Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 3: Start with yourself
• Part 2 of 3: Surround Yourself with Positive Influence
• Part 3 of 3: Avoid Negative Influences
• Tips
• Warnings

When we think of the word "positive," most of us most likely mean "happy." However, happiness is not only a type of positivity. There are many ways to be more positive in life, even when you are feeling sad, angry, or difficult in life. Research shows that we have a powerful ability to choose positive emotions and ways of thinking. Indeed, our emotions literally change the body at the cellular level. Much of our life experience is the result of how we interpret and react to our environment. Fortunately, instead of suppressing or trying to "get rid" of negative feelings, we can choose how to interpret and respond to them in different ways. You will find that with practice, patience, and persistence, you can become more positive.

Steps

Part 1 of 3: Start with yourself

1. 1 Understand the problem. You cannot change the way you think if you cannot (or are not going to) identify the problem. Acknowledging that you have negative thoughts and feelings, and that you are not enjoying the way you are currently responding to them, will help you begin the process of change.
   • Try not to judge yourself for thoughts and feelings. Remember, you cannot really control the thoughts that arise and the sensations that you experience. They are not inherently "good" or "bad", they are simply thoughts and feelings. What you are can you control is how you interpret and react to them.
   • Accept everything about yourself that you cannot change. For example, if you are an uncommunicative person who needs privacy to “recharge,” then trying to be an extrovert all the time is likely to make you feel drained and unhappy. Accept yourself as you are now, just as you are. Then you can feel free to develop that yourself into the most positive self that you can be!
2. 2 Set goals. Goals give us a more positive outlook on life. Research has shown that setting goals will immediately make you feel more confident and secure, even if you may not achieve them right away. Setting goals that are personally meaningful to you and aligned with your values ​​will help you achieve them and move forward in life.
   • Start small in goal setting. Don't set high, sometimes hard-to-reach goals right away. The quieter you go, the further you'll get. Your goals should be specific. The goal of “being more positive” is great, but it’s so overwhelming that you probably have no idea where to start. Instead, set small, specific goals, such as "meditate twice a week" or "smile at a stranger once a day."
   • Formulate your goals positively. Research proves that you are more likely to achieve a goal if you express it positively. In other words, make your goals like this, over which you work rather than trying to avoid. For example: “Stop eating junk food” is a useless goal. It evokes feelings of shame or guilt. “Eat 3 servings of fruits and vegetables every day” is specific and positive.
   • Your goals should be based on your own actions. Remember, you cannot control someone else. If you set goals that require some response from others, you may end up feeling overwhelmed if things don't go the way you hoped. Instead, set goals that depend on what you you can control - your own behavior.
3. 3 Practice Kindness Meditation. Also known as metta bhavana or "compassion meditation", this type of meditation is rooted in Buddhist traditions. She teaches you to spread the feeling of love that you already feel to your closest family members and to show it to others in the world. It has also been shown to increase resilience - your ability to recover from negative experiences - and your relationships with those around you in just a few weeks. You can see the beneficial effects by practicing it for as little as five minutes a day.
   • Many places offer courses in compassion meditation. You can also browse the net for step-by-step meditations in MP3 format. In the community, the Center for Meditative Mind and the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center have compassion meditations available for free download.
   • It turns out that compassion meditation is beneficial for your mental health as well. Research has shown that compassionate meditation reduces signs of depression, suggesting that learning to be compassionate for others can also help you develop compassion for yourself.
4. 4 Keep a diary. Recent research suggests that there is actually a mathematical formula for positivity: Three positive emotions for every negative one seems to keep you in a healthy balance. Keeping a journal will help you see the variety of emotions throughout the day and determine where your own balance needs to be adjusted. It can also help you focus on your positive experiences so that you are more likely to remember them for the future.
   • Keeping a journal shouldn't be just a list of things you didn't like.Research shows that focusing only on negative emotions and experiences in a journal can reinforce them and make you feel more negative.
   • Instead, write down everything you felt without judging it as good or bad. For example, a negative experience might look like this: "Today I was upset when a coworker made fun of my weight."
   • Then, think about your reaction. How have you reacted so far? How would you decide to react now, after a little time? For example: “At that moment I felt terrible, as if I was worthless. Now, remembering this, I understand that a colleague says tactless things to everyone. No one else can characterize me or my importance. Only I can do this. "
   • Think about how you can use this experience as a teaching. How can you use this for personal growth? What will you do next time? For example: “Next time, if someone says something offensive, I will remember that his judgments do not characterize me. In addition, I will tell my colleague that his remarks are tactless and offend my feelings, so I remember how important my feelings are. "
   • Don't forget to include the positives in your journal as well! Taking even a few seconds to notice a stranger's kindness, a beautiful sunset, or a pleasant conversation with a friend can help you “store” those memories for later retrieval. If you don’t focus on them, they will probably pass your attention.
5. 5 Practice active gratitude. Appreciation is more than feeling, This action... Dozens of studies have shown that gratitude is good for you. This changes your outlook almost immediately, and the more you practice, the faster the benefits continue to grow. Gratitude helps you feel more positive, enriches your relationships with others, encourages compassion, and increases feelings of happiness.
   • Some people naturally develop more gratitude traits, the natural state of being grateful. However, you can cultivate a “grateful behavior” no matter how much you have a “gratitude trait”!
   • In relationships and situations, avoid approaching as if you "deserved" something from them. This is not means that you think you do not deserve anything, and does not mean that you put up with mistreatment or disrespect. It just means that you should try to approach everything without relying on the fact that you "have the right" to a certain result, action or benefit.
   • Share your gratitude with others. Sharing your feelings of gratitude with others will help you “cement” those feelings in your memory. It can also awaken positive feelings in the people you share with. See if you have a friend to be your “gratitude partner,” and each day share three things that you are grateful for each other.
   • Make an effort to acknowledge all the small positive things that have happened during the day. Write them down in a journal, take a photo to post on Instagram, tweet about them - anything that helps you recognize and remember these little aspects that you are grateful for. For example, if your blueberry pancakes were a success, or there was little traffic on your way to work, or your friend compliments your suit, take note of these things! They build up quickly.
   • Enjoy these pleasant moments. People have a bad tendency to focus on negative things and let the positive pass us by. When you notice positive things in your life, take a moment to consciously acknowledge them. Try to "store them" in your memory.For example, if you see a beautiful flower garden during your daily walk, stop for a moment and say to yourself, "This is a wonderful moment, and I want to remember how grateful I am for it." Try to take a soulful "snapshot" of this moment. This will help you later remember all of these things when difficult times or negative experiences come along.
6. 6 Use self-affirmation. Self-assertions may seem a little boring, but research shows they work at a fundamental level; they can actually form new bundles of "positive thought" neurons. Remember, your brain loves to use shortcut paths, and it will shorten to use the most frequently used paths. If you get into the regular habit of saying empathetic words to yourself, your brain will come to perceive it as "normal." Positive self-talk and self-attitudes reduce stress and depression, boost the immune system, and improve the ability to grasp things on the fly.
   • Choose settings that are meaningful to you personally. You can choose attitudes that show compassion for your body, for your thoughts about yourself, or to remind you of spiritual traditions. Do whatever makes you feel positive and balanced!
   • For example, you can say something like: "My body is healthy and my mind is beautiful", or "Today I will try very hard to be kind" or "Today my deity / spiritual image is with me, since I finished the day."
   • If you are having difficulty in a particular area, try to actively focus on finding a positive attitude in that area. For example, if you have problems with your appearance, try saying something like, "I am handsome and strong" or "I can learn to love myself as I love others" or "I am worthy of love and respect."
7. 7 Develop optimism. In the 1970s, researchers found that people who won the lottery - an event most of us find incredibly positive - were no happier in a year than those who did not. This is due to hedonic adaptation: people have an “original level” of happiness, to which we return after external events (good or bad). However, even if your natural baseline level is quite low, you can actively cultivate optimism. Optimism boosts your self-esteem, your overall sense of well-being, and your relationship with others.
   • Optimism is a way of understanding the world. Thanks to the flexibility of the human brain, you can learn different ways of understanding! Pessimistic predictions see the world in unchanging, internalized conditions: "Everything is unfair," "I can never change that," "My life sucks, and this is my fault." An optimistic outlook sees the world in flexible, constrained terms.
   • For example, a pessimistic view might look at the big cello concert next week and say, “I suck at the cello. I'll ruin the concert anyway. I could just as well just play the Nintendo game console. " By this statement, you are assuming that cello playing skills are innate and permanent, and not something that you can influence with effort. By doing this, you also blame yourself globally - "I suck at playing the cello" - which makes you think your cello skills are personal failure and not a skill that takes practice. This pessimistic outlook may mean that you are not practicing cello because you think it is pointless, or you feel guilty because you are “bad” at something. Neither is useful.
   • An optimistic outlook on life would approach this situation like this: “This concert will take place next week, and I'm not happy with the way I'm playing now. I will rehearse an extra hour every day before the concert and will do my best.This is all I can do, but at least I will know that I have worked as hard as I could to succeed. " Optimism does not claim that there are no difficulties and negative experiences. He chooses to interpret them in different ways.
   • There is a big difference between real optimism and blind optimism. Blind optimism expects you to take the cello for the first time and enter the Juilliard School. This is unrealistic, and such expectations will lead to disappointment. True optimism recognizes the reality of your situation and allows you to prepare to face it. A truly optimistic outlook, on the other hand, might expect you to try hard for several years, and even so. Maybe you will not go to the school of your dreams, but you will do your best to achieve your goal.
8. 8 Learn to reformulate negative experiences. One of the mistakes people make is trying to avoid or ignore negative experiences. It makes sense, on a certain level, because it is painful. However, trying to suppress or ignore these experiences actually destroys your ability to cope with them. Instead, consider how you can reimagine this experience. Can he teach you something? Can you look at him differently?
   • For example, consider the inventor Mishkin Ingawale. In a 2012 TED talk, Ingawale told the story of the invention of technology to save the lives of pregnant women in rural India. The first 32 times he tried to invent his device, it didn't work. Over and over again, he was faced with the opportunity to interpret his experience as bad and give up. However, he decided to use this experience to learn from past failures, and now his discovery has helped to reduce the mortality rate of pregnant women in rural India by 50%.
   • As another example, consider Dr. Victor Frankl, who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. Despite the fact that he had to face the worst stratum of humanity, Dr. Frankl made a choice and perceived his situation with his own eyes: “Everything can be taken from a person, except for one thing: human freedom to the end - to choose an attitude under any given set of circumstances, choose your own path ".
   • Instead of allowing yourself to immediately react negatively to difficulties and negative experiences, take a step back and assess the situation. What really went wrong? What's at stake? What can you learn from this experience so that you can do it differently next time? Has this experience taught you to be kinder, more generous, wiser, stronger? By taking a moment to reflect on the experience instead of automatically accepting it as negative, you can rethink it.
9. 9 Use your body. Your body and mind are very much connected. If you are having difficulty feeling positive, it’s possible because your body is working against you. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy has proven that even your posture can affect your body's stress hormone levels. Try to stand up straight. Spread your shoulders back and your chest forward. Look straight ahead. Take up your space. This is called the "domineering pose" and it actually helps you feel more confident and optimistic.
   • Smile. Research shows that when you smile - whether you "feel" happy or not - your brain lifts your spirits. In particular, this is true if you apply Duchenne smile, which activates the muscles around the eyes and mouth. People who smiled during a painful medical procedure even report having less pain than those who did not.
   • Dress to express yourself. What you put on affects how you feel.One study found that people wearing white coats performed better on a simple scientific task than people without robes - although the only difference was in the robe! Find clothes that make you feel good and wear them no matter what society says about it. And don't get hung up on paying special attention to your size with any meaning: clothing sizes are fully subjective, and size 4 in one store is size 12 in another. Remember, random numbers do not determine your value in any way!
10. 10 Get exercise. During exercise, your body releases powerful endorphins, natural “feel-good” substances. Exercise helps combat feelings of anxiety and depression. Plus, research has shown that regular, moderate exercise can give you a sense of calm and well-being.
    • Aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity each day.
    • You don't need to be a bodybuilder to get the benefits of exercise. Even with mediocre exercise like jogging, swimming or gardening, you can feel more positive overall.
    • Exercises that include meditation, such as yoga and tai chi, can help you feel more positive and improve your overall health.
11. 11 Create life from within. If you want to be more successful, focus on all the ways in which you are already successful. If you want more love, focus on all the people caring for you and the abundance of love you can share with others. If you want to achieve great health, focus on all the ways that already make you healthy, and so on and so forth.
12. 12 Don't worry about the little things. In life, everyone is faced with things that seem important at that moment, but in fact are not a problem if we go back and have correct representation. Research has shown that material things that make you sad won't actually make you happy. In fact, focusing on things is often a way to compensate for other unfulfilled needs. Research shows that we need five basic things to thrive in life:
    • Positive emotions
    • Participation (to participate or be really involved in something)
    • Relationships with others
    • Meaning
    • Achievement
    • Remember, you can define what all these things mean to you! Don't get hung up on what others have defined as "meaning" or "achievement." If you don't find personal meaning in what you do and how you act, you won't feel good about it. Material objects, fame and money really not will make you happy.

Part 2 of 3: Surround Yourself with Positive Influence

1. 1 Use the law of attraction. Your actions and thoughts are positive or negative, like magnets. Since we do not solve the problem, it continues - or gets worse. Our own negativity rules the day. But the more we think positively, the more actively we will act and achieve goals and ways to overcome and accept positive options - and this will bear fruit. In fact, positive thoughts can even boost your immune system!
2. 2 Do what you like. It sounds simple, but sometimes it is difficult to accomplish. Your life can be very busy, so make a few activities in your day that make you happy all the time. These may include:
   • Listening to music. Listen to music in your favorite genre.
   • Reading. Reading is very helpful. It even teaches empathy. And if you read popular science literature, it will help you learn new information and broaden your horizons.
   • Creative expression such as painting, writing, origami, and so on.
   • Sports, hobbies and the like.
   • Chatting with family and friends.
   • Inspiration. Research shows that the feelings of awe and wonder you get when walking in nature, watching a stunning movie, or listening to your favorite symphony are great for your health, physically and mentally. Whenever possible, always find ways to add a little miracle to your life.
3. 3 Surround yourself with friends. Appreciate people in your life who were with you in sorrow and in joy. Enlist their support to help you become more positive, and in the process, you will probably help them too. Friends help each other, both in good times and in difficult times.
   • Research shows that people who surround themselves with friends with similar values ​​and attitudes are much more likely to feel happy and positive than those who do not.
   • Being with the people you love helps your brain release neurotransmitters that make you feel happy (dopamine) and relaxed (serotonin). Spending time with friends or loved ones will actually make you feel more chemically positive!
   • In addition, you can encourage your friends and loved ones to become your grateful partners. If you are contributing to the development of a network where you share all the things that you are grateful for, imagine the positivity you can help develop each other!
4. 4 Show compassion for others. Compassion means doing good to others, especially if this person is less fortunate in life than you. It can really boost your positivity. For example, research has shown that when people donate to charity, they feel as happy as if they received the money themselves! Think of ways you can serve others, whether on an individual level or within your community, and practice showing compassion. Not only does it benefit those around you, it’s also good for your health!
   • Like attracts. If we do something good to someone, especially unexpectedly, then it is more likely that that person will repay with courtesy, perhaps not to ourselves, but to someone else. Eventually, directly or indirectly, it will come back to us. Some call it karma... Whatever it is called, scientific research has shown that the pay-up principle is a real thing.
   • Try tutoring, volunteering, or ask the church how you can help.
   • Give a microloan to someone in need. A microloan of just a few dollars will help a person from a developing country develop their business or become economically independent. And besides, the majority of microcredits have a repayment percentage of 95% or more.
   • Try to give small gifts to people around you, even strangers. Buy a cup of coffee for a random person in line. Send something mentally done to your friend. Giving gifts stimulates the production of dopamine in the brain - in fact, you can get even more "happiness" from it than the person who received the gift!
5. 5 Find an upbeat quote or dictum and keep it in your wallet or pocket. When you are a little unsure or feel like you need inspiration, reach out to her. Here are some famous quotes to start with:
   • How wonderful it is that you don't have to wait a minute before starting to improve the world. - Anne Frank
   • The optimist claims that we live in the best possible world, and the pessimist fears that this is true. - James Branch Cabell
   • The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change their future simply by changing their attitude. - Oprah Winfrey
   • If your inner voice says: "You can't draw," then be sure to draw, and this voice will be silenced. - Vincent Van Gogh
6. 6 See a psychotherapist. It is a common misconception that people “need” to see a counselor or doctor only when something is “wrong”. But look: you go to the dentist for teeth whitening, even when you don't have caries. You visit your doctor for yearly checkups, even if you are not sick. Seeing a doctor can also be a useful “preventative” measure. And if you want to learn how to think and behave more positively, a doctor or counselor can help you identify useless patterns in your thinking and develop new positive strategies.
   • You can ask your doctor for a recommendation or look for a specialist online.
   • There are often inexpensive options. Search the net for mental hospitals, local health centers, even community counseling centers at colleges and universities.

Part 3 of 3: Avoid Negative Influences

1. 1 Avoid negative influences. People are very sensitive to "emotional contamination," which means that the feelings of those around us affect our own. Stay away from bad behavior and negativity so that it doesn't take its toll on you.
   • Choose your friends wisely. The friends we surround ourselves with can have a limitless influence on our views, both good and bad. If your friends are always behaving negatively, consider sharing your own positivity process with them. Encourage them to learn ways to be positive. If they still tend to be negative, you may need to separate from them for your own good.
   • Do only what is convenient for you. If you are uncomfortable doing something, then most likely you will feel bad, guilty, or constrained. This is not conducive to a positive experience. Learning to say no when you don't feel like doing something will help you feel stronger and more at ease with yourself. This is true in relationships with friends and family, as well as in work situations.
2. 2 Question negative thoughts. It is very easy to fit into a pattern of “automatic” or habitual negative thinking, especially about yourself. We can become our own harsh critics. Whenever you encounter a negative thought, take your time and challenge it. Try to turn it into a positive thought, or look for logical flaws in it. Doing this for long periods of time will become habitual and will make a huge contribution to improving your positive thinking skills. Say "I can!" more often than "I can't!" Remember, everything can be expressed positively; make unremitting efforts to do so
   • For example, if you get angry and take on a friend, your instinct might be, "I'm a terrible person." This is a cognitive bias: it creates a general statement about a particular case. It fosters feelings of guilt, but nothing that you can use and learn.
   • Instead, take responsibility for your actions and think about what you should do in return. For example: “I snapped at a friend and this probably offended her feelings. I was wrong. I will apologize to her, and next time I will ask you to take a break when we are discussing something serious. " This way of thinking does not generalize you as “terrible,” but as someone who made a mistake and can learn and grow from it.
   • If you find yourself haunted by negative thoughts about yourself (or those around you), make it a habit to find three positive things about yourself for each negative one. For example, if the thought comes up that you are “stupid,” challenge that thought with three positive ones: “I have a thought that I’m stupid. But just last week I finished a big project with rave reviews. I have solved difficult problems in the past.I'm a talented person and it's just that I'm having a hard time right now. "
   • Even when we don't get what we want, we gain valuable experience. Experience is often much more valuable than material things. The material dries up, but the experience remains with us, grows, throughout our life.
   • Most situations have both positive and negative aspects. We we choose which of them we will focus on. We can try to catch ourselves with negative thoughts and try to think the other way around.
   • There is no point in worrying about something negative if we cannot change it. Life is sometimes "unfair." This is because life "is" life. If we spend energy and our happiness on things that we cannot change, we only make ourselves more disappointed in life.
3. 3 Deal with past traumas. If you are constantly feeling unhappy, upset, or negative, there may be problems at the root of all of this that need to be dealt with. Seek professional help in dealing with emotional trauma issues, such as past abuse, exposure to stress, natural disasters, grief or loss of a loved one.
   • If you can, find a qualified psychiatrist, in particular, who specializes in treating trauma. Working with a counselor or doctor on your injuries can be challenging, even painful, but in the end you will become stronger and more positive.
4. 4 Don't be afraid of failure. To paraphrase Franklin Roosevelt, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. We will fall and make mistakes. It counts how we go back again. If we expect to succeed, but not fear failure, we have every chance of staying positive throughout it.

Tips

• When you feel like you’re about to break out, take a deep breath, count to 10, drink some water, and smile. Even if the smile is forced, it is still a smile, and it will make you feel better. Focus on the good.
• Look in the mirror every morning and think of the five good qualities you have.
• Do not give up. Good habits can be replaced by bad ones through continuous persistence.
• Cultivate positive thinking for deliberate reasons - to improve the quality of your life and the lives of those around you.
• Remember that we are in control of our thoughts. If we think negatively, we can always change that by thinking about something positive.
• Create a "sunny" folder to store cards and letters from friends and family. Look in the folder when you feel overwhelmed; Remind yourself that people care about you. These people love and care for you. It is hard to be sad if you know that you are bringing joy to so many people.
• Progress is success. If you positively attract events within yourself - in your thoughts - then there is no goal in which you cannot make progress. Our attracted goals are strong.
• Stimulate others. It's hard to be pessimistic when you're trying to cheer up someone else.
• When you are not in the mood to reflect on something, but want some comfort from negative feelings, just try looking at a few positive pictures or images of happiness on the Internet.
• Kindness will enable you to defend your position and be more positive.
• Don't beat yourself up for everything! See what worked and what didn't work, and remember that next time.
• Think about what you did to make the person happy or what you did to help the person. Think about when you helped someone in a difficult or simple situation. In order to feel useful, you can do something nice to the other person, which will not only make them happy, but also make you feel better.

Warnings

• Beware of those who do not want to be positive. Use the experience of positive people as a guide.
• There will always be someone who will condemn you for something. Don't let this attitude bother you. Remember that the only person you need to please is you.