How to Think Right at Work

Often when any challenge or problem comes, we start thinking too much about it and most of the time the thoughts we create in our mind are all negative and exaggerated versions of reality.

Most of the time, we start thinking about the worst possible outcome and make the problem look as big as a mountain but in the end, it comes out to be nothing but a molehill.

In this case, also my friend was just imagining the worst-case scenario in her mind which had nothing to do with reality when she went to meet her boss and apologise for her mistake (holding back her tears), her boss smiled and told her that it is not such a big deal such mistakes keep happening and that he has handled the situation this time but she needs to learn a lesson and see that it is not repeated again.

Just that, there was no shouting, no blame game, no disrespect, and yes no job loss! But you can imagine the state of mind and stress my friend would have been in until she spoke to her boss.

Well thankfully in this case the situation got over in a couple of hours, but there are instances when such situations take longer to get resolved and negative thoughts keep lingering on our minds which not just ruin and disturb our minds during that time period which hampers our productivity on day to day basis.

Well, such situations are the perfect example of falling into the Thinking Traps, when we start overthinking and stay stressed without any actual reason.

So this week let's look at some of the steps you can take to Think Right and Avoid Overthinking.

• Acknowledge that difficult things happen in life - Whenever you get into a difficult situation, acknowledge that it is part of life and such things come and go. Just keep learning and come back stronger.
• Identify your thinking traps - There are as many as 12 Thinking Traps that we can fall into, you need to identify which thinking trap are you getting entangled into. We saw one such trap in this case, if you want to know in detail about all the 12 Thinking Traps, do comment below, and I will take it up in my next article.
• Play devil's advocate with yourself - Tell yourself that everything happens to teach or improve you and you will be able to take this in your stride.
• Talk to yourself as your dear friend - Talk to yourself the same way, you would console a dear friend in a similar situation.
• Stay stop when worry-driven thoughts take over - If you realise that you have a problem of overthinking. Get into a habit of checking your thoughts and feeling and disrupt your thoughts if they are going in the wrong direction or are creating negative feelings like fear, anxiety, etc.
• Find what you can change - If you could, what parts of your situation would you most like to change? With positive reframing, you may see possibilities you weren’t aware of before.
• Identify benefits: Find the benefits in the situation you face.
• Discover the humor: Find the aspects of your situation that are so absurd that you can’t help but laugh
• Practice self-care - Sometimes it becomes difficult to stop such thoughts or even identify what is right and what is wrong. Here daily Meditation can help a lot in keeping your mind healthy and ensure that your mind is empowered with so much positivity that even a gigantic situation looks like a molehill.

Hope these tips will help you stay calm and deal with the difficult situation with the right frame of mind.

Comment below your thoughts and do let me know if you have any queries or need further help.

Would love to hear from you.

Cheers!