7 Steps to Control Your Thoughts and Master Your Mind

If you want to learn how to control your thoughts, your answer lies within the Himalayan. Down there, monks have been studying the mind for ages.

These monks are a mystery to most of us.

But they’ve established more control over their minds than many of us will ever achieve. For them, mental mastery is a disciplined craft and an important step towards enlightenment.

Don’t worry though…

…you don’t have to become a monk to gain control over your thoughts. Even a tiny amount of their practice reaps many benefits.

And with a little bit of practice, you can disengage and control your thoughts within seconds.

In this article, you’ll learn how you can do this. You learn how it helps you to relieve stress and anxiety. And also, how this forgotten tool helps you achieve your long-term goals and desires.

So let’s dive in!

The Benefits of Better Thoughts

Before we dive straight into the steps, it’s important to realize the massive impact that your thoughts have on your life.

Thoughts determine how we feel. And your thoughts have the power to stop you from taking action towards meaningful outcomes if you don’t control them.

But what are the benefits if you do have the tools to regain control?

1. Helps to achieve your long-term goals
2. Reduces worries and anxiety
3. Equips you against addiction
4. Better physical health
5. Better relationships
6. More resilience
7. More happiness

Thoughts are one of the important mental assets to master. 

Thoughts are like a river with a strong current. If you can swim, you can navigate yourself through the current. You can steer yourself to where you want to go.

Thoughts are similar. Controlling your thoughts helps you to better manage them. That way, negative thoughts don’t gain as much power over you.

Though you can never get rid of thoughts, your ability to manage them matters. And learning how to do this is very valuable especially when you’re facing adversity.

Here are seven simple steps to upgrade your mind.

Step 1: Understanding Thoughts

The first question you’ve to ask yourself is this: what are thoughts?

It’s an interesting question and one we don’t often think about. Yet, thoughts occur all the time and in different ways. 

One way that thoughts occur is through thinking. The question I just asked you got your mind thinking. Questions naturally activate thoughts that way.

Another way that thoughts occur, is automatic. Thoughts come and go all the time whether we want them or not. It’s like a river that flows constantly.

Thinking on purpose is one of the greatest tools we own as a human. There’s no other animal that can do this. It’s this element that allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet. 

But thoughts can also have a big impact on how we feel and behave. Both positively or negatively.

The thoughts you have most frequently, really shape your reality.

And if you don’t question your negative thoughts, this influences the quality of your life. Especially if you identify with your thoughts as most people do.

They believe what they think and they think what they believe. Do you see how this loops around in circles? When we get caught up in negative thoughts, we experience negative emotions. And these emotions generate more negative thoughts.

When this cycle occurs enough times, your thoughts might turn into a self-limiting belief. You’ve adopted your thought as the truth. As a result, your focus narrows and you start to look for evidence to strengthen your belief.

And when that happens, we get stuck in our heads.

The interesting thing about being a human is that you can challenge this. You can regain control over your thoughts, though most people never try this.

Now you understand thoughts a little bit better, the next step is to observe them.

Step 2: Observing Your Thoughts

Self-awareness is the starting place to control your thoughts.

You need to become aware of the thoughts as they fly by. Observing your thoughts and reflecting upon them is how you will gain this skill.

How do you do this?

The answer lies in a tool that’s increasing in popularity: meditation.

Here’s how you can dip your toes in the water: set a timer for 5 minutes. Sit or lay down like one of the examples in the picture below. And focus on your breathing for the full duration of this time.

Unless you’re a master of controlling your thoughts, your mind will wander off. Your thoughts will carry you away during this exercise. And in the beginning, it often takes a while to notice that.

Upon the realization that you’re thinking, simply let your thoughts pass by. Don’t judge yourself for thinking. It happens. Bring your focus back to the exercise and do this repeatedly.

There are 2 main benefits of doing this exercise.

The first is that you realize that thoughts are like a river. It flows by all the time. You don’t control that part. A river simply flows and so do thoughts. 

The second benefit is that you become aware of thought patterns. With deliberate and consistent practice, you begin to notice more dominant thoughts.

A great way to gain self-awareness even faster is by labeling your thoughts.

Step 3: Labeling Your Thoughts

Once you become more aware of your thoughts as they float through your mental space, it’s time to label them.

Labeling your thoughts provides an extra layer of awareness. It’s simply done by making a mental note of your thought and categorizing it.

You can label it as anything. Choose what works best for you. For example, a thought might appear that you forgot someone’s birthday yesterday. Make a note, label it as frustration, and let the thought go.

Another thought might appear that tells you that you’re wasting your time. Make a mental note of it, label it as anxiety, and let the thought go.

Go through this exercise with a pinch of curiosity. Don’t worry too much about the labels themselves. The idea is that you get a better grasp of the kind of thoughts that you experience. 

With enough practice, you’ll begin to notice thought patterns happening in everyday situations. You might catch your thoughts in heated situations at work or in an argument with your partner. 

And that’s the starting point of change.

Step 4: Identifying Negative Thoughts

So far, you’ve been training yourself to become more aware of your thoughts. This is a crucial step if you want to control your thoughts in real-time.

The next step is to identify which thoughts are negative.

I would identify negative thoughts as those that are the most harmful to us. It’s these kinds of thoughts that reduce the quality of our relationships and makes us procrastinate. 

Here are some of the most destructive ones:

• Blaming: both yourself, other people, or outside circumstances
• Comparing: yourself to your previous self or others
• Polarising: e.g. if I don’t win now, then I can’t ever win anything
• Mind reading: thinking that you know exactly what others think of you

If you find dominant thoughts that sit in one of these groups, then that’s a great starting point. 

Have you become aware of another negative thought that is destructive to you? Then feel free to tackle that thought first.

Remember that the process of gaining control over your thoughts takes time. So I would recommend isolating just one specific type of thought. 

For example, maybe you compare yourself to others when you scroll through your Instagram. Or perhaps you do this when you’re at the gym.

Isolate this thought pattern and work on this specific one. By not doing everything at once, you won’t feel overwhelmed with the rest of the process.

Step 5: Mapping the Story

Now that you’ve identified a negative thought, it’s time to reveal the pattern. 

This means understanding what triggers the thought. To understand what happens to you when the thought appears. And how you behave as a result of it.

So let’s catch when the thought appears. Is it when you’re in a specific place? Or perhaps when you’re around a specific group of people? Or maybe it’s a specific situation?

Once you figure out when the thought occurs most often, look at the rest of the pattern. 

What exactly are you thinking? What’s the most common theme or a label you put on these thoughts?

Then, observe how you feel once that thought crosses your mind. 

How do your feelings then influence your thinking? How does your physical body react? And how do you behave as a result of it?

Once you lay out the whole story, you’ve got a better understanding of the negative thought. And with it, you’re ready to dismantle the story.

Step 6: Dismantling the Story 

The stories you make up about yourself and your experiences are just that, stories. 

The problem is that most people believe their own stories. They never question it. And that’s exactly where the power is: in curiosity and questions.

The reason why is simple: a question interrupts the automatic story.

And to intentionally interrupt this story, you need lots of self-awareness. That’s exactly why you went through the previous 5 steps. With practice, you now have a deep understanding of the pattern and can see when it gets triggered in action. 

When you experience the negative thought, you now have the choice: to interrupt or to let it run the story. 

Instead of letting it run, choose to interfere. How?

First, raise your curiosity. Tell yourself it’s an interesting thought. Because thoughts are pretty interesting, right? 

Then ask yourself why you should believe your thoughts. Why is it true? Could you just let this thought go by? Should you? What would happen if you do?

Questions are powerful.

Question your negative thoughts enough and you will break the automatic loop.

This helps you to frame the whole story differently. As a result, you gain much more control over your thoughts.

Step 7: Deliberate Practice

With a little bit of practice, you become aware of the thought patterns. More importantly, you become aware of it when it’s happening in real-time. Not just when you think about it, like right now.

With enough practice, you can observe your thoughts at any moment. And that’s what allows you to interfere with your thoughts.

If you keep practicing the final step, you’re also able to question your thoughts at the moment. No longer will you simply identify with your thoughts. Instead, negative thoughts trigger your curiosity. 

Once you do this on an automatic pilot, you control your thoughts. You’ve gained a new level of mastery over your mind.

When questioning your thoughts often enough, you can change your beliefs too. And that will have a bigger impact on how you feel and behave.

But there’s one disclaimer:

You’ll have to consistently practice this stuff for a little while.

Self-awareness takes time. And becoming self-aware really is the key to being able to interfere with your negative thoughts.

What’s next?

We can draw great inspiration from the practices of Himalayan monks to unlock mental mastery and inner peace. 

Here are the seven steps in summary:

1. Understand the nature of thoughts and how they affect your emotions and feelings
2. Observe your thoughts to develop self-awareness through meditation and self-reflection.
3. Label your thoughts to recognize patterns.
4. Observe these patterns to identify negative thoughts.
5. Map the story by observing the triggers, feelings, and behaviors associated with negative thought patterns.
6. Dismantle the story by challenging your negative thoughts by questioning their validity.
7. Repeat this deliberate practice to unlock mental mastery.

Dive deeper into the mind with the following resources:

• Book: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Course: Master Your Thoughts to Take Control of Your Life
• List of the best guided journals

Take action: Try a simple meditation practice. Set a 5-minute timer. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Observe any thoughts that arise without judgment.

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