Don't Believe All The Thoughts You Think

In this inspirational talk, Ana Barreto invites you to find happiness by considering the thoughts you think. She offers nine practical tools to rebuild your happiness and find joy in your life. You can begin from where you are today.

Transcript

Hello everyone!

Welcome to another talk from the Embrace Your Success.

This is a series where I share knowledge and insights that will inspire you to improve the overall quality of your life.

Before we start,

I have a quick question for you.

Do you talk to yourself?

Take a few seconds to think about it.

You just did.

Yes,

You just talked to yourself and you are not alone.

All people do but some people are more aware than others.

Today we will learn about our thoughts and how they impact our happiness.

Basically,

I'm going to ask you not to believe all the thoughts you think.

My name is Ana Borretto.

I'm an author of books for women,

A coach,

A meditator and a businesswoman.

My mission is to help women improve the quality of their lives through learning,

Inspiration and mindful practices.

Most of what I teach are lessons I had to learn and today it's a big one.

I will remind you not to believe the thoughts you think.

It would be helpful for you to take notes,

Place your phone on Do Not Disturb and give yourself 15 minutes to reset your mindset and be inspired to improve the quality of your life.

So back to self-talk.

By now you may be wondering what does self-talk has to do with happiness?

Stick around and you will find out.

People talk to themselves all day long and probably more when angry,

Worried or stressed.

Talking to yourself is a function of the mind.

The mind thinks that it exists and has an identity separate from you.

We unconsciously contribute to the way our minds perceive themselves.

They produce a massive amount of thoughts and we are not even aware of most of the thoughts we think.

Let me be a bit more clear.

There is no problem with talking to yourself.

You are not crazy and no one will be calling the people with the white coats to take you away.

We have to talk to ourselves.

We use our thoughts to decipher our world.

Most of us have full conversations with ourselves about everything all day long.

Our thoughts are faster than our spoken and written words.

So the dilemma people experience is that they think very quickly and react as fast as they think.

And most of our self-talks are negative.

So we can catch our thoughts or stop the automatic reaction in time before it does some damage.

One thought leads to another and suddenly we have a string of negative thoughts.

That's why we need to be mindful of the thoughts we think.

Your thoughts and beliefs drive your choices.

Your choices shape your life.

Your life feeds your emotions and your emotions drive your thoughts.

Do you see the cycle?

Let me rephrase it.

What you are thinking is directing you to the choices you make even if they are automatic reactions.

The choices you made build your life.

When you experience the life you created,

You build emotions around.

Therefore,

Your emotions influence your thoughts.

And the cycle continues.

You have good thoughts and you create a conscious good life.

When you have negative thoughts,

You create continuous negative one.

Plus,

Scientists estimate that we think 90% of the thoughts we did the day before and the day before that.

Wouldn't be a good idea to ensure that we have positive and happy thoughts.

Let's do a quick exercise.

On a scale from 1 to 10,

Rate how happy you are right now.

1 being miserable and 10 being the happiest.

How about yesterday?

On a scale from 1 to 10,

How happy were you yesterday?

If your answer to those two questions is not in the range of 7 to 10,

Okay,

I'll take a 6,

6 and a half,

Which means you are relatively happy,

Then you have been thinking thoughts that don't serve the level of happiness we need for a purposeful life.

I will talk more about purposeful living in my next talk about the 4 levels of happiness.

Until then,

Let's continue.

When I wrote about this in my book Self-Trust,

My editor questioned me about this strong statement.

She asked my readers advocate and asked why anyone,

Even people who suffer a significant loss,

Need to be happy.

And my answer is happiness is a choice.

There are no reasons why you should be on the lower level of the scale for long periods of time.

And if you are,

Then parts of you choose not to be happy because the thoughts you think.

When you look around,

You must be seeing life through a glass 3 quarters empty instead of 1 quarter full.

And you may not be aware.

Don't take me wrong,

No one is happy 100% of the time.

However,

The times we are not so content or somewhere on the left side of happiness is like an alarm reminding us that we are on the wrong side of life.

Think about it,

Is that happiness in your life?

I would love to tell you that we could just make a decision today not to have sad thoughts.

It would be like saying don't think about pink elephants.

Unfortunately,

The mind thinks in absolutes and the moment we say not to think about sad thoughts,

It does just that.

So let's reeducate our minds.

Many positive psychology research have shown that our minds is pretty bad forecasting how sad we'll be when facing an unfortunate event and how long that will last.

So we expect to be pretty bummed out for much longer than it actually feels and lasts.

I was stunned to learn of another study that suggests that both a lottery winner and a paraplegic had similar happiness level within a year of winning the lottery and becoming a paraplegic.

Let me just repeat that so you get it.

A lottery winner and a paraplegic had similar levels of happiness within a year of winning the lottery and becoming a paraplegic.

You may be wondering how can someone who lost the use of their legs be as happy as a lottery winner?

Just remember that our minds are the worst forecaster of emotions and they are wired to adapt much better than we anticipate.

So this is really good news.

Happiness is also a perspective,

A story we create in our minds over the years.

Do you see why we cannot believe all the thoughts we think?

I heard a professor say once that happily ever after,

It's only accurate if you have three minutes to live.

At first,

I thought it was funny because as a young girl,

I dream of being rescued by a Prince charm.

I love the fairy tales,

Right?

But then as I began to sift through my experience,

I found it very pessimistic and confusing for people who didn't see themselves as happy.

This statement is really not helping.

Some people plan to be happy only when they have money,

A partner,

A job,

A bigger house,

And those things people add to their list of goals.

Those who may have experienced significant loss may feel that they can be happy and are unable to find happiness again.

But all losses are only circumstances,

Not absolute.

If this is you,

I'm not telling you how to feel.

The way you feel is the way you feel.

This is only a reminder that there is light at the end of the tunnel and it's much closer than you think.

Begin by not believing all the thoughts you are thinking.

Your inner being is calling you to be happy every day.

The thoughts you have about events in your life drive your happiness meter and may hinder your ability to step into the path you know you need to take.

Happiness is not a destination,

It's the path.

If you think about that beautiful house you won or that promotion and the large bank account as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,

They will not bring you the happiness you expect.

Another research showed that people didn't increase that happiness just after achieving those goals.

They actually were looking for the next bump in salary and the next sizable house.

Even couples who believed that they would be happier after they got married,

Within two years their happiness meter was about the same it was some time before the wedding.

It feels like happiness is an impossible thing,

Some people may conclude,

But it's not.

Again,

We need to question the thoughts we think.

This research's results don't mean that you stop wanting the bigger house or better salary or marry the love of your life.

It only means that if you are looking for happiness in those things,

You are looking in the wrong place.

Therefore,

We must change the way we think about happiness.

There is an inner and outer perspective of happiness from which we sort our lives.

From the outer perspective,

We compare our lives with the movies,

Television,

Magazines,

Reality shows and social media.

They were meant to give us inspiration and entertainment.

We also compare other people's manifestations to ours,

And we feel that something is missing.

We forget that TV,

Magazines and our neighbors' wealth were only meant to be a vessel of inspiration,

Not a measuring stick.

Our inner perspective is happy all the time.

It knows our divinity,

Our power and our capacity.

It's not happily ever after,

It's forever happy from beginning to forever.

It knows that we are perfect and a moment away from feeling happy.

When you stop for a few minutes and focus on the emotions of your heart,

And you can do that if you like right now,

Just focus on your heart,

Close your eyes,

Hear your heartbeat and connect with that energy,

You will feel glimpses of happiness.

You will feel like a Mona Lisa smile coming.

Your heart has a mind too,

And it remembers what being happy feels like.

Try it.

Here are my 9 practical tools to rebuild your happiness if you struggle to find joy in your life.

You can begin now by being exactly where you are and using the resources you already have.

Each practice will lead you to experience more profound and meaningful levels of happiness.

Practice number 1.

Practice gratitude daily.

Begin your day by being grateful for the talents you were born with.

You know what they are.

If you don't,

Ask the people around you.

Gratitude realigns your perspective from the inside out.

Number 2.

Practice at least one act of quiet kindness a day.

Pay the toll for the car behind you.

Buy your co-workers coffee or donuts.

Send a thank you text to a friend for no reason.

Bite your tongue and let arguments go.

Show your kindness to others and don't tell anyone.

Number 3.

Make a conscious connection with people.

Say hello to the people behind you in the supermarket,

Even if they are wearing a mask.

Listen to others when you want to be alone.

Sit with your partner or children to watch that horrible movie so you guys can connect.

Put your cell phone away when engaging with people.

That occasional connection with the ones we love and the strangers builds our happiness meter because we are wired to connect regardless of you being an extrovert or introvert.

Number 4.

Show genuine enthusiasm when others share their successes.

Our minds may feel unlucky or less than and create a comparison.

Still,

We can quiet it down because we know our minds over and under estimates our level of happiness.

Number 5.

Savor the moments.

Take a second look at that magnolia tree.

Sip that excellent cup of coffee or cup of tea.

Hum to the tune of that song you love.

Appreciate the way your partner looks.

These little moments are meant to be savored as they rebuild our habits of feeling good more often and therefore happier.

Number 6.

Meditate when you first wake up in the morning.

Even though meditation can be done at any time of the day,

I found that early morning meditation can take me to higher states of bliss.

I discover myself wanting to savor and connect with deeper and longer with life.

Number 7.

Keep a positive mental attitude.

As your day unfolds,

Unexpected things happen from which we have no control.

Our choices become limited to how we respond or react.

When we choose to respond instead of reacting,

We learn not to overcharge our emotions and the emotions of the people around us.

We don't have to behave like a Pollyanna all the time,

But acting like a Hulk does nobody any good.

Number 8.

Cuddle.

Yes,

You heard me right.

Cuddled.

Find your way into your partner's arms.

It improves your sleep,

Increases oxytocin,

Eases the pain in your body,

Strengthens your immune system,

Reduces anxiety,

Strengthens relationships and enhances your feeling of well-being remind you that you are happy.

And number 9,

Last but not least.

Sleep.

Research suggests that people who are sleep-deprived are grouchier and likely to experience stress and depression.

Sleep-deprived people can see happiness even if happiness fell on their heads.

You know how you feel when you don't have much sleep,

Right?

Some people become the black holes of the universe.

If you believe you can function with 5 hours of sleep or less,

Stop believing this thought.

You cannot.

Stop punishing the people around you with your bad mood.

Instead,

Go to bed early and become a happier person.

So the bottom line is that we need to find happiness inside because we will not find it outside of ourselves.

It starts with our thoughts.

We can be happy if you want to.

Here is a thought to believe.

We can be happy if we want to.

I suggest that you pick one or two of these 9 suggestions and do this week.

Next week add another.

And in the third week add one more.

In 30 days you'll notice how happy you feel.

Your friends and families will be amazed by your transformation and all you need to say is,

I decided to be happy.

If they ask you how,

Send them to this talk and let them change their own minds.

And one more thing,

Repetition.

Repetition,

Repetition,

Repetition.

This is how we learn.

Come back often and listen to this talk until you have a consistent habit of at least 3 of those suggestions.

Happiness is just one thought away but we need to think of it often.

I really hope that you received the value from this lesson.

Have a happy journey.

This is Anna Bereta signing off.

Reviews

So practical and encouraging! Thank you. This was my second listening, and I’m glad that I came back 💕

Thank you for the encouragement. I’m listening again!

I listen to this very well and it help

Great! Thank you Ana. As you say, repetition, reinforcement 🙏😊🦋💕🙌

Thank you for that list, I wrote them down and will read it over and over again until it sticks ☺️

Thank you Ana, excellent reminders on ways to get out of our negative thought patterns. Explained clearly and in a way that’s easy to digest. 🥰