but you also feel better. You actually feel it in your body. You feel relaxed and you're like, holy crap, you know, I've just been spinning for no reason. So if you can become aware of the negative thought. And I mean, it does help to get, to get out of a situation. Close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and then do this, the thought swap/inversion exercise. You will be, you'll be amazed. And like I said before, it is one of the simplest things but one of the most powerful things. And you do not want to— just because it's simple, you do not want to overlook it. And that's what most people do. They want something that's really complex. They want like this, like very, I don't know, like shiny object syndrome where they're always looking for like this new thing or something great. And but really all you need is this, it's like you just need to be aware of the negative, switch it to the positive, and repeat the positive, and then find all the supporting things for that new positive thought, and you will feel totally, totally different. And that, that right there is a great tool to help you, uh, in the moment change how you feel And change how you think. So the next thing that I have here is kind of changing things up a little bit. Clean house. How many people like to do that? How many people like to clean their house? Yeah. But your environment, your environment has such a massive impact on how you feel. Whether it's clean or cluttered or freaking just a pigsty, that affects your mental state. That affects whether or not you're thinking positively or negatively. And if you don't believe me, just think about, you know, I'm sure everybody here has walked into a house, maybe it's your own house, and it's just filthy. It's been my house at times. It's just been absolutely filthy. Like, I've— I don't like to— I don't think I've ever told anybody this, but I used to, when I'd have people over my house, put all my dirty dishes— I didn't have a dishwasher— I put all my dirty dishes into an empty laundry bin and I'd hide it away in my closet because I didn't want people to see how filthy I was. And then sometimes it would stay there for a month, but I no longer do that. I've broken that habit, which is a very good thing. But your environment has a huge impact. So imagine yourself walking into a really messy environment. How would that make you feel? And then imagine yourself walking to this immaculate mansion, right? How would you feel? You would feel amazing, right? You would feel totally different. Your mind would be different. You would think different. You would think clearer. And there have been a lot of studies done on this, actually, the impact of your environment, your just physical surrounding environment, and how it makes you feel. And if you guys are home right now, if you are home right now, I want you to look around your room. And because a lot of things we get, we get, um, what do you call it? Basically, you become blind to your environment after a while. So you have to really think about, you have to open your mind, open your eyes to your environment and really be aware of all the little details, all the little small things that need to be cleaned and picked up and how those are affecting your mindset. Because when you become unaware, when you have a dirty environment, you usually become unaware of it, which really just pushes you back further into your own mind. And then Usually that's really a really negative place to be. So this, when I say clean house, I mean everything top to bottom. And you make 3 piles, you go through every single piece of, piece of every object, everything in your house, and you make 3 different piles. And we're going for like a minimalist kind of environment here because like the less is in this, in this situation, less is more. Like the less things that you have in your life, in your house, in your cupboards, in your drawers, the better you will feel, the less overwhelmed you'll feel, and your life will just be so much simpler. So we're going for kind of a minimalist type feel here. But you want to go through every single object and make 3 different piles. One is throw away, one is donate if you still can, and one is keep, right? So it could be donate or sell. You could sell or donate, throw away, donate, sell, or keep it, right? And the keep pile should be like the freaking smallest one out of all that. But if you do that, if you actually do that, if you actually take action on these things, it will absolutely change your life. And I have a funny— not a funny story, but I have a story about this with my aunt. She— one of her good friends, um, this was like, I think, when she was like in her 50s or something. She had a good friend that she hadn't seen in a while, I think since she was like in college or high school or something, and they reconnected. And her friend, she went over her house, um, and she was just like hoarder status, you know, like things piled up everywhere, um, you know, empty, like just trash everywhere, right? And the reason my aunt, um, went over there is because, um, she found out that her friend was really, really depressed and in a really, really down mood. So what my aunt did once she realized this, once she found out, is that she went in there and just freaking deep cleaned everything. And it was a massive job. She like threw away so much stuff. Like, I think this lady had like layers of furniture. Like, she, she got rid of that stuff, she donated stuff, and she just made it like really freaking clean. It looked like a totally different place. But she got a call back like a few days later, and her friend was like, oh my God, I haven't felt this good in years. And it was all because of an environment change. And people do not appreciate that enough. And not only will the environment change make you feel better, but after, after you completing tasks and getting things done, you are going to feel good about yourself because you're going to be super productive. And you're, you're gonna, um, basically, um, reap the rewards. The inst— it's almost instant gratifications, right? It's like instant feedback. You do this work and you get this instant feedback of a great clean environment. So that is super important. If you're depressed, if you're down, if you are negative and you're living in a filthy house or a cluttered house, and there's really no stop to this too, it's like you can constantly constantly optimize this to get it to the point where it's optimal. Because usually what happens is that we are very emotionally attached to things. So we don't— so usually like the first round that we clean and like get rid of a lot of stuff, and we usually do get rid of a lot of stuff, but we hold on to a lot of things that we think we need because we're emotionally attached to them. So, but every time that you do this, so it's a continuous process, you get rid of more and more and more stuff and you feel better and better and better. So this isn't like a one and done thing. It's like this is something that you like are continuously doing and continuously optimizing. So now the next thing here, so I actually made a video on this earlier last week, is take care of yourself. Sorry, my writing's getting a little slanted there. But you want to take care of yourself. You want to— just like, just as you cleaned your house, you want to clean your body. And you want to clean it, um, you want to get like, get a haircut, you know, clean your clothes, get some new clothes, get yourself that feels— do stuff that makes you feel good, you know. Eat some healthy, healthy food. Clean your body that way. Take care of yourself that way. Exercise, you know. Your body needs exercise. Your body needs healthy food to feel good. And I don't remember the exact study, but they said that like exercise has the same power of depression medication. So if you're being negative, exercise. It doesn't have to be anything crazy in the beginning. At the beginning, it could just be like, I'm going to walk around the block once. Um, some other things here: clean your environment, exercise. Um, you do, you do these things, you start taking care of yourself, you start doing some fun things, you start treating yourself, um, you are going to feel better instantly. It's very similar to the clean, clean house things like this. These 2 right here, if you want really quick results in your mind, do these things. Clean your house, take care of yourself, do something fun for yourself, um, and just take care of yourself because that— you are so important. We are so, so often we do things for other people that we would never do for ourselves. And like, we would, we would like make this immaculate gourmet dinner for the person that we love, but we wouldn't make that if we were by ourselves that night. And the way I want you to shift about that is like, I want you to treat yourself the way that you treat the people that you love the most. So the things that you do for the people that you love, I want you to do to yourself. And that's really the essence of that right there. Now the 6th, uh, the 6th thing right here Is find the silver lining. So no matter—I'm sure you've heard this term before—but every cloud has a silver lining, and what that means is that every seemingly negative thing has a positive. Thing attached to it. So I, I actually just a few weeks ago I was talking to one of my clients and she was going through something very, very challenging. Um, she was in this situation where she was left out on the street and she was, she was homeless. Like somebody kicked her out of her house and she was like homeless, right? And she came to me and asked me this question, be like, you know, I don't know what to do. Like, could you What would you recommend me do in this situation? Like, I feel like, you know, like people don't appreciate me. I don't know what to do and things like that. And what I said to her is that sometimes in life, one, like the door in front of you has to close before you can find the door that's open. So every, every single thing that happens to you in life, every negative thing is an opportunity to find something better. There's always a silver lining. And if you can build that into your mindset, be like, even if it's 99% bad, there is 1% good. And I'm gonna choose, I'm going to choose to focus on that 1% that's good. And my favorite story, my favorite absolute story about this is with a guy, a man named Viktor Frankl. He wrote a book called A Man's Search for Meaning. It's a great book. The first half, is about his experiences in the Holocaust. He was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. And the second half is like his lessons learned from it. But I wouldn't— for people who have gone through trauma, I wouldn't read that first half. It is a great book, but it's not necessary. But he was able, in like the worst possible environment, he was able to find the silver lining. He was able to not only laugh, but make other people laugh. And that is something that I always remind myself. That if I'm ever getting negative, I'm ever like, like being like, oh, this, this just sucks, or like everything's bad about this situation, there's nothing positive, like positive, there's nothing possibly that could be positive in this situation. I think about Viktor Frankl in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany finding the silver lining, making people laugh, finding a way to smile, finding, finding the positive in that situation. I'm like, if he can do that in that situation, in that environment, I can at least find the silver lining in what I'm going through right now, and I can make it through this. So changing your mindset to find the silver lining and to focus on the positive, because the reality is, is in every situation there is positive and there is negative. Every single situation you can— and like any situation in life, even if it's the best possible situation, there's some negative things and there's positive things. And it's up to you It's up to you to make the choice on what you want to focus on, because there's always positive, but there's— I mean, there's always negative, but there's always positive too. And you are in control of what you focus on, on what you choose to focus on, and it is a choice. And if Viktor Frankl can do it in Nazi Germany as a Jew, you can do it too. So That one right there is huge. Finding that little silver lining, finding the little thing, even if everything looks like it's gone to hell, finding that tiny sliver and choosing to focus on that tiny sliver of what you can control, on that positive piece, and just focusing all on that. So the next one here, it's another really great one. These are all really great, but The seventh one is gratitudes and self-gratitudes. I'm pretty sure everybody's heard of gratitudes, but maybe not so many of you have heard of self-gratitudes. So gratitudes are just, you know, basically saying to yourself or writing down, I am grateful for, and then inputting something. And whenever you're doing gratitude, you want to make sure that you're not doing shallow gratitudes like, I'm grateful for air, I'm grateful for this nice carpeted floor, I'm grateful for whatever. You don't want to be shallow. You want it to be deep, meaningful gratitudes because we're not doing any of these things just to go through the motion. We have to go through these things intentional and with the right mindset. to actually make a change. And the same thing goes with the affirmations, like what I was saying there before. Like, you want the affirmations to speak to you. You want them to resonate with you emotionally. And the same thing here with the gratitudes— you want those to resonate with you emotionally. So when you write them down, you want to be able to feel them. You want to feel the gratitude. And a lot of times, like, I did this when I was still recovering from my PTSD, and I would cry. I would write down— I'd write down 5 gratitudes every day, And I would cry next to each and every one of them because I would make them meaningful. I would make them deep. I would force myself to be like, even though I feel like crap, I am grateful for, you know, my mom for always showing me unlimited unconditional love and showing me what love really is. And not only did I say something that was really deep, but I would then visualize that gratitude. So you not only find a gratitude that's deep, But then you, like, you close your eyes after you write it and you visualize it actually happening, and then you feel it even more and you swim in those positive thoughts. So the more positive feelings, the more positive emotions that you can attach to any one of these tools, the more you're strengthening that positive thread, that positive cable in your mind, that positive path in your mind, like the neuroplasticity like I was saying before. So the more emotional intensity that you bring to any of these tools And that can be done through making them deep and meaningful, making them resonate with you emotionally, and then visualizing them as well to strengthen that even further. So you're just swimming in that positivity. So it can just be general gratitudes that you can do about, you know, like my example with my mom, or they can be self-gratitudes, which are great. Those— these are, these are probably just as important because these self-gratitudes help change your perception of yourself. And the perception that you have about yourself controls everything. So when you can start shifting the way that you perceive your own self, that's when really big change starts to happen. So a self-gratitude, let's see, an example of that would be like, it could be the same thing. I've actually said something similar like, I am grateful for me for never giving up even when it's hard and always Looking to make things better or find solutions. But basically, it's just saying, I'm grateful for something positive about myself. And just finding a positive quality about yourself and inputting that in, in the gratitude right there, and focusing on you and changing the perception that you have on you. Because a lot of times, like, you go negative, like your mind is negative, and then you have a negative self-perception too. So these things are freaking powerful. And again, studies have been done just like with exercise, That if you do 3 of these, I think it's 3 a day, has the same power of depression medication. So if you get exercise and you get this thing going, holy cow, things are gonna change for you quick. So gratitudes, I still do these every single day, every single day. I write them every night and I think about them every morning. So these things are, it's like you can always get better, you can always get better. So you always— It's a constant improvement process to make yourself more and more positive. All right, so the 8th thing that I want to cover here is posting post reminders. Now this is a really simple one, and a lot of people do this. We have a positive poster in our other room. I used to post up my affirmations. I used to post up my goals. Goals. In our recovery program, we give people actual pinups, so things that they can put on the wall themselves with positive messages. But literally, this could be anything, any positive reminder, any positive quote that you can post on your wall. And a simple thing could be like you have a sticky note, you stick it on your mirror because that's a great place because you look at yourself every day, and you could just write, I love you, right? And that could just be, I love you, a reminder to be like Oh, I see that Post-it note, and now I'm going to look at myself in the mirror and say, I love you. And that little tiny habit right there, and this is just a tiny habit that you can build to start just— we're all just trying to input, we're just trying to input more positive into your life. So by posting simple reminders, you can just start flooding your mind more with all these positive things. So one last thing I want to say about the positive reminders is that you can get— this is actually like an advertising term, but like banner blind. So like, if you've ever— in advertising, in a business, if you keep showing the same person the same advertising, or like, or if you put a billboard up, that's probably a better example. If you put a billboard up on the side of the road, After a while, people are going to ignore the billboard because they just have seen it so many times. So like people who've driven by it by like 10 times, it's just part of the environment now and they don't even know it's there. So they basically become blind to the messaging. So then that's when the business people put up something new. And then that draws the attention back again. So we want to use that same kind of psychology here with the reminders is that you You will get blind to your own reminders that you put up, so you want to be changing them when you start getting banner blind for them. So that's just another quick reminder right there. So the next thing, this is where we get some more detail. Is optimizing external inputs. So like I said, the way that you change your mind is by changing the inputs into your brain, and that will determine, um, the state of your brain, how positive or negative it is. And the first type of input that I want to cover external inputs. So these are all the things in your external environment, and we already started optimizing it up here with clean house, right? So once you start cleaning your house, that's one way to optimize your external inputs. But what I mean by this is like the next level. So you want to go through every object that is left in your house after you clean house, and then you want to ask yourself, is this positively influencing me or negatively influencing me? And if it's negatively influencing you, either want to get rid of it or put it in a place that is very hard to access. So you want to do this with everything, right? So you want to go through your cupboards, you know, you want to go through your food, even your clothes. Does this make me feel good? Your TV, you want to go through all your digital things. So on your computer, on your phone, every single app, even people. Places, things, activities that you do. And what you want to do is like you want to write these, all of these down and then rate them. Are they positive or negative? If they're negative, do your best to eliminate them because they're just adding to the negativity in your mind. But like I said before, if it's something that you absolutely cannot get rid of, put it in a place where you're not going to see it much or schedule yourself where you're not going to be around it much. You know, so and then if For the positive ones, those are the ones you want to enhance. You wanna, so let's say like a negative input for you, this is just an easy example, a negative input for you is TV because it makes you feel lazy, tired, and makes you have negative thoughts, self-thoughts, and self-talk about yourself. So what you could do is that you could take that TV, sell it, or chuck, or smack it with a hammer, a freaking, freaking sledgehammer, toss it out a window or something, and then replace that with a bookshelf, right? So you're not only getting rid of the negative, but you're also enhancing the positive by putting in a spot where you habitually go. But instead of habitually watching the TV, you start habitually looking at a dang bookcase. And you can either just watch the bookcase or pick up a book, and those are your options. So that's what I mean by optimizing your external account, uh, external inputs is by looking at every single object and rating them. Is it positive or is it negative? Now the next one, as you might have guessed, is optimize internal inputs. Now, because there's, there's 2 types of inputs— there's external inputs and there's internal inputs. Now We've already covered a lot of ways to optimize your internal inputs, but I just wanted to write it here as another point to drive the point in further. So when you, you not only have, like I said, the, your external environment doesn't, isn't the only thing that influences your mind. Your internal environment also influences your mind. Like I said before, The more negative thoughts that you think make it more likely that you are going to think more negative thoughts. So your thoughts are internal inputs that are actually changing the way that you think. So you have to take control of your internal world, your internal inputs, and to start making those internal inputs positive. So then you can start going down that positive route, and you do that. The best way to do that is through the thought swap slash inversion exercise. Now the next thing here is another fun one. Kayleen loves this one. Number eleven, eleven is celebrate wins no matter how big. Or how small the win is, you want to celebrate them. Because if you have a win in your life, if you did something positive in your life, like let's just say it's you worked out this morning, right? So that's a positive thing that you did. That's a win, right? And usually what happens is like right after you work out, you'll be like, you feel good about yourself. I did it. Yes, I did it. And usually you celebrate. Or at least you feel a little bit good. But when you celebrate, when you actually like are deliberate about celebrating, be like, you like swim in it a little bit more. Be like, wow, great job, great job, Brad. Like, you did an awesome job. You're crushing it. Keep it going. You're gonna have an amazing day. Basically, you're just piling on more and more positive to that one positive event. But I also want you to celebrate big things and small things because the little things, it's really the little things that matter. Because the little things are the things that will add up into either destruction or success, right? So if you are having trouble, and it all depends on where you are right now. So if you are someone who is having trouble getting out of bed, just getting out of bed is a huge win. And you should celebrate that and you should pat yourself on the back and you should like really like swim in it and really like give yourself a huge pat on the back for that. Even though it seems like such a small thing, you want to celebrate every single step you take forward because the more you celebrate it, the more momentum you are going to build, and the more momentum that you build, the easier that recovery is going to get. All right, so this last thing here— not— it's actually not the last thing, second to last. Stop comparing yourself to others, right? So my favorite thing is this: is that you and your life, your thoughts, your experiences are 100,000% unique to you. They are unlike anybody else's on this planet, and it's impossible for you to To be like somebody else. No one can live your life. No one can live life through your eyes. No one can experience what you experience. So it's pretty much— I mean, it doesn't matter what anybody else's life is like. It doesn't matter what— like, you can't compare yourself to somebody else because you're not somebody else, and no one will ever know what it's like to be you, and you won't know what it's like to be somebody else. So we see this a lot of times with people who have gone through a traumatic experience. Comparing their traumas to somebody else's traumas. So they either think that their trauma was not as bad as this other person's trauma, therefore I have no reason to complain and I shouldn't even talk about it or even try to make myself better. Or they go this way where it's, my trauma is so much worse than yours, you have nothing to complain about, and if you, if you healed, Like, I can't heal. Mine's much worse than yours. And then they start believing that they can't heal because theirs is worse than everybody else's on the planet, and there's no cure, and there's nothing that will ever make them better. So, I mean, like, just ask yourself, is there any productive thing that makes you— is there anything productive coming out of comparing yourself with others? And a big, big cause of comparing yourself to others is social media. So you should cut out social media because it just freaking— it messes with your mind so much. So if I were you, this is what I do. I do this with Kayleen too. Delete all of your social media apps off your phone so you're not constantly reacting to them. If you need to go on social media for a specific purpose, Do it on your computer, but or even do it inside of the Safari or the internet browser on your phone because you do not want to be constantly addicted to this negative input that makes you feel terrible about yourself, that causes you to compare your life to other people's life, life, and makes you feel like your life is just total crap. You know, all these other people's lives are amazing, but really all you're seeing is their highlight reel. You see like. A freaking instant glimpse of somebody's life. And I don't know if you've seen any of these videos like this, but I've seen videos of like families like posing for a picture and then right afterwards they're just like angry with each other. So really you're just getting this one glimpse that might not even be true about somebody else's life. So, and you can't tell What somebody else's life is like based off of social media, because it's basically just like, it's either their highlight reel or just totally fabricated. Either way, it's not reality. So stop comparing yourself to others and do yourself a favor and stop social media. Now, the last thing here is another— it's another important one that people do not like to do. And it is do something productive. And productive can be anything. It could be anything like whatever productive means to you. I'm not saying that you need to be like this freaking person that works 12 hours a day and Just, but just do something productive that makes you feel good, whether that's working in your yard, whether that's cleaning your house, whether that's helping your kid with their homework, something that makes you fulfilled, whether that's working like in your business, whether that's reading a book, whether that's reorganizing your bookcase, I don't know, but doing something productive because at the end of the day, You know, all of these things are great. All these things are great. But you actually have to sit down and do them. You actually have to sit down and take action. And that's why I wanted to make this the last one, was that action is the most important thing. If you get up and you do something, even if it— like, let's just even take productive off. Just do something. Get yourself off the couch and go do something. Go for a walk. Go talk to a friend. Go do something. Do something. Take action on something. Even if it's watching one of these videos, you know, that's doing something. Or watching one of these videos or listening to one of these videos while going for a walk or something. Doing something. Action breeds motivation. So if you don't feel motivated, you need to take action. It's the exact opposite thing of what you want to do, but a lot of things in life are inverted like that. So you, you do the opposite of what you feel, but then you start to feel what you wanted to feel in the first place. So doing something when you don't feel motivated will make you feel motivated. You don't wait to feel motivated to do something, you do something to get motivated. And that's the last thing here on the list. Now, there's one thing— these are the 13 things, but there's one thing That you need to do before all of this, before you can do any of these things, before you can start taking control of your mind. I'll draw this in here right now. So what comes first for all of these things? Hopefully you can read that. Self. Awareness. So to even change the thoughts in your mind, to even change your environment, to change any of your internal external inputs, you have to first become aware of them. And that seems like a very simple thing, but most people either deny that they think negatively or push it away because it's too painful to look at. So you have to shine the light of awareness on the problem to become aware of the problem so you can fix the problem. Because so many so many people spend their entire life. just ignoring the problem or avoiding the problem, but then the problem just festers and gets worse and gets worse and worse and worse and worse for their entire life. So you need to start building self-awareness before you even do any of these things, right? And there are 2 simple things that you can do to build self-awareness, and that's Meditation and journaling. So meditation and journaling, those are the 2 things that will help you bring awareness to your mind. So meditation, the— basically all you do, you sit down in a comfortable position, put on a timer, 5, 10, 20 minutes. I do 20 minutes every morning. And then you just focus on your breathing. And think of nothing. If something comes into your mind, you just shift your mind off of that and then back onto your breathing. That's what it is, and your mind will be calm. So most people's minds are like, like the middle of the ocean, just like these massive waves of emotions and thoughts, and like there's no control, right? And what meditation does is it makes the water like glass. So whenever there's a ripple that happens throughout your day, Whether that's a negative thing, whether that's a trigger, whether that's something else, you become aware of it. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing here is journaling. Journaling is super easy. You basically just write what's on your mind, right? So you write down what's on your mind without thinking about it, without judging it. That is super important. You do not want to judge your thoughts or your journal because you want it to be 100% authentic. And there is no judgment. The only judgment that would possibly be happening is from you. So you want to remove all that. You are in control. Of whether or not it's being judged. So you write down whatever you're feeling, absolutely anything, right? So you just write down emotional, non-emotional, doesn't matter. And they call that stream of consciousness writing. So you just write down whatever is on your mind, and then what you want to do is, is look back over it, read it, because you will write down things that Like, you will write down your thoughts. That's what journaling is. And it focuses your thoughts down to one word at a time. So then you can look back and basically read your own mind, right? So that's how that works. You do the stream of consciousness writing, and then you read it back, and it's just like reading your own mind. Literally, you're literally reading your mind. So that's another way to build awareness around your thoughts, and that will help you bring aware of thoughts that you can use the thought swap exercise that will help you become aware of negative beliefs that you can start crafting positive affirmations around, and things that'll help you find the silver lining. All of these things. And that starts with the, the meditation and the journaling to build that self-awareness. Now, there's one last tool before I end this, and it is a worksheet. It's not this worksheet, but Let me see if I have it right here. So in our recovery program, we send out people a box set of workbooks, and one of the workbooks is this, The Unbreakable Planner. And I'm going to be giving you a free download of the sheets that are inside of this as a PDF, 100% free, just straight link to Google Drive. You won't have to put in an email or anything. So you can just get this straight download. But inside of here, it's basically just a daily planner. And inside of the daily planner, we have every day— we want you to fill this out every single night. So in the beginning, we say we have you list 5 gratitudes, right? And then we have you plan the next day because you're writing this the night before. Then you plan your next day so you know what you're going to do. What would make tomorrow great, right? So positive things. And then we have an end-of-day review that go over the 3 wins, 3 wins that you had from that day, 3 ways that you'll improve and get better. And then we have some daily tracking for you to go through. And then this whole second page here is dedicated to goals and affirmations. So more positive inputs. And this is a simple system. So this basically distills how many of these, like 5 or 6 of these things down into one single document that you just need to fill out every single night. And there's a link to this, to the Google Drive copy of a 30-day planner of this, down below in the description. So make sure you click that, print it out, and do this. If you don't take anything away from this, from this video, just do this. Do this every single night and you will see the difference. People, when people start actually doing doing this and take this seriously. We get, we get emails all the time, we get comments all the time on how that one, one thing, that one simple thing, if you just do that one thing at night every night, it will absolutely transform your life and it will start changing your mind on a consistent basis, which is so important, from negative to positive. And I promise you, if you do that and do a few more of these, you don't have to do all these things, You pick a few that like, like really jump out at you and do it, you know, whether it's like clean house in the Unbreakable Planner or, you know, whatever it is. But basically, I want these to just be tools in your toolbox that you can rely on and that you can keep coming back to this video when you need a reminder on how to switch from the negative to the positive. So I hope that this video has helped you. I hope that you got a lot of like actionable advice out of this. If you like this, make sure to click that subscribe button because I release a video like this every single week, and I try to make it actionable. I try to make it helpful. Also, if you liked it, leave a comment below and give me a little thumbs up if you liked it as well. But also comment below with things you'd like me to cover in the future. So somebody actually asked me to cover something about negative self-talk. So I actually read them, I actually go through them, and I will answer them. So comment below with what you'd like me to do next, and likely I will do it, and I will try to do my best to make it a really in-depth video that will actually provide you with a lot of value. So I hope you like this. Make sure to hit that subscribe button and the little bell dinger, and I will see you guys in the next video.