Here’s Why “Just Think Different!” Is Crap Advice

It’s well-meaning crap like what’s shown in this photo that kept me miserable, hating myself, and depressed for over 3 decades.*

While the words you use with yourself ARE important, general advice to simply “think/believe something different!” is no better than telling someone “If you’re left-handed, just start being right-handed!”

JUST
BE
DIFFERENT!

(Fuck you. That’s what I used to think whenever therapists and coaches told me to do that. If I COULD HAVE thought differently I WOULD HAVE. I couldn’t.)

➡️ HERE’S WHY “just think different!” is crap advice:

The thought patterns you experience AREN’T RANDOM.

You have them for a reason.

There is a ROOT CAUSE that determines which thought patterns you get locked into.

When you try to “change your thoughts” without changing the root cause, guess what?

You’re slapping a band aide onto your problem and fixing a whole lot of NOTHING.

If you have high cholesterol, you can take a pill to lower it.

You’re not ACTUALLY fixing the root cause of the high cholesterol issue by doing that, now are you?

So you have to keep taking the pill in order to address the symptom.

To address the root cause and ACTUALLY fix the problem, you would need to change parts of your lifestyle, like how you eat.

Same with your thoughts.

You can TRY to convince yourself that you believe alternative thoughts by reframing everything that pops into your mind (which is the equivalent of you taking a cholesterol pill).

OR you can fix the issue at the *root level* and change what you actually believe to be true so those thoughts STOP SHOWING UP IN THE FIRST PLACE.

(Your thoughts about how AWESOME Santa Claus was literally disappeared once you stopped BELIEVING in him, yeah? Same thing.)

Affirm and repeat “replacement thoughts” for the rest of your life.

OR….

STOP THE NONSENSE once and for all and work to address the REASON WHY you’re experiencing your thought patterns to begin with.

When you do this, you WILL see insanely rapid results exponentially more powerful what you get if you walk around trying to reframe all the non-helpful thoughts that flood your mind each week. It’s literally impossible not to. (Ask any of my clients.)

As always, in our amazing lives, you get to choose.

#mindfix
#happysunday
#identifytherootcause
#fixtherootproblem

* Sorrynotsorry to all the people spreading this on social media and saying “Isn’t this so great?!” It was time somebody said something about this.