by
Menerva Melad , Account Executive, Key Accounts , Graphic Home Company
Understand the benefits of being a positive thinker. Choosing to think more positively will not only help you take control of your life and make your everyday experiences more pleasant, but it will have countless benefits on your mental and physical health as well as your ability to deal with change. Being aware of these benefits can help you be even more motivated to think positively on a regular basis.
Take responsibility for your attitude. Remember that you experience about50,000 to60,000 thoughts every single day of your life. And they're your thoughts –– nobody controls how you feel and think unless you let them. This might seem like a very challenging idea if you're used to absorbing the emotions and preferences of other people, but you're always making a choice to think positively or negatively.
Make a plan to stop being a negative thinker. That means deciding to conquer the negativity that is going on around you -- and there will always be plenty of it. Think of what you can do today that is good for you and others that is positive and constructive. Decide how you will react in ways that will make a difference to your life instead of allowing people and situations to dictate what you think and do. Here's how to have a bullet-proof game plan for positive thinking:
1. Determine Your Desired Outcome
The problem with many people is that they really don't know what they want out of life or a particular situation. Take a moment a decide what it really is that you want out of a life event. Clear intentions yield clear results while fuzzy desires yield fuzzy results.2. Make A List of Things Your Are Grateful For
Tony Robbins, well known life coach and motivational speaker, says that no matter how much money you may have in your accounts, if you are not grateful, you are poor. Gratitude is an amazing emotion in that it is almost impossible to feel negative thoughts when you are focusing on things you are grateful for.
If you make a list of10 things that you are grateful for everyday, you will put yourself in a very positive mind set that will last your entire day.3. Learn to Count to5
Most of us spend our lives reacting to events. How we react is usually governed by how we either learned to react or have reacted to similar events in our past. But simply reacting does not allow any room for creative and targeted thinking,
Next time you find yourself in a situation that presents a challenge to your decision to be more positive, hold your reaction and count to5. This brief break will give you the opportunity to decide how you want to respond, instead of simply reacting.4. Cut Back on the Nightly News
Whichever nightly news program you prefer, you probably are aware of how much negative news is reported. Expose yourself to an abundance of negativity and, like it or not, you will begin to be more negative.
Negativity is like a drug. The more you expose yourself to negativity and negative people, the more you adopt negativity into your life.
Instead, try to surround yourself with positive people and positive exposures. If you absolutely must know what's going on in the world, read the headlines on an Internet news stream and only read those stories that really effect your world.5. Take Care of Yourself
The benefits of exercise, a healthy diet and getting enough sleep have been well documented. But just knowing about all the benefits does nothing for you unless you actually take action.
Daily action!
Someone who can exercise but who chooses not to is no better off than someone who cannot exercise. Daily exercise, when coupled with a healthy diet and enough rest can do wonders for your outlook. When you feel good, it really takes effort to make yourself feel bad.6. Track Your Progress
As with any goal, the person who you become as you progress towards your goal is more important than accomplishing the goal itself. As you move towards being a positive thinker, expect that you will have as many "negative thinking" days as you do "positive focused" days. But unless you keep track of your progress, you may not even realize that the numbers of days are shifting more towards the positive and away from the negative.
Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviour. Keep your behaviour positive because your behaviour becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
