Did you know that according to research you have a thought every 2 or 3 minutes? That equates to 12 to 15,000 a day? No wonder some of us have a headache at the end of a busy day.

But does all this thinking do any good or is it the cause of our stress and burnout? Because we get so used our mental banter we believe everything we say to ourselves as the truth. This can be to our detriment if it’s all negative and most often it is.

Slough of Despair
Negative thinking is easily triggered by such random acts as an exchange with your boss; by something you read in an e-mail or overhead. Typically our negative thoughts will be measuring ourselves against workmates or friends; criticising our own decisions and judgement or cursing others for their shortcomings. I confess to some of these thinking traits. But the important thing is the action you take once you’re aware of this critical thinking style. Left unchecked it will close you into a loop of self doubt and low esteem and then work performance suffers. Attaining and maintaining a positive mental attitude is the key to success.

Just Do It
Athletes are taught to delete their thoughts whilst in performance as this creates an unnecessary extra step to complete which could give their competitor the winning edge. You’ve heard of the famous slogan – just do it. It’s a case of once you’ve begun to think about your move you’ve switched on the internal judgement machinery.

Office and work life can be stressful enough without our own thoughts making it worse. How often have you been in a meeting with your boss and only picked up the negative comments? It is often cited that lack of support or encouragement from above is the cause of unhappiness at work. But it could be more to do with our own style of thinking and tendency to pick up the negative and exclude most everything else.

Develop a Positive Mental Attitude
Seriously though when you consider how much is going on inside our heads then it becomes doubly important that our thinking leads us to the right decisions and in the right direction.
So you shouldn’t leave it to chance what pops up in your mind.

So do yourself a favour and avoid the route to burn out and stress. Keep a useful check on your thinking by tuning in every now and then during the day. If it’s all critical thinking then delete or challenge them and start again. Keep in mind what you want to achieve for the day or week or month. Let that be your guidance as to how on track you are and what you need to do next. Developing this thinking skill will increase your creativity and help your conversations as you will be mentally gauging how the discussions are helping you or not.

What do you think?

Worried if you’re over stressed and heading for burnout? Then download my free report (see top left of page) to check out your symptoms and what action to take.
Or if your feeling blue and burnt out then my book Beat The Burn Out Blues will help you. It’s packed with techniques and strategies you can use immediately to heal you and build up your mental strength.

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