I’d like to introduce you to the first step to entering the flow, which is your thoughts. Our thoughts originate from our minds but few people understand the inner workings of their mind. The fact of the matter is that we have anywhere from 50 to 70 thousand thoughts a day, most of which are negative. Just remember the thoughts that you have had throughout this day and you’ll know this to be true. The question is why are the majority of our thoughts negative?

The reason for this is that most of these thoughts are subconscious. You see, our minds are made up of the subconscious and the conscious mind. The subconscious mind is that part of our mind that is programmed in early childhood by the age of 7 and forms our personalities. The subconscious mind is responsible for the majority of our thinking and is where 95% of our behaviour arises whereas the conscious mind is only responsible for 5% of our behaviour. An example of subconscious behaviour is the route that we take when driving to work. If we have done this enough times, this becomes automatic and we do not have to even think about it, which is why it does not require our conscious mind.

The problem is that the route we take to work is not the only subconscious behaviour that gets programmed into our minds. In our early childhood we are subject to all sorts of influences, most of which are not for our benefit, including the education system, marketing and advertising, mass and social media, religion and even our parents and extended families, who may have had their own struggles in their childhoods and pass these on to us. These and other influences, that we are subject to, are trying to fulfill their own agenda and not what is in our best interest, which is why negative thinking often gets programmed into our subconscious mind at an early age.

For this reason, it does not surprise me that the majority of our thinking tends to be negative. Negative thinking also becomes the origin of our limiting beliefs, which are beliefs that keep us from reaching our highest potential. Some of these beliefs are, I will never get out of debt, I will never find love, I will never find my ideal career or job and the most common and worst limiting belief, I am not good enough. Most people suffer from one or more limiting beliefs, arising out of negative thinking, which keeps them from being in the flow and reaching their highest potential.

In next week’s article, I will discuss a simple technique to help you overcome your limiting beliefs. In the meantime, take an inventory, one day, of every thought that crosses your mind and write it down to see if you are addicted to negative thinking. If you find a pattern of negative thinking or a pattern of recurrent challenges in your life then try to find the limiting belief that is behind these patterns. You will be surprised at how pervasive negative thinking may be in your life because you were not conscious of it before or did not want to acknowledge it.

You must address your thinking in order to get into the flow and I’ll show you the first step to do this in the next article.