Do you want to have more positive thinking but you can’t seem to make it work?
You won’t be on your own because most minds get stuck when moving from poor thoughts to better ones. The current neural pathways that fire constant lesser thoughts to the awareness have become fused in and well developed. Due to many years of repeated use, these lower thinking paths have formed powerfully and will need some budging.
This is why when you WANT to think more optimistically, it never lasts very long. Or never gets going in the first place.
Is there an easier way to get a better head space?
What can you do to experience positive thinking for longer?
The Bitesize Brain.
Your brain is a complex machine.
It has sheer mega computing power and stunning memory recall. It can multi-task and consider both deep questions and challenging problems. From crosswords to life’s conundrums, your brain is one super computer.
But, computers are reprogrammable.
They can be made to forget one set of informational instructions in favour of a newer set. That can be done by simply changing the software (the operating system that has instructions for use) and rebooting.
You can do the same. But, instead of one swift upgrade like in the computer world, you are going to do this in miniature in the mental world.
You are going to bitesize your brain with new input. Little bits of positive input.
You can’t just command the mind to completely change the way it has previously thought at the snap of your fingers. But you can, bit by bit, get it to accept alternative thinking in building brick doses.
Each new thought is going to act like a Lego brick. Piece by piece, adding to what’s come before it, a little masterpiece is going to be constructed. One day, not far from now, those tiny little bricks of thought will form a newly shaped mentality that you can play with to your heart’s desire.
Let’s build a new positively wired brain!
Micro Mental Magic.
Brain building can be done by anyone.
You DON’T need to be some naturally gifted genius or first class honours graduate. Everyone from the janitor to a princess, professor to a ballet teacher, can rebuild their mind. It’s THEIR mind, so they are the one who can change how it works.
And the same goes for you. You can rethink how you think. So, let’s get you doing that in micro thinking style to form a new positive neural pathway filled brain mind.
Positive thinking for hours and hours while negative thoughts go have a cup of coffee and let you get on with it, ain’t gonna happen. Don’t fight that fact. Use it to your advantage.
Instead of longer periods trying to retain a positive mindset, aim for micro moments. These are small chunks of positivity and optimism for, say, 15 minutes to begin with. As you find that less challenging in a week, up it to 20 mins, then 30. NEVER get over confident and go straight to an hour. Your mind has to form new neural pathways, they won’t develop in big leaps. They need short, consistent growth.
See it like snakes and ladders.
You don’t want fast progress only to slip right back down to the start.
Short IS sweet in mindset terms.
Little and Often.
Time to think like you are exercising.
To develop fitness, you start small, with limited periods of running, weights, cardio workouts etc. Then, as you improve, you step up the length of the exercise. This is to help build resilience in your body and to get it to gradually become stronger.
In other words, little bites repeated often.
Copy that. If you can muster it, set a reminder on your phone or watch to have 10 – 15 mins positive thinking every two or three hours. As you find it increasingly easier to maintain the better thinking (neural pathways are growing and more powerful) reduce to once per hour.
The obvious next progression follows – 20 – 30 mins at a time per hour. And so on. That’s how a super mindset is formed. A few minutes gradually per hour gradually expanding to a few hours at a time.
If you keep it up employing a sensible increase in the time you have positive thoughts, and not overconfident jumps straight into trying to have a whole day, the new neural networks in your mind will lock in and grow.
Like building a sturdy wall, micro thinking will build a whole chain of positive neuroplasticity links in your mind. Superhighways of more super stuff thinking wise.
In terms of great thinking that sticks and lasts, micro is the way to go!
A basic and simple question to most people, one a five year old would be able to answer.
‘With your eyes’, they would reply.
But, it’s not through the lens of your eyes that you have tended see the world and life, but through the perceptions of your mind.
Or, more precisely…..Mindsight!
The super recorder mind.
Your mind is amazing.
Not only can it generate 46.8 thoughts per second (amounting to 70,000 thoughts per day), it can also store some 2.5 million gigabytes of memory. It is the mega computer of mega computers housed in your head. And…it’s always working. Working, evaluating, responding…..and keeping!
You see, it doesn’t just hold data and process images and compute everything from your cost of that snap vacation to Bora Bora to when you last visited Aunt Maud. It records it all.
Your mind is effectively a super tape recorder.
Not only does it hold learned info, it turns that into instructions. Life advice from parents, guidance insight from teachers/authority figures, influences from friends and colleagues, and, yes, even the news and the media. This becomes your ‘guide’ for living; your blueprint of how life and the world is made up and your place in it.
Furthermore is the unknown factor few realise. That mental tape recorder picks up the lot. All your throw away trash thoughts or your ongoing daily self-talk chatter gets picked up and kept in the same internal file named, ‘This is Life and Me’.
Your mind keeps everything. It’s a hoarder!
A world of perception.
What you see, is not what you see.
It’s what you are told to see by your mind from your life storage file. Like a type of artificial reality game playing out for real. Mindsight at work.
When any given situation occurs (directly or indirectly involving you), your mind has already noticed and begins feeding you a stream of beliefs (both personal and impersonal) it has held catalogued in its storage banks. This happens in the blink of an eye. So, before you’ve had time to make up your conscious mind about it, the subconscious has already jumped in and interrupted with a meaning.
This all takes place so fast you believe that these are your actual thoughts and views as you look at something or someone. Here’s an example –
You see a pretty blonde girl/handsome blonde guy you’ve not met before at a bar. You are attracted by the way they look and dress and how their personality comes across. Before you can do a thing about it, in comes the feedback from the ‘This is Life and Me’ file which instantly pulls up….
‘That’s a blonde, the last blonde you dated was a nightmare, stay way from blondes. They say blondes are more fun, but they aren’t very faithful, everyone knows, so steer well clear’.
Your potential dream partner is left standing at the bar and your happy love life with it.
Your mindsight saw her/him and fed you old junk you accepted.
What can you do? How can you override that non-fun file in your mind?
Mindsight isn’t right sight.
Let’s get back to those eyes.Remember what your eyes see.
Sounds a silly piece of advice, but where mental filters are spoiling the view, it’s wisdom you need to recall as often as possible. Your eyes are going to be a major ally in defeating Mindsight.
It will be like removing a mask that’s long prevented you from seeing life correctly. But, you are going to have be switched on eyes wise. Whatever you first see (gorgeous girl/guy, new industry job opportunities, business idea financial support etc), you MUST remind yourself that it IS what you see, NOT what your mind is telling you that you are looking at.
View it as every time you look at something/someone the Mindsight acts similar to a nagging parent when you were a teen or that work colleague that has to give their opinion on anything. Chatter you don’t need. Hear that voice but listen to yourself if what you see appeals to you.
That blonde looks a lovely person so you are going to go on over and find out. That new industry you heard about sounds interesting so you’re going to read up on it more. The unusual business idea you have, well, you’re going to develop it into a business plan and see who is interested.
That’s the skill to develop. To keep in mind Mindsight and how it filters the world.
From now on keep Mindsight at the back of your mind and your eyesight at the front.
Mindsight isn’t right sight for insight!
References – American Journal of Medicine – Amjmed.com – A Selection of Fascinating Facts About the Brain and Heart.
Clinical Neurology Specialists – cnsnevada.com – What is the Memory Capacity of a Human Brain?
A mega life achievement you wish to come true. Or simply to solve a long standing problem.
Typically, you have in your mind a final outcome – fame, money, awards, freedom to live your life, less struggle and more success, issue sorted forever, you happy.
Your endgame is lodged in your mind and so you set about considering how to make that happen. To do that the normal approach is to think about what you want to accomplish, how you go about getting there, what’s in the way, who could help, what resources you will need, and a proposed timeframe it will take.
Regular or normal logical thinking we can call it.
But, there’s a new radical kid on the mental block that’s busting up this thinking. And it’s not only a surprise approach, it’s completely counterintuitive to how thinking has previously been done.
Welcome to Reverse Thinking.
How to NOT get what you think you want.
Take a look at that header line above again.
Re-read it and take it in. It’s not as confusing as your head first thinks. That’s because yours is currently a mind that is set in rational thinking mode. One that’s been set to operate in only that process. This phrase is anti in nature to its thought recognition and calculation. You feel befuddled.
This, though, is where we start moving into the reverse mindset world.
Default thinking is often at fault. It regurgitates the same old advice that has been around for some time. Tried and tested, you may shout. But, firstly it may not have been updated for the modern world (you wouldn’t advise a Victorian the same as a Gen Z would you!!). Secondly, established thinking doesn’t fit everyone. Some people require more creative approaches or are seeking success in an unusual field or packed market place and need to stand out as different. Or they face a unique complication with various factors causing headaches.
At this point I take it you are reading this blog post because you yearn for success. Or, more likely, you have been trying to break through in some way and it’s just isn’t coming together. Either way, you have an interest or skill or product you want to make more popular (and yourself with it).
And I bet you have looked at, or even been through, the usual routes to promoting it/you. With nada results.
Excellent.
Because now we are going to flip the thinking on its head.
Flip Reverse Thinking.
Let’s go rogue in the mind!
We are going over to the other side.
Marketing traditionally is based around promotion, advertising, profile building and customer acquisition through pushing out your message. The accepted manner by which you sell a product or individual. But, in 2009 Scott and Alison Stratten took on this concept when they wrote a book called, ‘Unmarketing’. Their chief premise was to focus instead on building relationships with customers and people through engaging, listening, and communicating with them rather than chasing sales and profit growth. Giving big value gets their big value multiplied back.
It was a raging success. It broke the mould on the way many approached business thinking.
This flipped mentality is how you can win at life too.
Take your common thinking over a matter and ‘go opposite’. Come at it from the other side. Or it often only takes a changed word or two to succeed at this. Don’t overthink. Simply think tails instead of heads. Learn to think the other way round.
Like this….
Don’t imagine a dream life to inspire you, dream what it would be like in ten years if you did nothing and everything stayed the same as now.
Don’t study how to find love, be more loving ‘as if’ you already had a life long partner.
Or don’t try to be rich and make money for yourself, look to create money for the good of everyone by what you set up or do.
Reverse thinking covers virtually every subject you can think of.
Think again in reverse.
Now it’s your turn.
Take any situation you want to improve or are stuck fast on and apply the flip factor. Reverse think.
How do you stop drinking too much alcohol becomes how to start enjoying different drinks without alcohol (by tasting drinks from around the world).
Desperate to lose weight is reversed to be enjoying fresher natural food (by trying good food of 5 different colours each day).
You can almost make a game of it (TikTok channel anyone????).
It really is endless. I spent years attempting and failing to write a book until last year when I stopped trying to write long meaningful passages and simply wrote ONE PAGE a day and no more. I thought it would kill my creativity. The total opposite actually happened. Every day my mind was ready to go again and full of ideas. The book was written and with it a fully edited second draft in 11 months!
**(I later found out that Ernest Hemingwaywrote in a very similar style)**
It was like a firework of possibility going off in my mind. BANG!
So, go activate your own BANG. Reverse your thinking and with it reverse your fate that appears stuck and your prospects slipping away. If you change your mind in the reverse progress will start coming back to you in a myriad of mega ways.
Reverse thinking gets you going magically forward in life again!
References – UnMarketing.com
Turnerstories.com – Ernest Hemingway’s Tips on Writing.
As 2025 comes to a close and 2026 is on the horizon, thoughts turn to the future. To OUR own future and how it could be happier, more content, become more meaningful, and one we will love to get up each morning to enjoy.
For the majority this takes the form of New Year Resolutions.
The self promise of what you are going to commit to personally changing so that life can change too. You know the sort!
Go to the gym three times a week. Eat healthier. Update the CV and search for a higher paid job. Get out and socialise with the right people. Date more of the right people. And so on. The usual fayre that never lasts past the end of January.
But, did you know there is ONE change that you can make that will not only last all year round but for the rest of your life?
Yes, ONE change that will make life better for ever?
Well you are about to find out and it’s one you can start making TODAY!
New You = New View.
Have you a New Year goal in mind?
One, perhaps, you’ve been promising yourself you would tackle for some time?
The scenarios I gave above fall under that category.
The vast majority (around 90%) tend to choose to sort something – lose weight, take more exercise and the like. Or they are wanting to end something – smoking, or drinking too much and similar.
But, in aiming to do so they are only altering the end result and not the root cause. The habit of eating 3000 calories a day, using the car rather than ever walking, or lighting up a packet of cigarettes a day is the end behaviour. The guaranteed outcome of a certain cause which is rooted elsewhere.
In the mind.
The craving for cake or carbs or cigars is a stimulus from the mindset. One that makes the large slice of cheesecake or Cuban special the desire to match an inner mental need or insecurity that gets met through the habit. A resultant want fed by a wrong wish.
And if you want a new you in the new year, it’s your mind where you need to look fora new view of things.
Mind reset.
2026 has to be your year of a new mindset.
Or in reality terms, a mind reset.
The mindset controls and governs everything else about you. It has longed dictated your actions and behaviours. The level of your self worth and what you deserve lies in its hands. Who you have been, the people you have allowed into your life, the job roles you have accepted, and the environments you have lived and socialised in, ALL flow from the state of your mind.
While today you will swear blind life has just been unlucky and those you got to know let you down or hurt you, in truth trace that all back and your mind set all that ball rolling long before.
What it believed you lived = Mindset 101.
And right there is where a very different life must commence. Right in your mind and its beliefs on life, the world, and you.
Take a look at your current habits and see your mindset echoing back. Bad partners = don’t deserve someone special. Awful diet = comfort food to satisfy your low self image. Smoking and drinking too much = to dull the pain of how bad life is or has become = trying to remove or smother the mentality that happiness isn’t meant for you.
Your life is the mirror of your mindset.
Relook in the mirror.
Take a look again at what you believe.
Relook in the mirror within you.
Take your main 3 or 4 areas in life that have never amounted to much. The ones that have left you in a lower paid job, no or unsupportive relationship, financially pressured, in average health, or poor shape physically. Or whatever ails you.
Now the key mindset part.
PERSONALISE them.
You have to face down your own mental beliefs that are putting you there.
This will revolve around views such as, ‘I’m not worth much’, ‘No-one good looking will fancy me’, and ‘I have no skills to get a better job’.
THESE are your mindset mirrors. You have to look at them squarely in the eye. You MUST NOT be uncomfortable at what they show you and walk away. It’s only a belief rather than a truth. See them for that and nothing else.
As the New Year comes spend every day telling yourself the opposite. EVERY DAY. First thing at night, during the day, and before bed. Write your new higher beliefs down and repeat them so your mindset changes into a stronger mode.
Reset and rewire your brain.
Your Life is a Statement.
It’s said your life is a statement.
If someone saw your circumstances or story it would make a statement to them about who you are. You might want that to be, ‘this person is a talented at understanding people’, or ‘he/she is a fit and healthy looking man/woman’, or whatever you want it to say where it matters to you.
Your life probably doesn’t make the best statements somewhere currently. That’s OK. By following the mirror mindset exercise above, once you’ve gotten over the embarrassing feelings of seeing how badly you believe about yourself, you can begin re-writing them. Re-write and then repeat, repeat, repeat. This will ensure you override the previous beliefs like a new software programme taking over a computer’s operations.
Make sure you write down and speak the best statements about yourself. If you struggle with that let me show you the idea to help you progress –
‘I have many skills that make me great with knowing people’,
‘Everyone has people who are attracted to them and so do I’,
‘I have lots of value as a person and am worthy of all good things that come to me’.
A slight twist and switch of beliefs into self statements that you can readily state and begin to feel AND ACCEPT as the days go by. This is your one goal to make 2026 your best year for a long time….or ever!
Change your mind about who you are and you will change your life. A new statement to the world that this is YOUR life and you are leading it as yourself.
2026 is the year everything changes because you changed your mind. Changed it by you and about YOU!
We can believe almost anything could or will happen to us. Plus, we can imagine that we are better or worse off than we actually are adding all manner of people for or against us and what they ‘are doing’, ‘or thinking’ and ‘up to’ into our mental mix. Meaning we get all mixed up as a result.
Now you would think that we could just flip to using it as much to dream a little as concern a lot. You know, seeing everything working the odd time, and some days viewing less problems and more happier happenings ahead. Well, that makes sense, but us humans don’t act that way.
We tend to focus on one side over the other. Generally we envision either great or not so great as our chief imagining activity. Rarely do many people hip hop between them.
We are either an optimistic sort, or a true pessimistic thinker.
And guess which one most of us fall under?
Worth our weight in worry.
There’s a famous phrase we say when we see people who clearly have heavy stuff going round their head.
‘They have a weight on their mind’.
This means their circumstances are pulling them down mentally. Their mood has become low, their mindset is troubled, and their imagination can’t see many positives. They are in a mental slump.
Instead of being someone worth their weight in gold, they are a person with worry taking the shine off everything. In fact, it’s a common daily experience for large chunks of the world. Minds turned to worry rather than any other point of view or projected outcome.
In the UK 1 in 9 adults worry or stress over their lives every day. For the USA at least a whopping 47% experience ongoing worry on a permanent basis. It gets an even scarier statistic when you look at worldwide figures. The World Health Organisation reported four years ago that globally 359 million people experienced worry based anxiety symptoms each day. At that time that is a huge 4.4% of the world’s population.
And those are just the reported figures. Numbers wise the hole goes far deeper.
Our minds are set to worry.
The true cost of worry.
These statistics are costly.
Well, financially costly if you watch or listen to the media which is preoccupied with money and figures all the time. Less so about human lives where the true cost of this mental malaise hits hard and home. Making it difficult at home and life for everyday good people trying to do their best to live and raise families.
Worry affects a person individually but also, just like a virus, spreads to touch those around them. The very air becomes nervous and full of angst. People in regular contact with this worrier start to develop an anxious edge themselves. A kind of mental telepathy has taken place and infecting others. From families to work colleagues, sports team mates to business contacts, worry is working it’s way through people…all from one person.
The person who is the source of the worry doesn’t get off scot free. They internalise the negative sensation feeling. Their body becomes the victim. Stress, headaches, poor sleep, bad concentration, erratic decision making, skin complaints, heart issues and various other medical conditions stem from worry.
Which brings me to my main point.
Why worry when you can wonder?
Worry has a more magnificent counterpart.
Wonder.
Wonder is to see the incredible. It’s like witnessing magic come true. The real ‘Wow Factor’ but in the mind. Imagination that feels good. A full colour vision in front of your eyes (but mentally). It is the mind at its most alive and aware of everything that can be.
As I said it’s the opposite to worry which does the very same in reverse. That is the mind at its most fearful and despondent seeing only all tragedies and failures that could befall a person. Wonder invites sunshine and smiles and yellow brick roads.
There are two choices of the mind – to worry (and effectively begin dying inside) or wonder (and actually commence thriving everywhere). Wonder takes nothing to start, it costs nothing, it requires no-one else to be involved, and it’s permanently available.
Plus it has HUGE benefits. Take the list above of health problems caused by worry and flip them. That’s wonder at work. Feel good, look good, think good. Hey, it’s all good.
Wonder works…er, wonderfully (sorry, not sorry!).
What to Wonder?
Wonder is a word we tend to use in only one manner.
When we’re confused a little. We wonder what just happened or why someone said what they said. But true wonder is to open our eyes, and most tellingly, our minds to all that’s good, great, and awesome about life and being alive.
We worry about what the day will bring when we can wonder (imagine and see) on positive surprises happening to us.
We worry about the work we have to do while instead we could wonder about the work or life or role we would adore.
And we worry about our family or relationship all the time but we could wonder about the love, and pleasure, and happiness they bring and plan in our head how to make the most of it more.
Wonder is always offered in the sense that the mind only needs to be directed to see, feel, and move towards it. From the wonders of the natural world to the amazing changing seasons, to the wonder that in this modern world all the tools are easily at hand to change our own lives completely. We can study, practice, learn, connect, get advice, get information, and get started in some new way in super quick time.
We don’t have to worry when we can wonder at all that can be achieved if we put our minds to it.
Excite your life.
It’s time to replace anxiety with excitement.
Cut the Netflix, TV sports, and scrolling on the phone and watch tutorials on YouTube, join a sports club to connect to others, or research a keen interest or develop a personal skill. Don’t kill your mind, galvanise it! Give it something to get it’s visionary teeth into.
Wonder is everywhere. It only requires us to switch it on. If we do we can replace worry with something that our minds can actually get fired up about. They will be animated, enthusiastic, in full 3D thinking, and pop us full of endorphin filled excitement.
You gotta wonder what that would be like??
Make your worry days over and let your wonder years begin.
References –
Ciphr.com – One in nine UK adults feel stressed every day survey.
There is a phrase that says, ‘Never say anything in jest’.
The view is that whatever you say, your mind is listening. And like a young child, will believe it to be true.
But, forget the words you say for a minute. What about the thoughts and beliefs you have? Do they have the same effect?
Can what you believe trick the mind?
The short and almost scary answer to that is…..100% YES!
In fact, often not only do we make our mind believe something, we actually predict the future with it.
Horror Scopes.
They say it’s all written in our stars.
That our horoscopes point the way to what our future will be like. Well, whether you are an Aries or a Virgo, or even a non-believer, it’s your mind that is the real prophet predicting how life will turn out.
We have many a conversation where we utter ‘throw away’ comments. We’ve all done it. Something along the lines of…
‘Oh, I’ll never have any money’, or
‘I’m always unlucky, things always go wrong for me’, and,
‘I’m so plain, I never seem to attract a partner’.
Recognise any of these? Or similar, like your own versions?
On the surface we consider them blaise statements. Not so. We are merely voicing our true beliefs that we will never have good finances, good luck, and a good looking husband or wife. Not because of some personal limitation, but due to our sheer belief that this will be how things turn out. We are writing the book of our life with our mind. And making it far from a heroic tale.
Forget your horoscopes, the scope of our life becomes a horror show because we directed our mind to make it that way.
We are less psychic and more prophetic in our head.
Predicted and Expected.
Take any one of those belief comments above.
You told it to a friend in the pub or a work colleague on a coffee break. And there you are magically 5 years later and it’s turned out precisely as you predicted…..and expected mentally.
Your inner view influenced your behaviour making you obey in how you acted.
You never had money because you kept playing small in a low paid job – ‘Well, why change when you won’t get far financially anyway?’
You never got the breaks in life so nothing much good happened – ‘Never believed in good luck for me so only focused on the usual rubbish I get’.
Still single on your own year after year – ‘Girls/guys just don’t see anything in me, so I left them alone and stopped bothering them’.
It’s typical self-fulfilling prophecy in living action. Driven and ruled by lesser beliefs, you acted them out for real and got, well, what you thought you would. Along the way there were umpteen opportunities for more wealth, chances to better yourself, and various potential partners who came your way. But, you passed them by because your personal prophecy told you to do so.
You could never got passed what you predicted and then expected. In short, you got what you convinced yourself you would get before you even started. Like a runner who never believed he could win a medal or a singer to write a popular song, you were beaten in your mind without ever having to do anything or go anywhere.
And that means one MASSIVE ground shaking truth for all of us.
Life is Self-fulfilling.
Life isn’t directed by the Gods. It’s designed by the mind.
What we allow ourselves to believe we allow ourselves to experience. Life 101.
The mind sets reality. If it believes life is great and full of opportunity we will bounce out of bed looking for it. On the other hand, if it believes it’s a dangerous and selfish world, we will stay closer to home and not look to connect much beyond those four walls.
And so it is that life becomes the self-fulfilling prophecy. What your mind thinks about yourself and what that will result in, is how you will live. So what has tended to appear in your world is invariably because your mind has placed you in such situations that it’s likely to occur. Scenarios that perfectly reflect your mentality. You got what you got because you thought that’s what you would get.
Whether it is the love of your life or loneliness through life.
Bundles of luck out of the blue all the time, or no luck at all time after time.
Financially comfortable or financially strapped.
Yes, life indeed is a mirror….a mirror of the mind.
Life is the story we tell ourselves.
We are the main character but the mind is the author who writes the story. So let me finish by asking you this to establish your prophecy. If your life was a story, book, or film, would it be a comedy, a tragedy, a get rich from nothing success, a romance or a broken dreams weepie?
You need to know because you want that pen back to start rewriting your future and forget your history.
And you can because you are a visionary, seer, and forecaster all in one. In one place that is.
Yes, the greatest prophet ever known to humanity, is our own minds.
