Every day we are bombarded with hundreds of thousands of thoughts.

They can come via the endless array of advertising that we are subjected to in our daily lives.

They can come from past arguments that we have had with people we care about.

Or they can come from things we were told when we were much, much younger.

Regardless of where those thoughts come from, it would do all of us well to realize that the things we do are a by-product of the things we think.

If you didn’t believe you could walk, you would never try.

In the same way, if you don’t think that you can accomplish whatever it is that you are attempting right now, there’s a pretty good chance that you won’t even bother moving forward with it.

Our thoughts make up the things that we do - and learning how to get rid of toxic thinking is a life-long journey that all of us can benefit from.

When those seemingly random thoughts come flying through your mind at a million miles an hour - the ones that tell you that you’ll never amount to anything and that you’re just going to be a miserable failure - that is the time to get intentional about your thinking.

That is the time to put your foot down and make an active decision to change your thought patterns.

One of the easiest ways I have found to snap out of those nasty moods is to create something. Whether that is a new piece of art, music or writing - it doesn’t matter.

The act of creativity will push aside those negative emotions and thought patterns in a relatively short period of time.

Reading also has helped me immensely to get rid of that “stinking thinking”.

Make the choice today to stay focused on what is important to you.

When those nasty thoughts show up, decide to defy the things they say to you - because you’re bigger than the sum of the bad things that have happened to you.

You do not have to let negative thoughts define who you are.