26 Empowering Thoughts About Personal Experience

Copyright 2011 Carol James, Founder of InspiredLiving.com

The concept of Transformative Thinking is intended to empower you to be all that you desire to be and to know how to live the life of your dreams.  Here are highlights of empowering ideas that are a natural outgrowth of the Personal Experience Model and that apply to the skill of Transformative Thinking:

1. Personal experience is relative to the perspective of the observer.
2. You are the sole creator of your personal experience.
3. Your point of focus and the thoughts you hold as true (your beliefs) determine your personal experience.
4. You are the only one responsible for your point of focus and your beliefs.
5. Your thoughts, point of focus and beliefs trigger your emotional response, which affects the level of your personal effectiveness.
6. You will fully experience what you consider to be “true” – i.e., your experience is determined by what you perceive to be true about your situation.
7. Your thoughts, beliefs and perspectives are the cause of how you feel, whether or not you realize that fact or believe it to be so.
8. One person’s good experience may be another person’s bad experience.
9. Your personal experience is transformable as long as you have the desire to change it and the belief that you can change it.
10. If you don’t like your life, change it.
11. Change your focus and you change your experience.
12. Change your perspective and you change your experience.
13. Change your state of mind and you change your experience.
14. Life can be fun and enjoyable if you believe it can be so.
15. The stresses of life can be easily understood and transformed into something more desirable.
16. Because your body responds to what you think, you can use how your body feels (emotions) as an indicator of how you are directing your thoughts.  If your body and emotions feel yucky, most likely it is because you have focused your thoughts on undesirable circumstances or future outcomes.  One way to feel better is to direct your thoughts purposefully toward those things that feel better because when you change the focus of your thoughts, your emotions will follow.
17. When the conclusions you form make you feel bad, remind yourself that you may not have all the facts, and hence you are only seeing a small sliver of the total picture.  Use your creative imagination to see if you can see the situation from a more empowering perspective.
18. You will find abundant evidence to support any perspective you hold.  So, if you don’t like the evidence you are currently finding in your life, why not choose a more empowering perspective and start looking for evidence to support it, so that you can find more productive, happy and healthy things to experience?
19. Before you jump to conclusions about someone or something, take the time to find out if you have perceived the situation accurately.  Remember that it’s always better to ask questions than to make assumptions.
20. Science is proving that feeling good and enjoying life promotes good health and well-being.  Find as many ways as you can to enjoy yourself as often as possible.
21. Whenever you notice yourself living from the outside in – seeing yourself as a helpless victim of circumstances that are beyond your control – acknowledge the possibility that you are the one who sets the tone for what you are experiencing.  Ask yourself how you have contributed to your own undesirable situation.  What thoughts, beliefs, perspectives, choices, decisions, words and actions led to your current situation?  As you find the answers to these questions, you will be well on your way to living life from the inside out, understanding that you have much more to do with how your life turns out than you previously realized.
22. Life is like a huge party where all sorts of people are invited and all kinds of conversations and activities are going on.  Some of it you like; some of it you don’t like.  If you want to fully enjoy the party of life, spend your time looking for those people, conversations and activities that you resonate with and ignore the rest, knowing that whatever you pay attention to will expand and become your experience.
23. When you are in a bad mood, it is easy to focus on all the things that are going wrong and tune out all the things that are going well.  That’s why it is so important to do whatever it takes to get yourself in a good mood again.  When you’re in a good mood, it is easy to focus on everything that is going well and to effectively handle whatever comes along.
24. When you find yourself focusing on something that you don’t want or doesn’t feel good, turn yourself around by asking yourself what you do want.  “If not this, then what?”  Then focus on that.  There’s a world of difference between focusing on the thought, “I don’t want to argue with my wife anymore,” and “I want to return my relationship back to a loving place.”  The former focuses on what you don’t want (the problem) and the latter focuses on what is wanted (the solution).
25. If you have an undesirable circumstance in your life that you are struggling to change, one of the first steps toward transforming it is to understand the beliefs and perspectives that are holding the undesirable circumstance in place.  To uncover those limiting beliefs, ask yourself about the “reasons” that you have for why things are the way they are.
26. When you find yourself feeling emotionally upset about anything, remind yourself that experiences, in and of themselves, are not negative or positive, good or bad, right or wrong.  You are the one who gives meaning to the events in your life based on your belief about the nature of the experience.  To change how you’re feeling, change the meaning you are making.

Return to Personal Growth Articles Table of Contents

FREE Monthly Newsletters

We publish four FREE monthly newsletters. To subscribe to any or all newsletters, click here: Subscribe to Newsletters

• 1) Inspired Lifestyles News for inspiring, motivating and empowering quotes, stories and articles.
• 2) Healthy Lifestyles News with articles, tidbits, resources and products to help you live a healthier, more vibrant life.
• 3) Inspired Biz News with articles, stories and resources to create a more spiritual, whole-living work environment.
• 4) InspiredLiving.com News & Sale Announcements to hear about sales events, new products and website upgrades.