Thoughts and Their Impacts

The eminent scholar and philosopher, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, once proclaimed, “A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.” Before modern psychology could demonstrate the power our thoughts have over us, Nietzsche understood the critical role our thoughts play in how we progress throughout our lives. We can either allow the situations that take place during the course of our days to dictate how we feel about our days, and in turn ourselves, or we can build mastery of noticing the thoughts that coincide with the situations, in order to better dictate our emotions and control our behaviors.

When speaking of behaviors, we can consider a behavior to be any physical action, conscious thought, or sustained emotion. Emotions happen in a matter of seconds, and an emotion experienced for a prolonged period of time becomes a mood. In order to gain better control of all of these experiences, it’s important to understand the sequence in which they commence. We can begin decoding the way we think, feel, and act by looking at our thought processes and decisions through the ABC Model. This stands for:

Antecedent- An example would be getting criticized by a superior at work. It could be something as simple as, “You need to get in your reports in a more timely and organized fashion.”

Behavior- You receive the criticism (antecedent), and in turn, begin to think, “I’m going to fired.” You think you’re going to get fired, and maybe you start to sweat, or you notice your heart rate increase. Maybe you start sharing your worries with coworkers. You start to feel even more anxious, and begin thinking even deeper into worst-case scenarios resulting from the impending loss of work which hasn’t even happened yet, if it will happen at all.

Consequence- This will either make the thoughts and feelings (behavior) stronger, or it will serve as an opportunity to reevaluate what is closest to reality. Should we continue to ruminate about the worst-case scenario stemming from the antecedent, our work may continue to suffer, and result in actually losing the job. Or, we can take the criticism, and use it to perform better the next time around. 

This type of example may be an oversimplification, but it highlights that while situations certainly can kick off the chain of events that contribute to our distress, the way we perceive such events ultimately plays the biggest factor in how we respond to them. Should we have noticed that our thoughts brought us to a conclusion that may not have been realistic, we could have better managed our physiological responses, our communication with our coworkers, and most importantly, our communication with ourselves. 

The only way to get better at exercising agency over our behaviors is to practice exercising control of the thoughts that first arise after a situation has taken place. We can practice at any time, as we exhibit behaviors every waking moment of the day. If you aren’t doing anything, you can practice taking note of the thoughts that arise while not doing anything. If you are preparing to do something, take note of what you are anticipating, and whether or not that will make preparation easier or more difficult. Change hardly happens overnight, but we cannot change what we cannot realize is in need of changing.

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