I was having lunch today with an associate of mine, and all she wanted to do was to tell me about all of the nasty things that have happened to them over the past five years. She had started a business that crumbled, tumbled and went away; the stress because of no cash flow; her husband’s only making $38-45,000 a year; and now she has to work what she called a “menial” job for about $14 an hour. And all she wanted to do was go on and on and on about how terrible everything was in her life. The whole time I am trying to enjoy my lunch while she is verbally vomiting on me with all of her negativity. Then it dawned on me. In fact, it hit me like a ton of bricks. All this person was doing, was feeding her C.A.T. (counter-productive attitudes and thoughts), as well as, mine too! And all the time she was feeding her C.A.T. she kept wondering ‘why is it that I can’t get out of this position?’ ‘Why can’t I get out of this situation that I’m in?’ Ultimately, the answer was very simple, you will never get rid of the C.A.T. while you keep feeding it. The C.A.T. will always keep coming back as long as you keep feeding it. So I said to her, “Why don’t you start by focusing on all that you have to be grateful for? You could start by being grateful for your car that has working air conditioning (it was 100 degrees that day). You could be grateful for the home you live in. You could be grateful for the food you ate today.” I went on and on about the many things she had to be grateful for. It was fun to watch her energy shift and a smile return to her face as I rattled off the long list of things to be grateful for. At the end of lunch, she thanked me for helping her put things into perspective. She left a much happier person than when she arrived.
The point I want to make is that you will never get a positive result from a negative thought. That is simply impossible. It can’t be done. It’ll never happen. She needed to shift her thinking, she needed to get away from feeding that C.A.T. Your results will always be better when you focus your energies on all that you have to be grateful for. Let’s start today to focus on all that we can be grateful for. You will be amazed how things will start to shift in your life.
One more thought before I wrap up this piece. You will know that you have mastered your C.A.T. when you can even find something to be grateful for even in the negative events that happen in your life. Even in our daily challenges and failures there are lessons we can learn and things we can be grateful for. Look for them, they are there.
This is Tim Burgess.
Don’t feed the C.A.T.