How is positive thinking different from negative thinking? A person with positive thinking does not dwell on problems and failures. Currently, there is no longer any need to provide evidence of the influence of thoughts on health and psycho-emotional state. There are many esoteric teachings that talk about the ability of thoughts to influence the future.
American scientists John Kehoe and Joe Dispenza in their books provide quite convincing examples of the influence of thoughts on the world around us. But even if we put such teachings aside, everyone will agree that a person with positive thinking finds life much easier, more fun, and more enjoyable. You can walk around gloomy and dissatisfied all the time, but such a state is not beneficial. On the contrary, bright and joyful thoughts give energy and the desire to act.
Start the day with a positive attitude
Morning is a very important period, which often sets the tone for the whole day. Surely it has happened to you that you woke up out of sorts and were in a bad mood until the evening.
To avoid this, start the day with a positive attitude - affirmation. Go to the mirror and tell yourself something like “Today will be a good day” or “Today I will succeed.” If you're not used to it, you may feel stupid, but it doesn't matter. Repeat such phrases regularly and notice how your thinking will change.
The essence of positive thinking
It is not based on a lack of focusing on the negative and the smallest problems, the point is to understand how to think positively every day. After all, positive thoughts will change your life for the better. Suppose you are faced with betrayal from a loved one. Instead of being despondent, look at the situation from the other side, how good it is that the betrayal was revealed now, and not in a more difficult or serious situation. Lost your job? Well, now you have time to relax, and the opportunity to find a more suitable and well-paid job. Examples can be given endlessly, so being positive is very important for a happy life - it can even help you achieve spiritual balance and not become depressed due to sudden problems. I understand that it is not always possible to find the positive side, but most of the problems are not so significant if you at least try to look at them from a different angle.
Have positive self-talk
Internal dialogue is your thoughts about yourself and your own actions. When we are pessimistic, we often don’t even notice how we begin to think badly about ourselves and our abilities. Especially after failures. “Why did I even take on this”, “I should have said such stupidity”, “Of course, I didn’t succeed, I don’t know how to do anything.”
Such thoughts negatively affect our self-confidence, demotivate us and cause stress. It is much more beneficial to have positive self-talk. Instead of “Why did I even take on this” - “Nothing, next time it will work out better.” Instead of “You should have said something so stupid” - “It can be difficult to guess whether you will be understood correctly or not.” And instead of “Of course, I didn’t succeed, I can’t do anything” - “I’ll have to practice and try again.”
Part one. Objective assessment of thoughts
Take responsibility for your own life
You need to understand and realize that you and only you are fully responsible for your attitude towards your own life. If you wake up with negative thoughts, think about bad things all day and fall asleep thinking that tomorrow will be worse than yesterday, then it is your own fault that your life has turned into a gray, boring and terribly annoying series of identical and tasteless days .
The first step towards changing your own life is realizing that a problem exists. Your problem in this case is that you do not know how to think positively. Once you realize that habitual negative thinking can be changed with the right approach, you will immediately experience relief.
Our reality is in our heads! Simple truth, isn't it? But it can be quite difficult to realize it.
Experience the benefits of positive thinking
Now think about the benefits, advantages and benefits of positive thinking. If you learn to think positively, you will take control of your life and enjoy every moment of it, you will be able to improve your adaptive abilities and increase your level of stress resistance, physical and mental health.
Awareness of all the benefits of positive thinking helps to develop motivation, which will not disappear over time, but will only increase.
Start keeping a thought journal
Be sure to keep a journal in which you record your daily thoughts. This way you can track the main trends in the formation of positive thinking. In the evening, write down all the thoughts that have crossed your mind over the past day, and then read carefully and monitor your feelings. Which of the thoughts you wrote in your journal brought back pleasant memories for you? What thoughts make you feel negative? Trust your intuition and don't try to deceive yourself, otherwise you won't succeed.
On Sunday, read all the notes you have made during the week, and then carefully analyze them and give an objective assessment. On a separate piece of paper, write down 4 to 6 predominant positive and negative thoughts that have most often visited your head over the past days.
Surround yourself with positive people
Humans are social creatures, and our environment greatly influences how and what we think and perceive the world. If there are optimistic people around you, then you will hear positive opinions about different things, positive beliefs and attitudes.
Over time, your consciousness itself will adapt to this type of thinking. You will begin to look at reality less negatively, and it will be easier for you to notice the good. Plus, positive people are more inclined to support others because they have enough energy to share. And support will not be superfluous: every person needs it.
Exercises to develop positive thinking
A person with positive thinking is always easy to pick out from the crowd. His actions are calm and confident, he looks healthy and in a good mood, he does not feel any difficulties in making new acquaintances and is easy to communicate with, people are always drawn to him.
The secret of such successful people lies in positive thinking, with the help of which everyone can achieve heights.
To achieve positive results, you need to develop positive thinking. Special exercises will help with this.
You need to fill your mind with good thoughts. To achieve results in this exercise, you need to look for positive thoughts every day, then there will be no time left for negative influences and the person will change his attitude towards himself and the environment. Work on the power of your own mind. The human mind is quite an important and powerful tool. With its help, a person makes important decisions and plans his future life. The mind can instill self-confidence in a person and give strength to work effectively and efficiently. Therefore, do not underestimate the power of your mind. Daily practice. One of the main criteria is constant practice and good thoughts. You need to plan your day in advance and set aside time to work on yourself. Law of attraction. Positive people are able to attract only positive emotions, and they are not afraid of failures, because they approach them wisely and quickly resolve them. Negativity, in turn, attracts only negative influences. Discipline. This difficult exercise should be followed in any situation.
Only discipline will allow you to soberly assess the situation and quickly make an important decision. This exercise will help a person to be concentrated and focused on working on himself. Expanding your horizons
To solve important problems, it is not enough to have certain knowledge. Sometimes for a non-standard solution you need to go beyond the usual and develop your own thoughts. Pursuit. Setting priorities and goals always helps you quickly and clearly achieve what you want. Even if there are no goals initially, it is worth starting with planning your own development. Celebration. To stay positive, it is important to take small breaks and celebrate your achievements. Sharing success with a loved one unloads the mind and relieves tension. Communication with like-minded people. Communication with people who are more successful will help a person stay afloat and set new goals for himself. Various sources. You shouldn’t get hung up on a certain treasure of knowledge. We need to develop and look for solutions and new information in different sources. This will help you develop more and reach greater heights.
Can positive thoughts impact us in more ways than just a smile on our face? Yes. Barbara Fredrickson, a PhD holder from Stanford University, is convinced of this. Fredrickson is one of the world's leading scholars of social psychology. Her works were widely disseminated and received honorary awards. Over 20 years of scientific activity, Barbara has conducted a number of studies aimed at studying the impact of emotions on human life in the future. What conclusions did she come to? Let's find out.
Concept and impact on human life
How to become a rich and successful person in life - the psychology of achieving success
Martin Seligman managed to reveal the cause-and-effect relationship of positive states and identify three factors that contribute to a happy life:
- Experiencing a large number of positive emotions and the ability to strengthen them and stretch them over time.
- Absorption in a favorite activity: work, hobby, love, raising children. We are talking about a state when time flies by unnoticed.
- Meaningful Living: Knowing your strengths and using them to belong and serve something larger than yourself.
Note! The effect of the combination of these terms is much higher than the influence of only one of the three factors.
At the same time, the desire for pleasure has virtually no effect on the level of life satisfaction. It has been proven that the desire for an all-consuming activity has a very strong influence. However, the greatest impact comes from the desire for a meaningful life. The feeling of pleasure from selfless action lasts much longer than when a person does something just for his own amusement.
The ability to be passionate about something guarantees many happy moments in life.
Important! The Center for Positive Psychology also found that the level of a person’s health and productivity directly depends on positive emotions, absorption in work and meaningfulness.
Positive psychology also studies the positive phenomena and institutions in society (such as democracy and the family) that promote the development of the best human qualities. Things like faith in goodness, hope, love are especially important in difficult times.
How to deal with negative thoughts
Another key aspect of positive thinking is that positive thinking is not about eliminating all negativity from your life. There are negative events in our lives, you will make mistakes and fail. However, it is important to strike a balance between being aware of reality, accepting your surroundings, and thinking optimistically.
To maintain this balance, try to adhere to the following recommendations:
- Follow the guide to developing positive thinking , which we'll talk about a little further.
- Learn about your thinking style . Do you think logically or emotionally? Are you focused on the short term or the long term? Do positive or negative thoughts predominate in your head? Identifying all of this will help you understand how your mind works before you start changing it.
- Watch out for negative thoughts . View negative thoughts as something interesting rather than something harmful. When a negative thought comes, try writing it down and thinking about it for a few minutes. Why did this idea arise? Why do you look at this thing negatively? How can you turn this thought into something positive?
Positive Psychology: Definition and Brief History
Positive psychology is a special psychological direction that studies the positive aspects of the human psyche. If classical psychology focuses on problems and pathologies, then the subject of positive psychology research is everything that helps a person achieve happiness.
The basis for the emergence of this direction of psychological science was humanistic psychology and the ideas of its supporters, such as Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Gordon Allport and others. According to one opinion, the first person to use the concept of “positive psychology” was Maslow (work “Motivation and Personality”). But in the middle of the 20th century, quite a few psychologists already said that it was time for scientists to focus their efforts not on pathologies and diseases, but on stimulating mental health.
The foundation of the direction of positive psychology belongs to the American psychologist Martin Seligman, who later became president of the American Psychological Association. He became famous for his research into the treatment of depression, as well as the unusual history of the experiments he conducted, as a result of which he discovered the phenomenon of “learned helplessness.” These experiments served as a prerequisite for the emergence of a new direction.
Lifehack on how to learn to think positively
Replace the particle “NOT” in your speech. Listen to how much negation there is in our speech. Just translate, if possible, the expression from “not” to the same meaning, but without negation. Look at the list:
- I can't - I'll try, I'll try
- If I'm unlucky, I'll take a risk, and maybe I'll be lucky
- Do not violate - comply
- I'm not lying - I'm telling the truth
- I don’t want to get sick - I’m doing prevention
- I'm not sick - I'm healthy
- I don't want to be poor - I earn money
In almost all the proposed options, all changed proposals push for action. They involve some steps. This same action leads to the fact that not only thinking changes to positive, but also life for the better.
Track limiting beliefs (a whole list and what to do with them in a separate article), replace them with resource offers, affirmations (many examples here).
With this positive attitude, you change yourself and your environment.
It might be interesting to read how you can visualize your desire or, for example, how to make a wish map.
