The world is full of people who struggle to think positively about themselves. In fact, Dr. Joe Rubino says about 85% of people around the world struggle with self-esteem. However, that is only a small part of all the other thoughts that go on in our heads that we battle with daily.
Likewise, research shows that the best way to control our thoughts is through thought-substitution. In other words, flat-out avoiding a thought has nearly zero effect because we are still thinking about the thought by trying to not think about it (make sense?). So, replacing a thought is the best way to go.
If there is anything the research shows, though, is that thoughts, whether conscious or subconscious, cannot be avoided and undoubtedly control how we perceive experiences, make decisions, and respond to situations. This means controlling our thoughts is a must, and I must emphasize that doing so violently and aggressively is a necessity. Let me explain.
To begin, it almost goes without saying that no control over your thoughts leads to emotional incontinence. You read that right: uncontrolled emotions, spewing all over the place. Nobody likes incontinence. If you don’t believe me, ask somebody you know that works in the medical field.
It is with this reason that we must take every thought captive, it must become your prisoner, not the other way around. You must control your thoughts and learn to focus on the right things. Because if you don’t, you’ll become a victim of your thoughts which will lead to one bad decision after another.
Next, let’s look at how we make our goals. Do you make your goals so that they are a monument in your life or a footprint? Let’s look at what William Faulkner says about the difference between the two so we can make a distinction: “A monument only says, ‘At least I got this far,’ while a footprint says, ‘This is where I was when I moved again.’”
So I ask again, do you make goals so they can just be a monument that says ‘Been there, done that”, and that’s all that comes out of it? Or do you make goals that become footprints that show where you once were before you decided to move forward? This leads me to my next point.
To continue, at some point in the road, we make a decision where the road forks; we have to make a choice to go one way or the other. This fork happens where we realize we are tired of the way things are. What illuminates this fork is the realization of how things are in our lives, and deciding to make a turning point marking the transition from the wide and easy road to the straight and narrow. Are you just making a monument at that fork in your life or a footprint?
Let’s make the decision today to create footprints at these forks in our lives rather than monuments. A footprint that establishes and solidifies a decision to change the way things are in our lives. There’s a reason why Paul the Apostle in the Bible tells us that we must take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ; making warfare in our minds to aggressively control our thought-life is a must to maintain a healthy mentality and make good decisions so that we can become everything we were created to be.
To conclude, I mentioned above that we must focus on the right things. The Bible gives us a clear statement as to what those things are — things that are true, noble, pure and admirable. Even if you’re not a Christian, you cannot deny that these things are the right things to focus on. Focusing on these things will help us to create footprints instead of monuments by helping us take control of our thoughts and make the best decisions we can so that we can reach our fullest potential.