Power of a Thought

The Power of a Thought in Your Life

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Do you know that you are one thought away from the greatest experience you’ve ever had in your life. You’re one idea away from creating the life you desire. According to researchers at Michigan State University, on average 80,000 thoughts travel through your mind per day. How do you harness the power of a thought?

“Never underestimate the power of thought; it is the greatest path to discovery.” 
― Idowu Koyenikan,

What is a thought?

Thoughts are intellectual powers that occupy mental real estate. In addition your thoughts are like a seed. They can either germinate, die or do nothing. Whenever a seed is planted in a good soil and nurtured it can germinate.

Conversely, if a seed is put in a cement and sealed with a tile, it can stay there for hundreds of years and never germinate. Likewise, your thought.

  • Healthy thought: If your thought is healthy, it means that your thought produces better outcomes for your life.
  • Unhealthy thought:  Unhealthy thoughts are toxic thoughts. They are negative thoughts that yield nothing good for you.

“Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit.”  – James Allen

Your thoughts can appear to be completely random but they are not. So where do thoughts really come from?

Stages of thought formation:

How are thoughts formed? This is a very perplexing question that neuroscientists, psychiatrists and psychologists have struggled to answer. Scientists still have a long way to go before they can clearly understand the exact way thoughts are formed in our brain.

A thought is formed through this process:

sensation → perception → conception

Friedrich Max Müller, in his book The Science of Thought stated: “sensations once planted on the soil of our mind, grow into precepts and concepts.”

Sensation is performed through the instruments known as your senses – touch, sight, smell, hearing, hearing and so on.

Perceptions: are directly triggered by external stimuli (your senses).

Conception: conception is the fusion of sensation and perception to produce concepts. Commonly known as ideas, notions, impressions and THOUGHTS.

For instance, you get dressed in the morning to leave for work. You open up the door and feel the wind blow hard on you. Perceiving the coldness of the wind. You say to yourself, “I need to grab a jacket.” Now breaking it all down: feeling the wind is sensation. Telling if the wind is hot or cold is perception. And thinking to grab a jacket is the conception we typically know as a thought.

It is also important to note that psychologically, one thought can lead to another thought. Meaning that something you thought of some time last week can ripple into you thinking new thoughts next week.

How can a thought be measured?

First and foremost, a thought can be classified as a brain activity. According to MIT researchers, thoughts are measured using tools like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that detect brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow and blood oxygen levels.

More so, Alan Jasanoff, a professor of biological engineering and an associate member of the McGovern Institute at MIT,   developed a new kind of MRI sensor that could reveal brain activity more directly.

The sensor is capable of measuring concentrations of dopamine in the brain. Basically, dopamine is a neurotransmitter – a brain chemical that carries messages between neurons and is involved in learning, movement, and other activities.

As if measuring thoughts is not enough, innovative technologies like

Neuralink are being developed to read human thoughts. This could be very scary, harmful or beneficial to us at the same time depending on the application. (You can read more on that here.)

The Power of a Thought

What You Should Know About the Power of a Thought:

Your thoughts affect your attitude
Your thought is the source of creativity
Your thought affects your relationship
Your thought shapes your vision
Your thought determines your choice of words
Your thought affects your health
Your thought affects your wealth
Your thought creates what you fear

  • Your thoughts affect your attitude

The power of a thought shows up in the emotions you feel. In turn, your emotions affect your attitude. Whenever your thoughts are positive, you act nice, friendly and optimistic towards life. Conversely, when your thoughts are negative you act angry, disappointed and depressed.

Generally, your thought drives your outlook things and how your respond to situations in your life.

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” – Eckhart Tolle

Related: 11 Effective Tips to Overcome Negative Feelings

  • Your thought is the source of creativity

Every creative work is the manifestation of the power of a thought. With your thought you can create finished products. Your thought you can turn raw materials into finished products.

Most importantly, everything that is tangible comes from the intangible.

“Creation is always happening. Therefore, every time an individual has a thought, or a prolonged chronic way of thinking, they are in the creation process because something is going to manifest from their thoughts.” – Rhonda Byrne, The Secret.

Related: 3 Surprising Things that Destroy Your Creativity

  • Your thought affects your relationship

How you treat others emanates from your thoughts. The nature of your thoughts can have a positive or adverse effect on how you communicate with others.

Even more, your thoughts can ruin your trust – which is key to a successful relationship. Particularly, in an intimate relationship like marriage, a thought can make or break the relationship.

For example, your spouse may be working on a project with a good looking colleague at work. Which is perfectly fine. But upon seeing this colleague, you begin to picture your spouse with this person.

Now your mind starts connecting dots that never existed. Lo and behold, your twisted thoughts lead you to false accusations next time your spouse is late from work. As time goes on your attitude towards your spouse changes. And if care is not taken your marriage might come to an end.

Related: 4 Questions You Must Ask before Judging Others

  • Your thought shapes your vision

What you think is what you see. And what you see is what you become. Do you have the courage to think beyond the parameters of your present location? Whatever you envision in life is driven by the power of a thought.

Goals are a result of the power of a thought. You always go in the direction of your thoughts.

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”
– James Allen

  • Your thought determines your choice of words

Negative thoughts eventually come out of your mouth in form of words. And words possess the power of life and death. Always using negative words will destroy you slowly. While positive words will give you more life.

“Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.” –  Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

  • Your thought affects your health

A publication by American Psychosomatic Society stated that negative thoughts may be detrimental to health. Also, the publication indicated that your overall well being is dependent on how and what you think.

Certainly, your mind and body are connected. Meaning that your psychological state influences your physical state.

For instance, the placebo effect works because the patient’s thoughts and feelings somehow cause physical changes in the brain or body. Since the patient already expects to feel better, so he or she feels better for some time.

A positive thought can be very beneficial to your health. While a negative thought amplifies stress, eventually leading you to high blood pressure.

“By means of personal experimentation and observation, we can discover certain simple and universal truths. The mind moves the body, and the body follows the mind. Logically then, negative thought patterns harm not only the mind but also the body. What we actually do builds up to affect the subconscious mind and in turn affects the conscious mind and all reactions.” 
― H.E. Davey, Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation

So the more negative thoughts you harbor in your mind, the weaker your body becomes.

  • Your thought affects your wealth

What if I told you that you possess the power to change your financial condition. In fact, your level of thinking will determine the level of wealth you possess. Your thoughts are either dragging you down or taking you up financially.

“Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.” 
― Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

Needless to say, if you think little your will remain little financially. And if you think weak you grow weak financially. On the other hand, the bigger you think the more bigger your income becomes. Thus, understanding that the power of a thought will help you financially.

  • Your thought creates what you fear

FEAR has been coined as false evidence appearing real. Indeed, this false evidence is held in your thought. Usually, your thought sows the seed of fear in you.

“Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.” – Dale Carnegie

What are you afraid of? For some people it may be the fear to love again or fear of public speaking. While for you it may be the fear of the unknown or fear of failure.

Besides, anxiety in your life usually sets in when you think unwanted thoughts.

Revealed: The 2 Most Powerful Secret Forces that Control Us

Top 3 Factors that Influence Your Thoughts:

1. Your Belief System

Good or bad, your belief system can be very influential to the nature of your thoughts.

Have you ever heard of dogmatic thinking? Simply put, dogmatic thinking is characterized by thinking according to a highly categorized set of beliefs or principles.

This type of thinking forces you to think in a particular type of way. Thus, your religious or political inclinations can control your stream of thought.

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.” – Mahatma Gandhi

In essence, whatever truths, standards or doctrines you are devoted to, ripples into how you think.

2. Your Environment

Right from your childhood, you have always needed to be sensitive to your surroundings to survive. This purely indicates the impact of your environment on you. Especially, your psychology.

Moreover, the longer you stay in any environment the more your thought becomes shaped around that environment. Truly, an eagle cannot soar like other eagles if it surrounds itself with chickens all day.

“You just get the vibes of your surroundings and it rubs off on you.” – Gordon Lightfoot

What you see around you filters into your mind. Your environment drives who you socialize with along with what you see and listen to. In turn, influencing the thoughts you think.

3. Your Past Experience

Memories from your past experience can form the basis for your thought. Your past experiences are like a gold mine – very rich source for thoughts. Randomly, your mind looks for hints from your past experiences to create your thoughts.

“More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.” – Napoleon Hill

Related: Why You Should Focus on the Future

If you have gained some insight from this post, please recommend and share it to help empower others.

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