Dr. Don WoodResolving Your Trauma-Based Challenges So You Can Unlock Peak Performance

The 3 Key Elements for Strong, Positive Thoughts

28 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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Dr. Don Wood breaks down a three-part test for thoughts worth keeping: they need to be beneficial, appealing, and possible. A thought that hits only one or two criteria, like regretting the past or craving something you can't have, should be rejected. Train yourself to filter thoughts through all three.

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If you're becoming stronger, you're going to be able to recognize, is that thought beneficial, appealing, impossible. And you learn to reject thoughts that don't fit all that criteria. So, for example, I should have done this five years ago. Would that have been beneficial? Yeah. Is it appealing? Yeah. Is it possible? No. So why are you thinking about what you could have done five years ago? When people, for example, are in addiction, right, they'll say to me, well, what if I have a thought about wanting to go out and drink again? All right, well, what criteria does it fit? Is it possible to do it? Yes. Is it appealing? Oh, yeah. Is it beneficial? Oh, crap. It's not beneficial. I was so close. I had two of them. But it has to match all three. When you become stronger, you start to be able to get the thought in line with benefit, appeal and possibility. And why are you thinking about things that aren't possible? If it doesn't fit all three criteria, what are you doing thinking about it?