Tapping into your FM frequency


I recently read this article and it reminded me of something my friend Jason taught me about the power of positive thinking. He believes that there are two main "frequencies" we mentally tap into: AM and FM, which stand for Against-Me thoughts and For-Me thoughts. He was a physical education major in college and found a lot of studies where thinking positive "for-me" thoughts, as opposed to negative AM thoughts, would actually result in better performance for athletes. So if the athlete was in a can-do mindset, they would actually do better than if they had a defeatist attitude. Pretty amazing, huh?

This doesn't just apply to physical performance though. The idea of tapping into your FM mental frequency can affect pretty much every area of your life. I've definitely experienced this. In the past, I've found some pretty awful online forums devoted to saying rude, nasty, and untrue things about me and my blog. After reading those threads, I found myself internalizing what they said and starting to believe it! When I was feeling down I would be stuck in a mire of those AM thoughts.
I would be constantly second guessing myself. I would feel unproductive and uninspired, and wouldn't produce as high quality work as I knew I could. It can be hard to get out of an AM-thought tailspin, but realizing that you're caught in it is the first step to getting out!





One thing that can help you keep AM thoughts out of your mind, is to surround yourself with people who encourage you and help you to think FM thoughts. We all know that person who has a toxic personality– always negative, always a downer. Try not to surround yourself with people like that, as we start to feel the effects of having those negative words and thoughts constantly being spoken around us. It's kind of a silly example, but think about in the movie "Mean Girls," how Cady started becoming negative and unkind because she was put herself around negative and mean people and started taking on that affect herself. I find that having positive, encouraging people around me is a huge way that I can keep AM thoughts away from my mind!

This goes hand in hand with not believing lies that you're told by others and yourself. If we focus on the truths and FM thoughts, we actually will perform better and consequently will feel better about ourselves! Keeping a reminder of the truth around can help you avoid getting stuck in an AM thought tailspin.