The Sweet Satisfaction of Positive Thinking

Positive thinking is a choice. It is a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. It brings inner peace, success, improved relationships, better health, happiness and satisfaction. It also radiates to people around you, and one way or the other, they are influenced by it.

Why is it so much easier to have a negative attitude than a positive one? The situations and challenges we face in the world each day expose us to negative thinking which, in turn, pull us down. When these situations and challenges enter our minds, they generate negative thoughts and feelings. These negative thoughts begin to rule our minds the moment we choose to believe them.

The BIG question is ‘How do we develop a satisfactory positive mind?’ The following tips will help you develop one.

1. Be conscious of your thoughts.

Examine critically what you think about. Our negative actions and words often come from our negative thoughts – what goes into our minds. Like I said at the opening of this article, positive thinking is a choice. We have the ability to choose our thoughts, regardless of our beliefs. As soon as a negative thought comes into our minds, we should purposefully make it a point of duty to replace it with a positive one. This may seem difficult the first time, but with persistence and determination, it will become easy and doable.

2. Write your thoughts in a thought dairy.

Keep a list of your thoughts, attitudes and actions. Write them down as soon as you notice them. Later, critically analyse them.

3. Challenge the negative thoughts.

The purpose of challenging our negative thoughts is to be able to see quickly whether the thoughts are wrong or whether they have some reasonable contents in them. This will enable us to determine the degree of positivity in every negativity. This will also enable us to take appropriate actions. However, we should always make sure that our negative thoughts are genuinely important to achieving your goals.

4. Use positive affirmations to counter negative thoughts.

This requires constant practice. With constant practice, positive thinking, powered by positive affirmations, will begin to flow from inside us to outside, to give us a positive self image. It will give us sweet satisfaction to face the numerous challenges of life with ease and determination. Take some time to write strong, life-giving, positive affirmation statements, and repeat them to yourself without ceasing. Tell yourself that you’re making progress, even if you are not, and believe in your heart that you are making progress.

5. See things in a positive way.

Having positive eyes helps us to develop positive thoughts. No matter how bitter or difficult we see things, we should try and see them in positive ways. It becomes easier to do this when we take caution to look for the positive aspect in the situation. If you are able to identify this aspect, you can develop it to your advantage. The fact is every cloud has a silver lining.

6. Keep your mind focused on important things.

Set goals and priorities for what you think and do. Have a scale of preference and do important things first. This will help you stay organized and achieve the most important goals first. One advantage of this is that if there is not enough time to do everything, you will have spent the available time on important things. Then you will have no regrets, no blames, no discouragement, no negativity; but satisfactory positivity.

7. Dream of success.

Before you start any plan or action, clearly focus your mind on a successful outcome. This will bring you amazing results. Avoid negative reactions and statements. Quickly find adequate solutions to problems or challenges as soon as they occur, rather than reacting negatively to them.

8. Look for positive people to associate with.

Be careful the company you keep. It is good to be around positive thinking people who radiate positive attitudes. However, encountering a positive person may seem a difficult task. Not to worry, persistent searching (on the Net and visiting blogs such as The Change Blog) will make you meet people with positive minds. To be candid, there are numerous positive people, only if you will ‘look’ for them.

9. Stop associating with negative people.

Stop hanging around with people who do nothing but utter negative statements. Let negative minded people keep their own company. After all, birds of a feather flock together. You don’t belong there!

10. Develop new habits.

Our present attitudes are habits, built from the feedback of parents, friends, society and self, that forms our self-image and our world-image. We can develop new habits and start a new life of positive thinking. Negative attitudes and thinking should be replaced with positive ones. Mind you, old habits die hard. However, be determined. Determination is a requirement for positive thinking.