Welcome to the Daily Quote, the podcast designed to kickstart your day in a positive way. I'm your host, Andrew McGivern, and this episode is brought to you by the Great News podcast. Because great news should be heard, and the link is right here in the show notes.
Support the show Buy me a coffee
Today’s quote is from Dan Millman.
Dan Millman (born 1946) is an American author, former world-champion gymnast, martial arts instructor, and personal development teacher. He's best known for his bestselling book Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which blends autobiography, philosophy, and lessons about mindfulness, personal growth, and living in the present moment.
Dan Millman once said…
“You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.”
I like this quote because have you ever tried to control your thoughts? It is hard if not impossible. Whatever you do right now… DO NOT think of the colour RED.
Now, I bet that you did think of the colour red, despite being advised not too.
You can’t control your thoughts like that. Its impossible.
Sometimes you’ll have negative self talk enter your mind. Sometimes you’ll think about something that could go wrong in the future.
You may not control the thoughts that enter your mind, but you can choose whether to entertain them, believe them, or act on them.
Thoughts come and go, whether we consciously invited them or not. Worries, doubts, fears, frustrations, assumptions and catastrophizing can appear automatically. Trying to suppress all these thoughts would be exhausting and unrealistic.
Thoughts are things and they can carry weight. But just because you think something doesn’t make it true. Learning to recognize that thoughts are not true can be liberating.
Because you can decide which thoughts deserve your attention. You can become trapped in cycles of overthinking, replaying conversations, imagining worst case scenarios, or worrying about things beyond your control.
If that happens to you then the best thing to do is simply to acknowledge the thought and let it pass.
The key point here is that we are not our thoughts. We can observe our thoughts without identifying with them or allowing them to define us.
You don’t always choose the thoughts that enter your mind but you can influence which thoughts you entertain and decide to keep for a while to put more focus on.
You can decide how to interpret these thoughts and what actions you take.
So here’s the question:
Have you ever found yourself in bed with your mind racing with thoughts? And maybe you couldn’t fall asleep because the thoughts were controlling you?
Maybe you remember something embarrassing you said or did, or your worried about an upcoming event, or your imagining a problem that might never happen.
These thoughts are not the problem. The problem is how much attention and credibility you give to them.
Your mind is going to produce all kinds of thoughts. Some will be helpful and others not so much. You don’t have to fight every thought or believe everything you think.
Sometimes the greatest freedom you can have is to recognize that a thought is just a thought and you get to choose what happens next.
You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.
That’s going to do it for today. I’m Andrew McGivern signing off for now, but I’ll be back… tomorrow! Same pod time, same pod station with another Daily Quote.
