CIC-SIG October Meeting:
Conscious Constructive Thinking

by Ted Edwins, Chapter Past President

A small but enthusiastic group gathered on a starry, starry night on Wednesday, October 22nd at the Doon Pioneer Park Community Centre to listen to Hardy Premsukh's presentation on Conscious Constructive Thinking. Hardy is an entrepreneur associated with local companies such as Digital eMedia Inc. and Corpimage Signs. His new venture is the Institute of Maximum Success in which he acts a personal success coach.

Personal challenges have inspired Hardy to read widely in the field of psychology to determine how a person copes with negative events to create success in their life. He has established a professional relationship with some of the leading scholars in the study of constructive thought and self-esteem to further develop his theories of personal success.

The fruit of Hardy's consultation with the experts has been the development of his theory of Conscious Constructive Thinking (CCT). CCT is the process of being aware of your thoughts, thinking about your thoughts, and evaluating the validity of your thoughts. After evaluating your thoughts, you can decide on a course of action.

Hardy's belief is that a good attitude is important in life. He quoted Charles Swindoll, who said, "I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it." We have all heard of a person who has succeeded in life, not because they were more talented but because they were more persistent. Such a person is an example of how our attitude toward life has an incredible impact on our success. We may not be able to change many of the events that impact our lives but we do have the choice about our attitude towards these events.

According to Hardy, our attitude is shaped by our thoughts. He told us about the Perpetual Thought Cycle where the quality of our thoughts ultimately determine the quality of our life. The cycle is the quality of our thoughts influences the quality of our choices that become the quality of our habits, which ultimately affects the quality our life. We may have experienced the effects of this cycle when an event causes us to have negative self-thoughts that triggers a downward spiral of further negativity.

Hardy says we have the choice to pull ourselves out of this cycle and we can use CCT to do it. He outlined the STAR model of how to break the cycle through conscious constructive thinking. STAR is an acronym for the steps taken to establish CCT:

• Stop and become conscious of your thoughts
• Think about what your are thinking of
• Act on the choice you have made
• Reward yourself.

In the thinking stage, he encouraged us to determine if the thought is constructive or destructive. To break the cycle, we must exchange the destructive thought with a constructive one. Hardy emphasized that rewarding ourselves is an important part of the process. He warned that the reward should be well chosen. He gave the example of a client who rewarded herself with food but soon found she had a weight problem. The client exchanged the food reward with a social gathering with friends.

Hardy explained how CCT could benefit the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual parts of our life. He believes that CCT can:

• decrease negative 'self-talk'
• cultivate a healthy belief system
• increase self-esteem; and
• increase problem solving skills.

Hardy told the group about another client who had agoraphobia. The client used the principles of CCT to overcome her fears and to venture out into public areas.

Currently, Hardy is in the process of authoring his first book, Reaching Your Pinnacle: A Comprehensive Program to Help You Achieve Genuine Success. His book is based on proven psychological principles in the area of motivation, self-esteem, psychological well being, emotional intelligence, conscious-constructive thinking, and achievement. The book will contain self-tests to help you attain success in your life.