If you’ve ever wished to change things in life, in a relationship, or at work, chances are that you've needed to notice your thoughts and slow down. Noticing our own thoughts is the first and most important skill to learn when trying to make a change. Once you're aware of your own thoughts it's natural to realize that others may think differently--and now we have somewhere to begin.

This is episode number 129. Welcome to the Mindset for life Podcast; this podcast is for you, if you love, serve, teach and lead others, you want things to keep getting better, you want encouragement. And just one little idea today to get stronger in your life, your relationships or your work. I’m Bethanie Hansen, and I help people everywhere take control of their current situations, and have power to do what they need to do in the future as well.

Today's episode is about noticing your thoughts. That's right, becoming aware of subconscious thoughts, and those more intentional.

This is Bethanie Hansen, your coach, and I am so excited to be with you today. You know, I love giving this podcast because I can't imagine not sharing with you all of the things that have made my life amazing in the last few years. Some of those things are ideas I learned long ago, perhaps as a child or a college student, or something like that. But only when I started coach training did they become obvious to me.

Some of those things really are basic to the way I think all the time now. And I want to help you by sharing them with you a little bit every week.

This first idea today is all about noticing, controlling and getting on top of your thoughts. When I say that, what I'm saying is you have these thoughts that are happening all the time. We're not always conscious of those. In fact, some philosophers and existentialists would call this consciousness, something deep that we could stop and study.
Observe Your Own Thoughts.
But let's just take this on the smallest level we could talk about, think about observing and noticing your own thoughts. How often do you do that? While you're just in the middle of your day, at one point, I want you to have that experience of pausing, noticing what your brain is doing.

What are you thinking? Are you just thinking about getting something done? Is it task focused? Is it judgment oriented? Is it about some future possibility? Is it a regret from the past? Is it a worry or an anxiety?

Your brain is doing this 100% of the time, I guarantee it's nearly impossible to quiet one's brain so no thought is happening.

As you're having those thoughts, I wonder what some of the most common thoughts are that you have?

I remember from long ago, sitting in a church meeting as a young person. As I sat there, I thought about a lot of things. And I noticed that the people around me had no idea what I was thinking about. Maybe this was one of those early moments where I started to notice my thoughts were private. Did you ever notice that to yourself? How old were you when that happened?

Well, as we get older and older, we take that for granted. And we stop thinking about it so much. One of the things that is most powerful to me is noticing the kind of thoughts I have, as I think about my thoughts on a regular basis, I can catch faulty thinking.
Identify Faulty Thinking.
And when I say faulty thinking, I'm talking all about those thoughts that don't help very much. Faulty thinking can be things like all-or-nothing thinking. Like I can be preparing for something at work and think it has to go 100% right.

Or it has to go, in my opinion, 100% right.

It doesn't mean that other people are going to think it went right. In fact, one's definition of right is going to vary from person to person.

The more I noticed and observed my thoughts, the more I can catch those kinds of thoughts when they're going astray.

As soon as we notice our thoughts, we can just get curious about them and kind of listen,