So often in the psychology and mental health world you hear people focusing on negative thinking patterns, cognitive distortions, and how to confront them. This leaves little thought to the other end of the spectrum, positive thinking and the power of positive thinking patterns. Here are a few ways to adapt a positive thinking frame of mind and improve your outlook, health, and mood!
- Mindfulness: focusing on the here and now. Staying in the moment allows you to stay positive by avoiding the negative thoughts that can spiral when thinking about the past and future. Doing an activity such as meditation or yoga can help you remain in the moment and in the positive.
- Find the Good: even in negative situations, find the good and focus on it. It can be positive memories of a person that you are fighting with or lost, the pretty setting of a stressful event, or even the deliciousness of your morning coffee before a work day. If you look hard enough, you can find something good even in the worst.
- Focus on the Outcome: focus on what you want the outcome to be rather than what you fear it could be. Positive visualization will help you achieve the goal rather than defeat yourself with negative thinking. Stop the negative patterns before they happen with positive visualization and focus. For example, if you are applying for a job, visualize yourself holding that job and what that looks like.
- Surround Yourself with Positive: create an environment that encourages positive thinking rather than triggers negative thoughts. When you are happy and comfortable you are more likely to think positively and less likely to let those pesky negative thoughts in. This also goes for the people you surround yourself with. Positive people influence and create positive people. Identifying those in your life and creating a closer bond will help spread that positivity.
- Focus on Why You Should: rather than on why you shouldn’t. Those reasons will motivate positive progress and thinking, keeping away the negative thoughts before they even start.
