Toxic thoughts that will ruin your success

The biggest takeaway from my junior year Entrepreneurship course was that mindset is everything. It is what makes or breaks an entrepreneur. Having the right mindset applies to every facet of our lives. Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, you cannot change anything without changing your thinking first. Your future is a series of actions and decisions you take. And every action is backed by a thought. That is why it is so important to monitor our thinking, and make changes when necessary.

Unhealthy thoughts will keep you down and stop you from reaching the places you want to reach. Here are eight toxic thoughts that might be crushing your potential as we speak.

Stressing over what others think

You've probably come a long way since your low self-esteem teenage years when your every move depended on what others might think of it. But even in our twenties and our thirties, we continue to be plagued with this same thought in the parts of lives that matter the most. People are always going to have opinions. But no one is constantly judging you for it. If you aren't, why would they? And even then, you have to do what makes you happy. If you keep at it long enough, they'll have to accept it. Give the talkers a reason to talk about your success.

Distrusting everyone

Without a doubt, not trusting every single person you meet is safe. You're never going to get harmed, but you're never going to get anywhere either. If nobody ever trusted anyone, the human race would get nothing done. In the workplace especially, you have to trust others with sharing your workload, your problems and your plans. Things will be a lot easier when your co-workers know what you're going through. Help is always in sight.

Trust begets trust, so try to be someone who others can depend on as well. It's a two-way process, and while there will be instances when you depended on someone and it didn't work out, it's hard to move forward on your own. If something in the past has upset you, set some inner boundaries before jumping back in.

Not having faith in yourself

A little self-questioning is good. You get to know yourself better, find out where you're lacking, where you're excelling, where to set the limit. Self-doubt on the other hand is never healthy. Mistakes are there to learn from, not to paralyse you for the rest of eternity. Ask yourself if you've turned down an opportunity or a project because you felt you couldn't handle it, you weren't good enough, you wouldn't make the cut. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Let that sink in.

Self-doubt can twist things around and make the world look like a more dismal place than it needs to be. However, if you think you're experiencing serious issues in this area, enough for it to get in the way of your work and your life, it might be good to talk to someone or to seek professional help. A little confidence goes a long a way if you take that first step.

Constantly comparing yourself with others

This is one downward spiral you need to make a conscious effort to escape. There's no end to the number of people you can compare yourself with. While having a competitive edge is good for productivity, constantly comparing yourself with others is a dead end street to crippling self-doubt. And at the end of the day, you're going to end up spending more time thinking about what a billion other people are doing instead of doing something about your own life and own problems. Look into the mirror—that's the person you need to be obsessing over.

Letting problems overpower you

For an article that's all about the way you think, it might seem counter-intuitive to advise you to stop thinking. But no, thinking has its health hazards. Introspection is great, but over-thinking turns challenges into quagmires of no return. Either you let the problem overwhelm you or you overwhelm the problem. Either you can do something about a situation or you can't. Keep moving, keep doing things. Don't let one single thought stop you in the middle of your tracks.

Thinking you have control over everything

Because you don't. Not over everything at least. Best case scenario: you train yourself to respond to things better. If you mess up, you can always do something about. What you can't do is blame yourself for every little thing that goes wrong.

Only seeing the worst in things

We only see what we want to see. If we're constantly seeking out the worst in everything, that's all we're going to find. But the world isn't burning down and you've got running water and electricity. The rest is up to you. Your thoughts don't dwell on negativity because everything has gone to the dogs. It's because you made a conscious decision to do so. But it's not too late to reverse that decision and teach your mind to focus on the good instead—it's right there, you're just not looking. 

And while it's illogical to think about all the less fortunate people in the world every time things aren't going your way (because obviously your situations are completely different), it is also true that there are many who will never have what you have right now. There's a lot to be grateful about, take a minute to think about everything you have achieved instead.

Thinking you're lost

We all hear stories about people who have done fantastic groundbreaking things with their life and ask ourselves, "What am I doing with my life?" First thing's first, do you absolutely hate what you're doing? If it's not what you'd rather be doing with your life, ask yourself what is. If you can't think of an answer, keep doing what you were doing.

You're going to feel lost over and over again in your life. But that doesn't mean that life has to be completely devoid of joy and happiness. Instead of dwelling on not having found yourself, spend time doing things that make you happy and crush toxic thoughts before they get a tight hold on you.

The writer is Sub-Editor of the career publication of The Daily Star. She is also a senior at the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka