Understand that negative thoughts have functions. While it may interfere and cultivate a sense of helplessness, negative thoughts have benefits.

Some psychologists even believe that even a little pessimism is healthy because it forces us to try more and think when experiencing a bad situation.

If all this time you have negative thoughts, know that you are not the only person who experienced them. Negative thoughts occupy a large portion of our entire mind. Even negative thoughts may indeed be a human psychological part. Like our ancestors, we constantly observe the environment and try to improve it. The process becomes a problem as we begin to think that negative thoughts are true.

Know when negative thoughts become a problem. If negative thoughts affect behavior or interfere with everyday life, that's when negative thoughts become a problem and you may have to seek help from a mental health professional. Too much negative thinking can make matters worse because you think bad things will happen. The explanation for the phenomenon lies in the self-fulfilling prophecy, which refers to the cycle of having prejudices or thoughts about a situation, which then leads to the emergence of new behaviors, which in turn leads to the prejudice becoming reality.

For example: You expect to fail the English exam tomorrow. Because you think that you will fail tomorrow, your behavior or actions are not learning. Then, the next day, you fail the test. The long-term consequence is that you start thinking that you are stupid or bad at doing the exam, which causes more exam-related problems.