your best thought

Your first thought isn’t always your best thought. Especially if it popped into your head as a trigger response to something someone said, did, or to the situation at hand.

Our emotions are strategies. They’re meant to get us a reward when we use them.

For instance, when you learn anger and stomp your feet, sometimes you get what you want. That sporadic reinforcement teaches your brain, on a subconscious level, that getting angry has a good payoff. So, you keep using it throughout your life.

Being an angry person, however, doesn’t always fly when it comes to interpersonal relationships. There also comes a point when we become aware of the toll it takes on our body and mind to automatically enter into a state of high agitation on a frequent basis.

Beware of your first thought. It’s offering you more of the same.

The same outcomes you’ve gotten in the past. The same patterns. The same thought processes that come from framing situations the way you always have.

If this works for you, then by all means, roll with it.

But if you want something different for yourself—and better outcomes—your best thought comes after the initial reaction wears off and you get some breathing room from the problem or person at hand.

You’re not going to behave the same way when you’re angry as you do when you’re calm. Period. These are two different strategies. But the calmer response is only going to come from stepping away mentally or physically for a period of time to gain perspective.

Perspective is gained by choosing different actions when faced with what you already assume, versus choosing to see different angles of the situation. You can naturally stumble into it by dropping the issue from your mind and doing something else for a while.

Or you can recognize that your perspective is your responsibility and you can shift it with intention.

Very often, the majority of negative thoughts come from a conclusion that the situation, person, or circumstance is somehow degrading who we are. That we are “less than” or “put out by” what’s happening to us.

This is never the case.

One quick way to gain perspective is to immediately identify how the current situation can benefit you. There’s always a silver lining, even in the crappiest of circumstances. Find it, and your perspective will immediately shift.

Your first thought is automatic.

Your best thought is the one you choose after you’ve given yourself enough space to decide.

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