Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - How can I stop thinking so much and start enjoying the NOW

pooler · 10-13-2009, 05:27 PM

You probably have a 'vivid' dream life as well. It appears you have a hyperactive 'mind.' When you are alone you tend to live in the past. Since you live in the past a good part of the time, you focus on how you would like for it to be different than what it is. Telling yourself it is useless to 'dwell on the past' is in itself useless unless you do something about it.
Behavioral psychologists believe thinking is just subvocal speech. Research has shown outloud-vocal speech can be modified, therefore so can subvocal speech or thinking. When you spend hours thinking about the past, etc., it is self-reinforcing. Consequently, you will spend more hours doing the same thing. In order to change your thinking pattern, you need to 'remind yourself' constantly to 'cut off' the thoughts when you realize you are doing it. It will be hard at first, but the more you do it, the easier it will become. It takes effort to cut off a thought. One way to do it is to make notes to yourself and place them in different places where you spend a lot of your alone time. Simply say, "Stop thinking about the past" and force yourself to think of something happening now. Another thing that adds to the problem is you appear to engage in a lot of habitual behavior that doesn't require concentrated thought or effort. This type of boredom is not challenging to your mind so you start engaging in habitual thinking of the past. Try to force yourself to be aware of what you are doing and how you can improve on how to do it. Even the matter of how you mow the lawn...a very boring activity. Instead, try to think of a topic you'd like to explain or present to a group and make an outline in your mind of how you will present it so the group can follow your explanation. Also, you may be spending to much time by yourself. This is not challenging your mind. Try to be with others more and join in with their activities and discussions. Force yourself to not be judgemental in these discussions and activities. Make yourself look at things from the viewpoint of others and see if you can change your own opinions. That will be a real challenge. Good luck with this if you decide to do it.

10-13-2009, 05:27 PM	#15 (permalink)
pooler Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 1	Try this. You probably have a 'vivid' dream life as well. It appears you have a hyperactive 'mind.' When you are alone you tend to live in the past. Since you live in the past a good part of the time, you focus on how you would like for it to be different than what it is. Telling yourself it is useless to 'dwell on the past' is in itself useless unless you do something about it. Behavioral psychologists believe thinking is just subvocal speech. Research has shown outloud-vocal speech can be modified, therefore so can subvocal speech or thinking. When you spend hours thinking about the past, etc., it is self-reinforcing. Consequently, you will spend more hours doing the same thing. In order to change your thinking pattern, you need to 'remind yourself' constantly to 'cut off' the thoughts when you realize you are doing it. It will be hard at first, but the more you do it, the easier it will become. It takes effort to cut off a thought. One way to do it is to make notes to yourself and place them in different places where you spend a lot of your alone time. Simply say, "Stop thinking about the past" and force yourself to think of something happening now. Another thing that adds to the problem is you appear to engage in a lot of habitual behavior that doesn't require concentrated thought or effort. This type of boredom is not challenging to your mind so you start engaging in habitual thinking of the past. Try to force yourself to be aware of what you are doing and how you can improve on how to do it. Even the matter of how you mow the lawn...a very boring activity. Instead, try to think of a topic you'd like to explain or present to a group and make an outline in your mind of how you will present it so the group can follow your explanation. Also, you may be spending to much time by yourself. This is not challenging your mind. Try to be with others more and join in with their activities and discussions. Force yourself to not be judgemental in these discussions and activities. Make yourself look at things from the viewpoint of others and see if you can change your own opinions. That will be a real challenge. Good luck with this if you decide to do it. Last edited by pooler; 10-13-2009 at 05:36 PM.