Three Steps to Positive Thoughts
“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” ~ Willie Nelson
Are you guilty of exaggerating a bad moment into a bad life? It’s ok we’ve all been there before. However, if you continue to do this you will create a pattern that’s impossible to break. Do you really want to be the person who walks around all mopey and negative, wining about how life sucks and how you can never catch a break? While breaking this habit may seem impossible it’s not. There are ways to stop being negative and to even break the behaviors before they begin.
The first step to changing your life and controlling your reactions is to reframe your mindset.
I know what you’re thinking…
What the heck does she mean when she says reframe your mindset? Your mindset, or your set of fixed beliefs, controls your thoughts and your reactions. A positive mind will always attract more positive. However, if you’ve established the pattern of reacting negatively to life’s experiences and challenges then you will continue to react negatively. But the good news is that with a little help and a lot of hard work you can change your thoughts and your reactions.
Are you ready to start thinking positive thoughts?
Practice the Pause
At times, life can come racing at us like a speeding bullet. It appears to be unraveling and spiraling out of control but it’s not. It’s just how life happens and the truth is the way it unfolds can often be beautiful but we never see the beauty if were only trying to control the outcome. We have to remember that while we cannot control life we can control how we react to it. And the best way to be able to clear our minds and react appropriately is by practicing the pause. Take a couple of deep breaths, or a calming stance. Center your body and your mind so that you don’t react uncontrollably to life. Remember what can be seen as negative today is often looked back at as life’s greatest gift.
Practice Positivity
If you’ve lived a life in the negative the positive will not come easy. It will take lots and lots of practice. So what do you do? You must begin by allowing your mind to think about good instead of bad. A good way to start this would be to spend five minutes when you wake up and five minutes before you go to bed journaling about positive outcomes. Think about all of the times in your life where your struggles turned into triumphs. Think about the time you wasted being stressed on outcomes that were uncontrollable. Could you have used that time in a better way?
Practice Gratitude
Often in life we spend so much time working towards what we want that we forget what we already have. The problem with this is if we can’t appreciate what we already have how are we ever going to be able to appreciate more. But I need you to know this. I am not telling you to stop working towards your goals as humans we are meant to evolve. What I am suggesting to you is that you spend more time in the moment being grateful for what is there before you break the barriers and go to the next stage.
So there you have it. A positive life can be yours all you have to do is stop reacting to it and start responding to it.