How To Become More Positive To Attract Positivity

Are you one of those people who jump out of bed in the morning? Do people flock to you and love being around you? Do you simply ooze positivity? That’s super tough to achieve. If you have gotten to that point in life, well done! However, if you do deal with a lot of negative and blue emotions, do not despair.

You don’t need to live your life battling through it. Luckily, there is a way to start changing your brain and your behavior to become more positive and start finding the positive in everything you do.

Understanding positive thinking and self-talk

In essence, positive thinking doesn’t mean that you are oblivious to life’s less pleasant situations. It doesn’t mean that you ignore the bad things that can happen to you and around you either. Instead, it means that you have the ability to approach unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. This enables you to handle difficult situations effectively.

Positive thinking often starts with self-talk. Self-talk is the endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head. Yes, you are not crazy, everyone has it. But what is important is how you are talking to yourself and what you are saying. These automatic thoughts can be positive or negative. And you are in control of it. So, some of your self-talk comes from logic and reason, while another portion of it might be purely emotional-based.

Some self-talk may arise from misconceptions that you create yourself. This can be due to a lack of information or even from past negative expectations.

The fact is that, if the majority of your thoughts are mostly negative, your outlook on life is more pessimistic. The same can be said if your thoughts are mostly positive, you’re likely an optimist.

The health benefits of positive thinking

It’s important to know that being highly positive or highly negative can actually impact your health. How so? Studies show that personality traits such as optimism and pessimism can affect many areas of your health and well-being.

This all centers around stress and anxiety levels, which in turn, impact your health.

So, what are the benefits of being positive?

• A longer life span;
• Lower rates and periods of depression;
• Lower levels of distress and pain;
• Greater resistance to illnesses and disease due to increased immune functioning;
• Overall increased psychological and physical well-being;
• Better cardiovascular health;
• Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease and stroke, cancer, respiratory conditions, and overall infections;
• And improved coping skills during hardships and stressful times.

Although it is thought that a more positive outlook is beneficial for your overall health, it hasn’t been completely proven yet.

One theory does state that being positive helps you to cope better with stressful situations. In turn, this lowers the stress and anxiety and the damage that does to your body.

The second theory states that more positive and optimistic people tend to live healthier lifestyles. So, they get in more exercise, follow a healthier diet, and don’t smoke or drink alcohol in excess. And this has great benefits for your body.

How to be more positive: 3 helpful ways

There are a few things that you can do to become more positive. Follow the steps below and, little by little, you’ll notice how your life starts changing for the better!

1. Identifying negative thinking

Firstly, look at how much negative self-talk you engage in on a daily basis. Interestingly, they come in different forms.

• Filtering: this is focusing on the negative aspects of a situation. This can actually filter out all the positive ones and overwhelm you with negativity. A great example is if you had a great day at work and got through your to-do list. But if you get home and realize you forgot one task and magnify on that, this is filtering.
• Personalizing: this is blaming yourself instantly when something bad occurs. For example, if your friend cancels an evening out and you immediately think it was because of you.
• Catastrophizing: you automatically anticipate the worst before you have all of the facts. Think of it as getting an email from your boss setting up a one-on-one and immediately thinking that you are in trouble.
• Blaming: this is shifting responsibility onto someone else. You avoid being responsible for your thoughts and feelings.
• Pre-Planning: is saying that you “should” do something. This is thinking of all of the things you should do and blaming yourself for not doing them.
• Magnifying: this is making a huge deal out of minor problems.
• Perfectionism: is setting yourself impossible standards to meet and beating yourself up for not reaching them.
• Polarizing: this is the action of only seeing things as either good or bad without a middle ground.

2. Focusing on positive thinking

Does all of this sound familiar? Well, the good news is that you can actually learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking.

The process is simple but it does take some time and practice. It’s basically about building new habits. Consider the following options:

• Identify areas to change: identify areas of your life that you usually think negatively about. Make a list of what impacts you — whether it’s work, your daily commute, life changes, or a relationship. Start by focusing on something small and then move to the next. You will see how easy it becomes.
• Check in yourself: take moments periodically during the day to just stop and evaluate what you’re thinking. This will give you time to check in and see what is negative and what is positive.
• Be open to humor: not everything needs to be so serious! Give yourself permission to smile or laugh. This is especially useful during difficult times. The more you can laugh at life, the less stressed you will feel.
• Follow a healthy lifestyle: this includes healthy eating, exercising, meditating, and sleeping. Try to exercise for about thirty minutes on most days of the week. This is a great way of positively affecting your mood and reducing stress. Try to also follow a healthy diet to fuel your mind and body.
• Surround yourself with positive people: who you surround yourself with is vital. Make sure those in your life are positive and supportive people. You want people that you can depend on. Negative people may increase your stress level and make you doubt your ability to manage stress in healthy ways.
• Practice positive self-talk: a great rule is “don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to anyone else.” Things like; you are stupid, you have messed up, you’re an idiot. All of this needs to be changed. Be gentle and encouraging with yourself.

3. Change your self talk

Here are some examples of negative self-talk and how you can apply a positive thinking twist to them. Try changing:

• “I’ve never done it before” to “it’s an opportunity to learn something new.”
• “It’s too complicated” to “I’ll try it from a different angle.”
• “I don’t have the resources” to “necessity is the mother of invention.”
• “I couldn’t fit it into my schedule to “let me re-prioritize.”
• “There’s no way it will work” to “I can try to make it work.”
• “It’s too radical a change” to “let’s take a chance.”

  You will see that, slowly but surely, you will become more optimistic. With that, you will be able to handle stressful situations better and be more constructive.

Optimize your mind for positivity today

Being optimistic and positive is actually just a build-up of habits. It will take a while, no doubt. But, after a few months, it will become easier and you will naturally start thinking more positively.

Start by changing a few of the core habits in your life first. Exercise more, eat better. If you feel like you are getting stressed out and feeling overwhelmed, look at doing some meditation or sound journeys.

Beginning.com offers a groundbreaking sound therapy experience. Open the app and tap on “journeys”. You’ll discover a library of soothing 3D sound journeys to help you unwind and cultivate a positive mindset.