She delves into how working with weight loss and life coach Brooke Castillo in Self-Coaching Scholars has led Donna to see how her husband’s way of thinking has been right all along! (Gasp!)
When we think differently about people, situations, our goals, life’s disappointments, and more, we act differently. When we think good thoughts, we act in a way that brings good results. When we think bad thoughts, we act in a way that brings bad results.
Donna applies this to work, marriage, weight loss, and exercise with examples of both—thoughts that lead us to negative results in these areas and thoughts that lead us to positive results in these areas.
She then talks about the need to be extremely specific in our thoughts—take a circumstance or person and think an intentional thought—and then our actions will follow these specific thoughts.
A. Ray Baby’s Pollyanna Approach
1. Pollyanna known for her positive outlook, which Ray Baby definitely has
2. Moreso—Pollyanna has a unique change in thinking that affects her results or outcome
3. “When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good—you will get that…”
4. Ray Baby’s application of this
a. Empathy—one of the most important qualities that we worked on with our kids—“How do you think that makes him feel?” Before it was a thing!
b. When anything semi-bad or negative happened, Ray would apply Pollyanna approach with empathy
B. Limitations of Pollyanna Approach
1. Doesn’t assume that life is 50% bad and 50% good
2. Obviously, there are many situations where we wouldn’t want to apply this or it wouldn’t serve us
3. But we can apply it more than we think we can: “There is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.”
C. How Thoughts Affect Results
1. Small portion of the Thought Model by my weight loss coach, Brooke Castillo
2. Thoughts are sentences in our brains—we usually repeat the same sentences over and over again without realizing it.
3. Not just “power of positive thinking” or “name it and claim it” or some other “woo woo”—we start doing what we think about a lot! Period.
4. Might be thinking “Of course, our thoughts affect what we do”—but if you really believe it, you would change your thoughts
5. Not enough to “think on these things” with repeating verses/no application or “positive thinking” where we try to will ourselves to not think something bad
6. In order to change results, we have to be specific and purposeful in our thoughts
7. Example in business
a. Old Thought: Boss too demanding Result: Talk about him; not work your best
b. New Thought: Boss has high standards of excellence. Result: I work harder to achieve excellence
8. Example in co-working projects/acquaintances
a. Old Thought: She thinks she owns the swim team. Result: Animosity; gossip; not wanting to make the team better
b. New Thought: She is an efficient leader. Result: Doing my part to make the team a success for my children.
9. Example in marriage
a. Old Thought: He always nags about crumbs on the counter/tired of it. Result: Not try to keep the kitchen cleaner.
b. New Thought: I’m so grateful he cares about the details of the house. Result: Working together to make house better.
D. When and How to Use This!
1. On the 50% of the bad that you can actually affect
2. Admitting and accepting that my thoughts do affect my actions—and that I want different actions in my life
3. Going backwards or forwards—Look at an action in your life you have that you don’t want—if thoughts affect actions, then you can go from an action to a better thought.
a. Example: My action is that I don’t exercise when I say I’m going to. My thought is that the little things don’t matter that much—it takes too much to make a difference. If I want the exercise action to change, I have to think something different: Every tiny change every day adds up to an amazing result. Therefore, I exercise every day, knowing that it will produce a positive result.
b. Example: My action is that I don’t call my parent because I think they will complain and I don’t want to hear it. If I want to call my parent more, I will change that thought to I want to hear my parent’s heart and be there for her. My action is to call her and listen intently.
4. Less “think good thoughts, think good thoughts, think good thoughts” and more specificity in my thoughts—apply a specific thought to an action. Completely link the two.
E. Not an Easy Switch!
1. Pollyanna said this herself: “It’ll be just lovely for you to play — it’ll be so hard. And there’s so much more fun when it is hard!”
2. If you care about making a change, you will do this in every area you want to change—you won’t leave it to chance.
3. Results are worth it—no longer holding others prisoners to your demands; way more peace in relationships as you just let others be what they are; less disappointment in life since you are controlling what you can truly control and letting the rest go; makes the 50% bad in life more bearable.
4. You will develop profound empathy and, if you are a Christian, you will be more specifically applying all of the “think on these things” verses, which result in growing in your faith and love for others.
F. Other Links
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c. Calories IN-Calories Out Game and Video Series—learn sooo many things that affect weight loss, inch reduction, cravings, and more!
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