How to Stop Negative Thinking from the Actions of Others

In the pre­vi­ous arti­cle, we talked about how to stop neg­a­tive think­ing that come from within your­self, hope you got time and read it. In today’s arti­cle, we are going to talk about how to stop neg­a­tive think­ing from out­siders’ influence.

To stop neg­a­tive think­ing that comes from Other People’s (exter­nal) actions and com­ments, you need to learn to change your reac­tions, you need to learn the nec­es­sary skills that enable you to embrace other people’s neg­a­tive thoughts and turn them into a pos­i­tive ben­e­fit. Here are some of the guide­lines you can follow.

Ask for Advice

When some­one makes a neg­a­tive com­ment to you about a cer­tain sit­u­a­tion, ask him or her what he or she would do to rec­tify or improve the sit­u­a­tion. Instead of sim­ply agree­ing to their views, find out what makes them feel the way they do. This will not only enable you to review the com­ment for facts, but it will also allow you to learn from their thoughts and, hope­fully, find new ideas to make the sit­u­a­tion even better.

Once you know the facts behind a com­ment, you can either elim­i­nate the neg­a­tive influ­ence of an irra­tional com­ment from your mind, or you can apply pos­i­tive think­ing to a valid com­ment to can­cel out the neg­a­tive influence.

Be Open to Sug­ges­tions

Attempt to view the neg­a­tive com­ments of oth­ers sim­ply as expres­sions of car­ing. Per­haps the person’s com­ment was made out of a fear of see­ing you fail. You can dis­cuss the com­ment with them and let them know that you want their sug­ges­tions. If their sug­ges­tions are invalid, just sim­ply dis­miss them. On the other hand, if their sug­ges­tions are valid, use the ideas to strength and expand your orig­i­nal idea.

Never Take a Neg­a­tive Com­ment Personally

Rather than just assume that the com­ment was meant as a crit­i­cism of you or your idea, take the time to review the com­ment for another mean­ing. Ask your­self — was the com­ment of expres­sion shows how that per­son feels about him or her­self? Was the com­ment a result of the other person’s inse­cu­rity? Was the com­ment born of a belief that the other per­son holds against your field of business?

Peo­ple make neg­a­tive com­ments all the time for a vari­ety of rea­sons, there prob­a­bly no way for you to truly know the rea­son behind their com­ments, so keep in mind of that the state­ment very rarely reflects the abil­i­ties of the per­son who was stated to.

If that knowl­edge is not enough and you are still in doubt, go ahead and ask the per­son for clar­i­fi­ca­tion. Just remem­ber to take any­thing they say as their opin­ion and not a fact. Also remem­ber to chal­lenge their thoughts with the ques­tions you learned pre­vi­ously in order to elim­i­nate the neg­a­tive from your thoughts.

Attempt to Turn Neg­a­tive Com­ments Into a Resource for New Ideas

Any­time you are faced with a neg­a­tive com­ment, search the words for a new idea or resource. Is the per­son mak­ing the com­ment an expert in your field? Then per­haps, they are on to some­thing and can point you in a new or a bet­ter direc­tion. Is the com­ment com­ing from a loved one who has helped you research this idea? Then, maybe their idea is com­ing from a dif­fer­ent approach to the same idea. Explore this option and see what you can learn.

If after fol­low­ing the pre­vi­ous guide­lines, you still have neg­a­tive thoughts that you sim­ply can­not change, it may be time to learn how to use that neg­a­tive think­ing in a pos­i­tive way.