Why Did You Choose That Thought?
What?
What do you mean?
I had to think that thought because that thing happened.
I didn’t have a choice.
Did I?
Why did you choose that thought?
I love to ask my clients that question.
It’s one of the most illuminating questions to ask because we don’t usually think of our thoughts as something we can choose.
The fact is most of us believe the circumstances in our lives make us think, feel, and act the way we do.
They don’t.
We’re in control of our minds and our thoughts all the time.
We have free will.
We can and do choose the thoughts we think.
Life events or circumstances don’t determine what we think.
We do.
Understanding this and applying it to your life can and will change everything.
So, yes.
You have a choice.
You determine how you feel, act, and the results you get by the thoughts you choose to think about every life event you experience.
The freedom to choose any thought is a fundamental truth for all of us all the time.
This fundamental truth or principle means we create our results and our lives by the thoughts we choose.
This is how it works:
- We encounter a circumstance in our life.
- We choose a thought about that circumstance.
- The thought we choose produces a feeling.
- The feeling we have drives our actions.
- The actions we take determine the result we get.
- The results we get make up our life.
To say you create the life you’re living by the thoughts you choose to think is an accurate summation and the most awesome truth.
The power, responsibility, and control that comes from accepting this concept is staggering.
It completely changed my life, and it will change your life too.
It sounds simple enough, but the resistance we often feel and express to this idea is surprisingly strong.
The objection to this principle is usually voiced when somebody says something like, “But it’s true.
I don’t see my thought as a choice.
The traffic was awful this morning.
I was angry, and I don’t see how I could feel good about it.”
(Photo by Tan Kaninthanond on Unsplash)
Let’s take a minute to illustrate how to apply this principle to this real-life example in a coaching session.
We’ll use a client who expresses a desire to discuss their thoughts, feelings, and actions regarding the traffic they encounter on the way into work.
I’ll also illustrate how to apply another essential principle in our example.
This fundamental truth addresses the neutrality of every life event or circumstance we encounter.
The event itself has no meaning until we choose a thought about it, until we have an opinion of it, or we interpret it.
This rule about circumstances is critical.
It’s not that a life event has no meaning to us.
The event or circumstance has no meaning until we decide it does, and we decide what the meaning is with the thought we choose about it.
Let’s assume our coaching client decided this subject was worth coaching on because they see their anger as something that negatively affects their attitude on the ride into work.
This anger often carries over into their workday affecting their job performance.
They’re unhappy with how they’re feeling and concerned about how they’ve been interacting with their boss and coworkers.
Before we go on, it’s important to understand that no one should ever suggest that you need to think or feel differently.
No thought is wrong to choose, and there is nothing wrong with you for choosing the thoughts you decide to think.
What you choose to think is entirely up to you.
My question for my clients and you is always the same. Is the thought you are choosing serving you?
In other words, is the thought you are choosing to think leading to the feeling, actions, and result you want?
If the answer is yes.
Keep it.
If the answer is no, you can consider choosing another thought, or you can keep it.
Again, it’s totally up to you.
How to apply this principle to a real-life coaching example:
Step One: After the client indicates this is a topic they want to explore, we would identify what the circumstance is in a factual way.
This is where we actively apply the principle of all circumstances being neutral.
Remember the client said, “the traffic was ridiculously bad this morning.”
The phrase “ridiculously bad” when referring to the traffic is subjective and therefore not neutral.
I know this may sound like splitting hairs, but this is important to do to arrive at a wholly neutral and factual circumstance.
To make the circumstance completely neutral and factual, we would have to eliminate the subjectivity of the phrase “ridiculously bad” when referring to the traffic.
Let’s say we knew exactly how many cars our client encountered from the time they left home to when they arrived at work, and that number is precisely 5,000 cars.
So the circumstance we have for this example is there were 5,000 cars on the road between home and work.
That’s step one.
Step two: Now we would identify the thought that led to the feeling they experienced while driving to work and at work.
The best way to do this is to work backward from the client’s feeling.
The client expressed they felt angry.
This anger affected how they acted on the ride into work and how they interacted with their boss and coworkers once they got to the office.
So we established that the feeling is anger.
To get the exact thought they were thinking, I would ask, “what specifically were you thinking when you felt angry about encountering 5,000 cars on the ride into work from home.”
More than likely, the client will share several different thoughts they were thinking of at the time.
I would work with the client to establish which thought they believed was their most dominant or strongest thought.
It’s reasonable to assume the client would determine that the thought that led to feeling anger is something like I hate traffic.
Step Three: Next, I would ask the client what actions they took when they felt angry.
They may explain that they yelled at the driver in the car in front of them, they banged their fist on the steering wheel a few times.
They may have even honked their horn once or twice too.
They may explain once they arrived at the office, they were short with their boss and rude to their coworkers.
Step Four: At this point, I would walk through the example from start to finish with the client.
I would say the circumstance was you encounter 5,000 cars on the road between home and work.
The thought you chose about this circumstance was I hate traffic.
As a result of the thought you choose, you felt angry.
Feeling anger led to the actions you took of yelling at the driver in the car in front of you, banging your fist on the steering, honking your horn, being short with their boss, and being rude to their coworkers.
As a result, you created more things in your life to hate and vent your anger out on.
After the client had a chance to reflect on what I shared with them, I would take a minute or two to point out that they think the reason they felt anger was because there were 5,000 cars on the road between home and work.
They also think the reason they banged on the steering wheel, honked their horn, and were short with their boss and coworkers is that there were 5,000 cars on the road between home and work.
But 5,000 cars on the road between home and work is a neutral circumstance that can’t make them think, feel, or do anything.
I would go on to point out how somebody else could have an entirely different thought and feeling about the same circumstance, and I’d give them an example.
I may say something about a person from Los Angeles who routinely encounters ten times more traffic on their commute of the same distance.
As a result, the person from LA might think your commute was a walk in the park.
I would then explain to my client why this is significant.
If a circumstance can be interpreted differently by different people, it means that the circumstance is neutral and didn’t cause the client to feel or do anything.
I would also let the client know that I’m not suggesting that they should think or feel differently.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with them or their thoughts and feelings.
It’s entirely up to them to decide if they want to keep those thoughts and feelings or change them.
The point is their feelings, the actions they take, and the results they get all come from the thoughts they choose, and they’re free to choose any thought they’d like to.
They aren’t a victim of circumstance.
They are in control of their thoughts and their life.
I would then point out that the only reason they were feeling angry is that they choose the thought I hate traffic.
The only reason they banged on the wheel, honked their horn, and were short with their boss and coworkers is because they chose the thought I hate traffic.
(Photo by Alexander Popov on Unsplash)
All of this matters because choosing the thought I hate traffic is why they created more things to hate and vent their anger out on.
In other words, our client created their reality by the thought they chose to think.
That’s the power of thought in action.
Choosing to hate the traffic led to feelings, actions, and a result that created more hate.
Again the point of this is not to say to the client, or you, or anyone that they should think differently.
The point is to build your awareness of how the thoughts you choose create the result you get in your life.
Having an awareness of your thoughts and what those thoughts bring gives you power.
Before you have this awareness, almost everything feels out of your control.
Before the awareness, we believe things happen in our life, and we have no choice but to feel this way and react this way.
NOT TRUE! You have the power to choose how to think about the world you experience.
Those thoughts have power.
Those thoughts give you control of your life.
At this point, my clients usually separate themselves into two different groups.
Group One: Clients who see, accept, understand, and feel the significance of what they just learned.
As a result, they learn more about how to deliberately choose their thoughts and design the life they want to live.
Group Two: They don’t see any other way to view the traffic on the way into work.
To them, trying to choose a different thought about a circumstance doesn’t seem possible.
The traffic is what it is.
I am how I am, and I think how I think.
They believe they can’t view the circumstance any other way.
Both groups of clients are perfect the way they are.
I would never ask them to think differently than they do.
My job as a coach is to share what I know and increase their awareness of how the thoughts they choose determine the results they get.
I believe it’s also my responsibility to let my clients know if they choose to continue to think that they hate traffic, the results they create will continue to be the same too.
That thought will always produce the same result of more hate.
There’s no way around it.
Understanding how to apply these principles allows you to create any result you want in your life by deliberately choosing the thoughts you think.
That’s real power, and it gives everyone who employs it true freedom.
I’d be honored to show you how to apply these principles to your life.
I guarantee you there’s nothing more empowering than the realization and application of your free will to choose any thought you desire.
Choose your thoughts deliberately and create your life on purpose.
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