Positive Thinking vs. Intentional Thinking

Lisa: 0:00

Hi, welcome back to the eat. Well, think. Well live well podcast. I'm Lisa Salisbury. And my mission is to help women stop obsessing about everything they eat and feel confident in their ability to lose weight without a diet app. This week, we're going to be talking about positive thinking. Versus intentional thinking. If you are one of those people that thinks positive thinking, mantras are a bunch of crap I'm with ya. So listening today to learn about how intentional thinking is the type of coaching that I do and how it is vastly different than just having positive thoughts. Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. Welcome back this week. This is episode 25, which I feel like is kind of a milestone here. I did a little celebration when I crossed over a thousand downloads and I think episode 25 is also kind of exciting. I mean. I guess 26 would actually mean six months of recording since that's halfway to 52. So maybe we should wait and celebrate and next week. But anyway, I hope your new year is going well. My daughter is finally go back to school the day, this errors. So I feel like I'm sort of starting my new year fresh again when their schedule returns to our typical one. So today I want to talk about the difference between intentional thinking and positive thinking. If you don't really know what life coaching is, you might think we just help our clients think positively. And maybe just have a go get them attitude. You maybe think it sounds like a sports coach or just a cheerleader for adults. Maybe you think a life coach is just a professional advice giver. There is a, uh, tripod sign in my neighborhood that is been advertising for a life coach, but really it looks more like a fortune teller. So maybe that's what you think. A life coaches. But I think the most common thing is to think. That it's all mantras and positive thoughts. This is what I want to dispel today and also tell you why it's just not helpful. I find that a lot of my clients come in to me and say, I know that like positive thinking is really helpful, but what I do as a health and weight loss life coach. Is to help them think intentionally. And I always tell them that this actually isn't positive thinking, this is intentional thinking. So it's actually a pretty big difference because positive thinking is always trying to get you to a positive emotion, right? Our thoughts create our emotions, which. Reminds me, we probably need a little review here. I haven't talked about the model and a few episodes. So if you aren't familiar with the model that I teach. Um, let me just go through it real quick. So it starts with the circumstances in your life. Those are at the that's the circumstances are at the top of the model. These are just the facts, like the weather, the amount of food in the house, your marital status. These are facts that we can all agree on. And then we have a thought about those circumstances. Such as I wish my husband would go get takeout because I don't feel like cooking. This thought then creates a feeling in the body. So you might feel like annoyed when you think this thought when you're like, ah, I wish he would do that. Right? That feels annoyed. So this is an emotion that is actually the chemical reaction in the body to that thought. And it makes you feel a certain way. You can describe it like you're jittery or you're calm. Or there's pressure or maybe it feels light. Maybe you describe it as feeling antsy or heavy. These are all ways. We describe emotions in the body that have names such as anxiety, joy. Anger or annoyed. Knowing that your thoughts create your feelings is seriously, half the battle here. Just knowing how emotions come into being in the body is actually super powerful. The rest of the model then follows with our actions or behaviors. These are, um, it's everything that we do or don't do I always like to say that it's things that we don't do is in here too. Cause like procrastination is in there. those actions then lead to the results in our lives. So we do certain things. And those actions are based on how we are feeling and that produces the results in our lives. And those results can then, always, always be connected back to the thought. And so we see how our thoughts give us our results, ultimately, but. If you just break down the top part of the model, just the very first section thoughts, create feelings. And that's just a super quick model explanation for a full tutorial and lesson on the model do check out episode four, and I will link that in the show notes, but. Back to our positive thinking versus intentional thinking. Like I said, our thoughts create our emotions. So it goes to reason that if we think positive thoughts, we will have positive emotions and we think that's what we want all the time. And really there's nothing wrong with this idea. Like sure. Let's feel good. It's not a bad thing to be happy, but the problem is that sometimes we need to do things that are uncomfortable. Sometimes we need to do things that we actually want to do. If we are thinking about it with our higher brain. But that will put our lower brain in a lot of discomfort or sometimes just our bodies. We feel discomfort and we're going to feel it in our bodies. Just like those emotions I was describing. You're going to feel that. These are things like giving a public speech or talk. Or putting yourself out there on social media to promote your business. Or just saying no to the donut. If we only rely on positive thinking. That means we would have to think things like I love giving public speeches. Or Instagram's my favorite place to hang out. Or I'm super happy not eating this donut. See how all these thoughts presumably are positives, but none of them sound particularly true. And that's the thing I don't need you to think positively about skipping your donut. You just need to think. intentionally about it. So, how does this look different thinking? Positively assumes. We are trying to create a positive emotion with our thoughts. If our thoughts create our feelings, like I said, an a positive thought would create a positive emotion. But if that positive thought is not true for us. This won't work. And there is the problem. These positive mantras, you are trying to force yourself to think. Aren't creating the positive emotion or the positive actions that you want. Because your brain is immediately rejecting them. You don't believe these thoughts are true. So actually the underlying thought is something like, yeah. As if I could do that or I'll hear my lower brain chime in with, huh. Nice try. Or my favorite is, oh, you're adorable. Let me show you all the ways you failed in the past at this thing. Right. The point is that your lower brain will chime in with thoughts like this and with all the reasons why you are wrong, if you don't believe this thought yet. Right. It will, it will say no, this just isn't true. And here are all the reasons why. Now there are lots of ways, um, tools and strategies to work on changing your thoughts. But before you try to change your thoughts, you can instead just think things intentionally. That get you to your goal, even if they don't feel great. Right. Instead of trying to change your thoughts to positive thoughts, we can just think intentionally about what's true. Let me give you some examples. So let's start with the one I mentioned about, about getting on social media to promote your business. Say you don't love it. You get nervous and you worry, you'll embarrass yourself doing reels on Instagram. Again, just trying to think. I love creating reels is not actually going to work because immediately we'll brain, your brain will be like, no, you don't actually love that. We are going to assume that even though you might tell a friend, I wish I didn't have to do this. In fact, you do want to make this business work. Maybe you make and sell jewelry, your sales come from people, seeing your jewelry on Instagram. So the more you are an Instagram, the more sales you make. So you want the result that comes from being on Instagram. But the truth is that it makes you uncomfortable. So, what you need here is an intentional thought that gets you to the action of posting on Instagram. But might not necessarily be producing a positive emotion. This might sound something like this is going to work, which might produce determination, not necessarily a feel good emotion. Maybe you think I'm willing to look dumb to find my ideal customers? Which is going to produce discomfort. The thing is the most of our dreams and goals are on the other side of discomfort. And those intentional thoughts are what is going to get you there. Happy happy joy, joy. Thoughts are not going to get you there. It's welcoming the discomfort and knowing that you're not going to be hurt by it. No goal is comfortable to achieve, or you would already be doing it. Almost by definition. It is something that you aren't currently doing. So it will take some discomfort to change in some way in order to achieve that goal. Let's go to the donut example or really anything with weight loss. So insert your go-to pleasure food here. Um, you also might be thinking this also could be like seconds having a second helping when you are. comfortably full. So if you do not have to think positively about skipping your donut, you just have to think intentionally about it. So I'm not asking you to skip your favorite food today and then be super happy about it. But this is where you want to ask yourself, what do you really want? Because right now, your lower brain is like, oh, I want a donut. That's what sounds good to me right now. But what do you want when you ask your higher brain? Meaning. What are your current goals with regards to your health and weight loss? Are you currently trying to cut down to one donut per week instead of one donut per day? Maybe you are accustomed to eating one donut every day for breakfast. Fine. Then you decide, you know what? I think I want to lose some weight. I'm going to eat less for breakfast and easy way to do that is to skip the donut and just to have the aches instead. Great. Is that going to be uncomfortable? Yes. Because it's a change. So now we need to have an intentional thought about the donut. And again, insert any food you want here. Here are some ideas. I love eating donuts when I planned them. I eat donuts once per week. And today is not that day. I do want a donut. But I'm choosing not to eat it right now. This is one of my favorites. Say what you want. And then say what you're choosing. What you're choosing can be uncomfortable. But do you see how that's very intentional? It's not necessarily a positive thought because it's leading to discomfort. We're going to be uncomfortable when we don't eat the donut. You can tell if it's an intentional thought, if it tells the truth. And it's coming from your higher brain. If that thought has your future self in mind. That's an intentional thought. I don't know what the right thoughts are for you. But what I do know is that you will get a, a lot farther with an intentional thought over a positive thought mantra that is just designed to make you feel happy. We must learn to intentionally direct our thoughts. To the ones that will move us forward in our goals and in life. Merely focusing on positive thinking is just not enough. Coaching helps you identify where your thoughts are driving emotions that are not leading you towards your goals. If a positive thought is the one that will get you there by all means, do that. But if your thought makes you uncomfortable and also drives the action that you want or need. Then that's where I want you to direct your brain. The key here is just that I want you to think intentionally about what you want. What you really want. Not right now in the moment. But in the future. Now remember the future is any time between. A few seconds from now and several years. So we can be talking about the future of just at the end of this meal. I want to feel comfortable instead of stuffed. When I go to bed tonight, I want to sleep well. And so that's going to indicate what I'm going to eat and the choices I'm going to make about the food and drink that I have before bed. The future also of course is five, 10 years down the line. Sometimes we are thinking about our long-term health, but not always. So when you think, what do you want in your life or in your health or in your relationships? It can be short term. It doesn't have to be these super long-term goals. The future is the future, whether it's a minute or an hour or a year. So when you're ready to start making some serious progress on your health and weight loss goals. I want to invite you to schedule a free strategy session with me. I know it might be a big jump to go from listening to a podcast. Right to scheduling a time to talk to me. You're like, lady, I don't even know you, but listen, I promise. You'll get a better idea. If coaching will work for you. By actually getting some coaching. I always remember a woman who chose not to hire me as her coach after our session, but she wanted instead to just pay me for the session, she said it was so valuable that she wanted to pay for it. I didn't let her, of course, because they are and always will be free, but I thought it was a good indication of how my free strategy sessions go. So even if you decide my coaching program, isn't right for you, you will walk away from that phone call with several ideas and things to think about the link for my calendar is in the show notes. And I hope to talk to you soon. hey, thanks for listening today. If you're ready to get some personalized coaching from me, I'd encourage you to schedule a free strategy session. Visit www.wellwithlisa.as.me or it's easier just to find that link in the show notes. We'll talk about where you currently are with your weight loss goals. And I'll give you some actionable tools. You can start implementing right away. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes, right when they're released. And if you're learning something new and enjoying the podcast, I'd love for you to leave me a five star rating and a review. Thanks again for joining me, Lisa Salisbury in this episode of Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well.