Brian Johnson breaks down constructive thinking as a tool to build confidence. The key: ask if a thought is helpful or hurtful, then deliberately choose the next one. He frames three time horizons: mining the past for value, constructive thinking now, and envisioning your ideal future self.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. And our last couple ones. Check them out linked in this one we've been chatting about how to make some powerful deposits in our psychological bank accounts so we can forge the confidence we need to perform at our best when it matters most. There are three time horizons we want to pay attention to. Our past, our present and our future. As Dr. Z puts it, in the confident mind, we need to dominate. Number one, filtering your past for valuable deposits. Number two, constructive thinking in the present. And number three, envisioning your ideal future self. Today we're going to talk about constructive thinking in the present. Note. I love the phrase constructive thinking in the book. Dr. Z juxtaposes constructive thinking with positive and negative thinking, telling us that basically we want to move past positive or negative thinking to constructive thinking. In short, does the way we're thinking about whatever is going on in our lives help us or hurt us in forging the confidence we need to create the life we desire? Is it constructive or destructive? We've talked about this basic idea in different contexts before. Trevor Moad's ideas about neutral thinking inspired my thoughts on targeted thinking, but I just love the idea of constructive thinking as well. It's kind of like Alden Mills idea of helpful or hurtful we recently discussed as well, and that's today's one. As you go about your business today and find yourself having a less than awesome chat with yourself, remember the power of constructive thinking. Ask yourself, is this thought pattern helpful or hurtful? Is it constructive or destructive? Then choose your next thought wisely, hero. We've got some confidence to forge.
