Start every day with
positive thinking!
How
you start the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. Have you ever
woken up late, panicked, and then felt like nothing good happened the rest of
the day? This is likely because you started out the day with a negative emotion
and a pessimistic view that carried into every other event you experienced.
Instead of letting this dominate you, start every day with positive
affirmations.
Strengthen your
memory for positive information.
Did you know that you may be able to increase your positiveness
just by memorizing lists of positive words? It is because when you force your
brain to use positive words frequently, you make these words more accessible,
more connected and more easily activated in your brain. So when you go to
retrieve a word or ideas from your memory, positive ones will come to the
top more easily.
Strengthen your brain's
ability to work with positive information.
Once your
brain has built strong neural networks for positive words, try to
extend these networks by asking your brain to use positive information in new
ways. For example, you could memorize positive words and set an alarm that
reminds you to recall these words, in reverse order, an hour later.
You could print out these words on cards, cut them
into two pieces, shuffle them all together and then find each card's match. For
example, the word "laughter"
would be cut into "laug" and "hter." To match the word
pieces, your brain has to search through lots of positive information to find
what it is looking for. This positive memory recall task may make it
easier when you try to think positive.
Strengthen your
brain's ability to pay attention to the positive.
Are you one of those people who notices the bad stuff - like
when someone cuts you off in the traffic or your food does not taste quite as
good as you wanted it to? In that event, you most likely have trained your
brain to focus on the negative and your brain has become really good at it. It
can be really challenging to undo this training. So instead, train your brain
to be even better at focusing on the positive.
Condition yourself to
experience random moments of positiveness.
Did you
know that you can condition yourself for positiveness? If you have ever taken
an introduction to a psychology course, you would have probably
heard about the study of Pavlov's dog. Here is a quick refresher:
Pavlov
had a dog. Pavlov would ring a bell to tell his dog that it was almost feeding
time. Like most dogs, Pavlov's dog would get really excited when he was about
to get fed. So he'd drool all over the place. What happened? Well, suddenly
Pavlov's dog started getting excited just by the sound of that bell, even when
food was not present. Eating food and the sound of the bell became linked in
the dog’s brain. Something as meaningless as a bell was now making the dog
excited.
This effect is called classical conditioning. It is the idea
that when two stimuli are repeatedly paired, the response that was first
elicited by the second stimulus (food) is now elicited by the first stimulus
alone (the bell). This happens all the time without us even realizing it. For
example, the favourite food for many of us is something that we ate as a child
with our families. What likely happened was the positive feelings of being
with family and the particular food got paired in our brains. As a result, we
now get the warm-fuzzy feelings that we got from spending time with
family just from eating the food alone, even if our family is not
currently present when we eat it.
Although
your environment is conditioning you to react in some particular ways all the
time, if you know what you are doing, you can use classical conditioning
to boost your positiveness. You do exactly what Pavlov did. You just repeatedly
link boring things (like a bell ringing) with positive thoughts and feelings
over and over again. Pretty soon, these boring things will generate
positiveness automatically. That is classical conditioning at work. This can
help you think positively because when you are going about your life, maybe
even feeling annoyed about stresses or challenges, you will have these
little positive moments that keep you energized and in a good mood.
Think positive, but not too much
and think negative when you need to.
Of
course, thinking positive has its benefits. But thinking positive is not always
the best response. Negative thoughts sometimes have benefits, too.
When we are sad or grieving, thinking negative thoughts and
showing the emotions that these thoughts create helps us communicate to others
that we need their support and kindness. When we are treated unfairly and
get angry, our thoughts can help motivate us to take corrective action, make
changes in our lives and change the world. Casually pushing these negative
emotions aside without seriously considering their origins can have negative
consequences. So, when you focus on the negative, ask yourself, is this
negative emotion resulting in an action that improves your life? If so, then
keep it. If not, then work on changing it.
Practice gratitude.
We will be the first to admit that there are an infinite number
of things to be angry, sad or anxious about. But the truth is
that there are also an infinite number of things to feel passionate, joyful and
excited about. It is up to us to decide which we want to focus on.
One way to train your brain to focus on the positive is to
practice gratitude. Gratitude is when we feel or express
thankfulness for the people, things and experiences we have. When we
express gratitude at work, we can more easily gain the respect and camaraderie
of those we work with. When we are grateful for our partners or friends, they
are more generous and kinder to us. When we are grateful for the little things
in our day-to-day lives, we find more meaning and satisfaction in our lives.
Savour the good
moments.
Too often we let the good moments pass, without truly
celebrating them. Maybe your friend gives you a small gift or a colleague
makes you laugh. Do you stop to notice and appreciate these small pleasures
that life has to offer? If not, then you could benefit from savouring the
good moments.
Savouring just means holding onto the good thoughts and emotions
we have. You can savour by holding on to the emotions you are feeling in
positive moments. Or you can savour by thinking about positive
experiences from the past. Savouring is a great way to develop a long-lasting
stream of positive thoughts and emotions.
Generate positive
emotions by watching fun videos.
The broaden-and-build theory suggests that experiencing positive
emotions builds our psychological, intellectual and social resources, allowing
us to benefit more from our experiences. So how do we infuse our lives with
small bursts of positive emotion?
One way is to watch positive or fun videos. Watching
cat videos or inspirational videos can generate a quick boost of positive
emotions that can help fuel an upward spiral of positive emotions. Just be sure
to mentally hang onto the positive emotions that emerge, through strategies
like savouring, so that you take your good mood with you when you leave the
couch. And be careful not to get sucked in for too long or you may end up
feeling guilty for not getting more done.
Stop minimizing your
successes.
We have a bad habit of downplaying our successes and not fully
appreciating our wins. For example, we may say, “Anyone could memorize
these positive words,” or “I didn’t increase my happiness as much as I wanted
to.” But this fails to recognize the effort that you have put in - effort that
not everyone would put in.
These phrases minimize your small successes instead of celebrating them.
We struggle with this one a lot. People may praise you for
building your own business - a business that helps people increase their
happiness and well-being. But you would say, “Anyone could do it. I just got
lucky.” This kind of thinking downplays all the small efforts you put in
to make your business successful. Anyone could have done it,
but they did not; I did.
The same
is true for you. Even reading this post all the way to this point means you are
putting effort to improve your ability to think positive. Give yourself some
credit for that. As you pursue positive thinking, happiness, or well-being -
whatever your goal is - take note of your wins. After every small win,
celebrate a little bit.
Stop all-or-nothing
thinking.
All-or-nothing
thinking is when we view a situation as all good or all bad. This is another
tough negative thinking habit to overcome. For example, you might
think you are a failure because you have not been particularly successful at
helping kids cultivate the skills that help them think positive and increase
happiness.
On the other hand, you may have had great success in working
with businesses to help them develop their happiness applications, writing
content for these products and courses and selling workbooks to help
people to learn happiness skills. What do you think? Does this make you a
failure or success? If you were prone to all-or-nothing thinking, then you have
to choose one or the other.
There is always room for improvement but be careful not to start thinking you are a complete failure just because you are not a complete success in all the ways you had hoped to be. You win some, you lose some. That is life!!!
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