How Does This Thought Serve Me?
We are what we think.
The thoughts that occupy your mind needs to deserve to be there. It’s occupying precious space.
We waste countless time and energy on worries about insignificant things that will never happen, things that have already happened and cannot be changed, or generally on things beyond our control. Thinking about it won’t make a difference.
These thoughts usually follow a pattern. A negative cycle. It’s good practice to write down the dialogue in your mind. Trace it back to the trigger.
Once you become aware of the pattern, they’re easier to catch. And to catch it before it takes hold of you, ask yourself How Does This Thought Serve Me?
In most cases, the answer will be that it doesn’t. It’s just the mind going over the same things over and over again.
A date hasn’t replied to your text. Am I being ghosted? You replay the events. What’s the meaning of this? You agonize. Am I not good enough? You start doubting yourself. And down the rabbit hole you go.
Catch yourself early and ask, How Does This Thought Serve Me? It serves no real use to you but many hours of wasted thought. If you turned the internal dialogue into, How Can I Have Done Better?
Now there’s something you can benefit from. You can write a list — learn to be more confident, communicate better, arrive on time, ask better questions. Now you’re improving.
Whenever you spend a lot of time thinking about something, ask yourself, How Does This Thought Serve Me?
