What is Positive Thinking?
Positive thinking in its simplest form, is to find the good in a situation. It’s searching for the point of view that will show you that even in a negative situation you will become a stronger, better or a more well-rounded person.
Let’s explore the benefits of positive thinking and how negative thinking can be detrimental to our human wellbeing.
Negativity
Let’s start with the dark side. Sometimes in life, things can seem bleak. You know, when everything seems to be going wrong and you can’t seem to get a break (we’ve all been there), naturally you end up in a negative mindset. It can’t really be helped. These are the times when positive thinking becomes the hardest. The negative mindset snowballs and more things start going wrong. This is because you’re making the wrong decisions, based upon a bad frame of mind and quite possibly making things worse for yourself. Negative energy gets stuck inside you and there it grows, being added to bit by bit until it comes pouring out in a negative way. Don’t worry it’s not all doom and gloom maybe with a switch in attitude and a bit of positive thinking we can change things on our own.
How to Think Positively
Imagine you wake up in the morning to a droning alarm. You don’t feel like you want to go to work today, so you press the snooze button three times and now you’re ten minutes behind schedule. You lose your car keys and stub your toe on the way out. Cursing, you slam the door and go out into the cold. Your mindset is negative, and it probably will be for the rest of the day. The chances are you’re going to have a bad day.
Now let’s flip it around; you jump out of bed, take a deep breath, have a good old stretch, dance a merry jig, get ready and skip out the door all the way to work. Okay admittedly that’s highly unlikely but I’ve exaggerated a point to prove a point. Instead of this extreme example let’s try something a little more realistic.
When you wake up, find something you can look forward to. Maybe a friend you like working with, maybe get up a little early and create your favourite breakfast, maybe watch the sunrise and if all else fails, one tried and tested method to get those positive juices flowing; dance a merry jig in front of the mirror. I mean go full stupid, star jumps, the moonwalk, a little salsa, and I challenge you not to smile.
So, that’s an example of a trivial thing, give yourself a reason to get up. That’s a start.
Naturally, it gets harder and harder to think positively when everything seems to be going wrong, but if you search hard enough you can find the positive side of any situation. Even when you feel at your worst, you can build yourself up if you can recognise that you are thinking negatively and make a concerted effort to find some positives. Even if it’s just surviving, even if it’s gratitude for the things you do have and not a longing for the things you don’t, even if it’s how this situation can and will make you stronger. Even when you’re at rock bottom, you can only get higher. Even if you lose a loved one, you were lucky to have had them in your life and lucky to have the memories you can cherish forever. So you see, even when you’re at your very lowest, there are always positives to find. It takes effort, it takes practice and it takes a shift of point of view.
Spread the Love
Don’t keep all that positivity to yourself, spread it around. Encourage others to see the better side of life too. Positivity spreads more quickly than the flu amongst humans and we can pass it to each other if we choose to do so.
Positive thinking is a powerful tool. It helps us put things in perspective, it helps us feel gratitude and it could maybe even change our lives. There are beautiful things all around us, reasons to be alive, reasons to thrive, we simply have to train ourselves to see them.
If you liked this human wellbeing blog you might also like The Gift of Friendship.
B.Brunswick is a best selling poet.
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