I'm sure we've all heard about the positive thinking technique of imagining success or telling yourself something will happen the way you want. What a bunch of humbug! Or is it? I've seen it a million times in a movie where the coach instructs the player to imagine himself hitting the home run, making the free throw or winning the race. We go along watching the player continue on to success and everyone lives happily ever after. But how many of you have actually tried this method of positive thinking? I mean really tried it? After dismissing the positive envisioning as new-age, movie magic mumbo-jumbo forever, I decided to give it a try the other day. I hadn't gone jogging for a few days due to appointments, shopping that had to be done, dinners to attend and all the regular "things" that seem to pop-up, however I was starting to feel like if I didn't get around to jogging soon, I never would. So one afternoon while at work, the idea popped into my head. It almost felt like I was conducting an experiment on myself. Which usually isn't the best way to conduct experiments...with the subject knowing full and well what's going on. It's a situation that is ripe with possibilities for misinterpretation. Oh, well, I wasn't publishing this "study" in Scientific American Journal or anything, just seeing if it worked for me. So, starting near the end of the day, I started repeating in my head "I want to go running today". I figured that statement would be better than, "I will go running today", because it seemed to be better to tell myself I "wanted" to do something, than telling myself I "will" do something. More of a desire than a chore. On the drive home, which typically lasts an hour to an hour and a half, whenever I could think of it, I would repeat, "I want to go running today." By the last half of my drive, I started getting tired of sitting in the car for so long and started thinking that changing my clothes and plopping down in front of the tv was a better idea. But, I would rudely interrupt myself with "I want to go running today" and imagining myself out on the tough streets of Seal Beach scampering along. The discussion went through my head a good five or six times by the time I got home. So, did it work? It did. I went running and may not have, had it not been for me envisioning success and talking myself into it, because I was pretty tired. I still wonder if the technique itself worked, if I ran just because I "wanted" the technique to work, maybe I would have run anyway, or some other not thought of reason. But, I guess the bottom line is...I went running. So it worked, right? I know there's plenty of methods and ways of positive thinking, and I believe they help with one's outlook. Thinking positively will definitely lead one down the path of becoming an optimist, but at the same time, I have a skeptical side...always do. At times, I feel like one is just fooling oneself. Like you're tricking yourself, or just patting yourself on the back saying, "it'll be ok" when you know good and well, everything's not ok. But, in the end, I went running.
