Make a Deep Mental Path

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

— Henry David Thoreau

This quote is a profound one by Thoreau. It reinforces the importance of consistently thinking what we want our lives to be. Through that consistent thought we will achieve the goals we have set and the lives of which we have dreamed.

Yet sometimes we find that negative thoughts overwhelm us. It is critical to stop negative thoughts as soon as you catch yourself and replace them with a positive thought.

Removing these negative thoughts can be a difficult thing to accomplish but it will improve with practice. To help you practice, try out this game over the next week. Each day place 10 pennies in your right pocket. Each time you catch yourself thinking a negative thought move one of the pennies into your left pocket and immediately replace your thinking with the positive. At the end of the day write down how many pennies are left in your right pocket. Track your progress throughout the week. Did you improve? Remember, though, whether any pennies were left or not, you can rest assured that you made great strides over the week because you consciously caught your negative thinking and replaced it with positive thinking.