If you were an athlete you would be expected to train your body for your chosen sport.

If you believe you are a thinker, then would you not expect to also train your mind. We train our children to read, write and do arithmetic. All nice practical thinking.

But, we stop short of training them to think about their emotions and self-esteem, or how to increase confidence.

This emotional training, this training of the mind and its responses, is every bit as important in the long run as school learning. Now more than ever, we have tools that are easily used and explained.

We all believe that our way and what we think is right. And, in our own way, we are right.

All of us make assumptions about our experiences in order to just get along in life. And it is those assumptions that we need to examine.

Is what we thought we experienced, especially as children, really explained by what we think or is there a possibility that we can arrive at a different understanding.

We have several models of how language influences our thinking. One of these models looks at how we think and talk about our experiences.

Here are 7 ways from that model that we use to limit our thinking and speaking.

1) Generalization

In our hurry to explain what is happening to us, we sometimes over generalize and take one thing to mean all things. For example, if I have a bad experience with a dog then I take it to mean that all dogs are bad.

2) Read Minds

Mind reading is one of the easiest and worst offences of un-useful thinking.  We easily jump to conclusions about someone's behavior.  A car crosses you path and you automatically think, "He is out to get me. He cut me off." 

3) Overestimating or Underestimating

Your therapist tells you to smile with the idea that smiling promotes friendliness and increases the good balance of chemicals in your body. You decide that smiling is just not worth the effort. You are underestimating the therapists advice.

You are given pills to combat the symptoms of anxiety. You conclude that they are not helping because you still feel anxious in your mind. You are overestimating the effects of pills which mask the symptoms. You still have to work through the problems that caused the anxiety.

4) Focusing On What is less useful

If you are in pain, focusing on your pain will take your attention away from doing other things. You may start to think that you are no longer able to concentrate when in fact you are putting all your efforts into concentrating on you pain.

5) Black or White thinking

Deciding that you are right and everyone else is wrong is a moral, either-or judgement. We are all right within ourselves.

6) Blaming others for negative interpretation

You make me angry! 

People use me!

Both of these examples blame others for something we are letting happen. We can choose other ways than anger. We can choose to stand up to people and just say no.

7) Blaming events for our negative interpretations.

Since my car accident I haven't been able to think straight. Unless the person suffered a head injury, most people can survive a small accident. You can choose to focus on what is happening in your environment now, or you can stay focused on what happened in the past.

Widening the lens

We can choose to view the world through the lens of fear or pleasure.

If you could do something today that would change how you see your life, what would it be?

How would your life be different if you viewed it through the lens of happiness?

The World is not focused on you. But, you can focus on the World.

So sit back and examine how you think. Choose the widest lens.