Positive thinking is a human characteristic, thanks to which a person turns into a kind of magnet for others.
This is easy to explain. After all, such people are always easy to communicate with, they give a good mood to those around them. In addition, people who think positively usually achieve great heights in life, they have excellent relationships in the family and at work.
A positive person is, first of all, one who is able to cope with his negative thoughts and turn them into a positive mood, despite the presence of difficulties and failures in life. Such individuals are always attractive to society. They charge those around them with their strength and give a positive attitude.
From the outside it seems that such ease of life is a gift. However, every person is capable of creating himself. You just have to ask yourself the question: how to set yourself up for positivity, and you can say that the first step towards change will be taken.
Optimistic people never complain about their lives; problems for them are a way of self-improvement.
A little about positive thinking
Currently, there are many interpretations of positive thinking. One of the most popular is to perceive any situation in a joyful way. Even if a negative moment occurs, a person should experience positive emotions.
From a psychological point of view, such an interpretation is not only not useful, but also harmful. Since the human psyche is structured differently and prohibitions on the usual reaction can lead to serious problems.
Note! True positive thinking is not built on prohibitions in experiencing certain emotions or feelings, but on the awareness of everything that happens as a life experience necessary for growth. An important tool for this is the analysis of what is happening and the ability to learn lessons so as not to repeat mistakes in the future.
People with positive thinking try to be optimistic and open to the world and what is happening. Instead of being upset that they didn't get the job done, they will analyze and try another way.
By comparison, a person with negative thinking will remain dissatisfied with the task that was assigned to him and will complain for a long time about the injustice of fate. He will constantly make the same mistakes and think that he was born under an unlucky star. He himself paints everything that happens in gray or black tones, and lives within the boundaries built by his mind.
How to cheer yourself up in the morning
Surely each of us has encountered the fact that on a weekday morning we really don’t want to get up early and go to work. Most often, such blues accompany us in autumn and winter, when we lack sun and vitamins. Use our tips, and the morning will no longer be so gloomy and sad.
Go to bed early the night before
The best way to be in a great mood in the morning is to get enough sleep. To do this, you should reconsider your daily routine and start going to bed earlier in the evening. In a few weeks, your body will thank you for this, and your bad mood in the morning will disappear forever.
Set your favorite alarm song
To make waking up in the morning no longer hateful, set your alarm clock to a pleasant melody. Let it be one of your favorites, the main thing is that it does not immediately cause you to turn off the sound. Funny and cool songs that can be downloaded from the Internet are suitable as an alarm clock - they will perfectly cheer you up in the morning.
Create a pleasant morning ritual
Waking up can be more pleasant from the thought that now you will get up, go make your favorite coffee and watch an interesting morning show. You may even have time to read a book or call your loved one and wish him good morning, or maybe you will write him an SMS in your own words about how much you love him. Come up with something that will delight you every morning, and then waking up will become much more pleasant.
Benefits of Positive Thinking
It is important to highlight the significant advantages of positive thinking over negative thinking:
- increase in life expectancy;
- people with positive thinking are practically not susceptible to depression;
- resistance to stress;
- the ability to soberly assess the situation, even under difficult circumstances;
- perception of negative situations as a life lesson, not punishment;
- are less likely to suffer from hypertension;
- have high rates of adaptability and adaptation;
- good health;
- the ability to control oneself and what is happening.
It is important to note: It is worth noting once again that positive thinking is not a mask under which a person hides and shrugs off that everything is fine and good. This is not positive thinking, but self-deception; if you really have a bad streak, then you need to admit it and look for ways to get out of the situation. After all, such a deceptive perception can lead to internal conflict, and then problems with psychological health, and then psychosomatic manifestations.
Positive thinking is not the denial of negative situations, emotions and feelings, it is the ability to cope with them with minimal losses, which also exhibits additional positive qualities:
- increased motivation;
- strengthening willpower;
- understanding how to get out of conflict situations;
- personal growth;
- increasing concentration when solving important problems;
- responsibility for what happens in life;
- self-confidence;
- clarity of goals and presence of priorities.
Such people do not deny failures, they accept them and try to solve it. After the problem is resolved, people usually remember the incident as an adventure that helped them look at the world differently and become stronger.
Listen to music
Many studies have been conducted on what kind of music has a positive effect on a person’s mood.
In fact, one thing is important: that she be loved. You should only consider your taste
If anyone likes to listen to Beethoven while sitting in a chair with their eyes closed and wearing headphones, then you are welcome. But this band will help a Metallica connoisseur - especially if you turn the volume up to the maximum level allowed by social order and jump around the apartment.
The only thing that is better to avoid at such moments is melancholic, sad songs.
And remember about safety - on the street you need to look around and under your feet, and not listen to rock music at maximum volume in your headphones.
Test to identify the predominant type of thinking
Take the test to find out what type of thinking you have. You have three possible answers - yes, sometimes and no. Answer as you see fit:
- Do you feel younger than you appear on your documents?
- Do you have self-confidence?
- Do you suffer when you need to work?
- Do you love classical music?
- Do you like communicating with other people?
- Do you have an inferiority complex?
- Can you cope with any given task?
- Do you like to start and implement global projects?
- Do you often solve complex problems?
- Do you consider yourself an optimist?
- How often do you achieve your goals?
- Does despair happen to you?
- Are you open to new things?
- Are you ever absolutely happy?
- Are you ready to challenge fate?
For every yes answer you give yourself 2 points, for every “sometimes” answer you get 1 point, for every “no” answer you get no points. Count how many you have and read the description.
0-10 points – Pessimist
You don't wait for gifts from fate. The usual reality for you is a constant struggle for a place in the sun. Even on a normal day, you can find things that throw you off track. Because you constantly expect something bad to happen, you constantly overwork.
Most likely, you have excellent professional skills, but a lack of faith in yourself and your strengths prevents you from moving up the career ladder. Frequent worries have a bad effect on your well-being, so health problems are possible.
You are used to complaining about circumstances and life. Because of this, it is difficult for people to communicate with you, since hopelessness is heard in everything.
11-20 points – Realist
You try to control everything, but at the same time you take into account everything that happens around you. You take into account not only positive, but also negative factors, which gives you the right to control the situation. You don't expect the worst, and you know how to enjoy the moment. But if times get tough, you will do everything to improve the situation.
Hard work is the main factor that takes you to success. You can encourage others and tell them that they can succeed if they work hard. You want to do what is right and just, but this does not always work out, so your conscience may torment you.
21-30 points – An optimist with rose-colored glasses
You tend to exaggerate the positive in life, which often prevents you from making the right decisions. For you, the glass is always full, even when it is empty. You unconditionally believe in the best, but do not always take responsibility for your own actions. Sometimes you run away from problems instead of solving them. You may take on important matters, overestimating your strength. As a result, situations may arise that lead to conflict.
Convey the idea that a crisis is an opportunity for personal and professional development
It is necessary to set an optimistic positive attitude - this will save you from panic in the team, says Natalya Bazhanova
Train employees yourself and encourage staff to learn from each other. Internal training has several significant advantages: it does not require budgets and is maximally focused on the goals and needs of the company. The result of such training remains internal and can be used repeatedly. Through interaction within the framework of presentations and internal courses, not only technologies and new experiences are conveyed, but also an opportunity to see that you have many creative and talented specialists in your team, new ideas are born and unusual solutions are found for complex projects.
“The Japanese character for crisis is also translated as “opportunity,” says Natalya Bazhanova, HR director at Kalinka Group. – The crisis is in our heads. We need to talk about this every day: now is the time of opportunity, the era of professionals. Each employee has the opportunity to develop, grow, and reach greater heights than during the period of stability.” At the height of the crisis in 2008, the head of the company where Natalya Bazhanova worked gave the team an instruction: the crisis does not exist for us, we still work with the same clients, nothing has changed. As a result, employee productivity increased by 25 percent.
How to develop positive thinking without self-deception
To come to an adequate perception of the world, without raising or lowering the standards, you need to know how to set yourself up for positive thinking. To do this, you need to familiarize yourself with the four principles of a positive outlook on life.
1 principle – law of attraction
The first law allows you to understand how to learn to think positively and attract positive things. We know that the law of attraction works the same for everyone. What we talk about directly affects our lives.
If we constantly complain, then there are more reasons for this, because the body is in a state of constant stress and psychological pressure. The result is health problems that do not make our existence better.
Understand that you can gradually replace your negative attitudes with positive ones. Affirmations are great for this. They allow you to tune in to a positive mood.
It is especially useful to become familiar with these positive attitudes for pessimists who, due to their own perceptions, cannot enjoy pleasant moments. The more positive our thoughts in everyday life, the more open to new things we become, which means it is easier for us to cope with various circumstances.
Principle 2: What goes around comes around
Imagine that our mind is a huge garden and we are the gardeners. We independently choose which plants to plant in it. But if we do nothing in the garden, it will become overgrown with weeds that we will have to fight.
The mind cannot tolerate emptiness. That is why, in the hours when we don’t know what to do with ourselves, negative thoughts are born in our heads, which gradually fill everything. It’s very easy to prevent this; if you feel like you’re starting to get bogged down in negativity, then try to do something you love or distract yourself by reading a book. Let it be a useful thing that, like a beautiful tree, will nourish your mind with knowledge.
Principle 3 – outburst of emotions and feelings
Thinking positively is good, but holding back accumulated negative emotions can be detrimental to the psyche. You need to find an activity that will help you throw out accumulated negative feelings. These could be the following active actions:
- sport;
- drawing;
- music lessons;
- a detailed description of your own feelings and emotions in a notebook;
- cleaning;
- walk.
Such actions should serve as a kind of release, helping to free oneself from negativity. Some people note that by being distracted by something they love, a solution to the problem comes to them, and they can quickly and effectively deal with the problem.
The main thing is not to restrain your own feelings, otherwise there may be psychological stagnation. Remember, it is normal to experience different emotions, you are not a robot. The main thing is to be able to properly direct negative energy and use it to your advantage.
Principle 4 – interaction
Treat other people the way you want to be treated. To do this, try to stop using the following habitual models in your speech:
- complaints about life, circumstances, environment;
- denial of the problem that has arisen;
- judging other people;
- lie;
- constructions with negations: I can’t, it won’t work.
Just treat other people like people. Think not only about yourself, because you can offend another while passing by, without even thinking about it. Look around, realize your position. Ask others what they think about your behavior. Accept what they say about you and start changing for the better.
We enjoy our solitude.
Sometimes you need to be alone with yourself to think, listen to music, leaf through a magazine, a cozy book, or just devote a couple of hours to your favorite hobby.
Start with relaxing music and meditate. Meditation will help you concentrate on important moments and bring order to the raging stream of thoughts in your head. Take a walk in the fresh air, enjoy everything that surrounds you, fatigue will go away, strength, energy, and freshness will appear.
Enjoy an activity that is enjoyable. Better yet, read amazing and wonderful books that will help you always live positively and temporarily lose yourself in wonderful stories.
Let me offer you a small list of literature that can envelop the reader in magic and lift your spirits. Serious literature is needed, but sometimes, to escape from everything, open a soulful book, feel its aroma and lose yourself in the characters and their amazing stories.
Top 3 best books to read.
— The book “Chicken Soup for the Soul.”
She will tell several touching stories that can captivate the reader and console in difficult, difficult moments. Each story is a real cure for the blues, containing everything you need to lift your tone. This is a jewelry box where every line is a diamond.
— Tove Jansson “All About the Mummy Trolls.”
Another amazing work that has been read by more than one generation of children and adults. Read the book and experience many fabulous moments.
— O. Henry “Stories.”
This book is for those who want to laugh sincerely, sometimes cry sentimentally and touch the sparkling American humor. The stories you read will make you think, they will sit in your heart for a long time and will give it body and joy.
Over time, the reader himself will be able to continue this positive list and share good and kind stories with others.
10 exercises to develop positive thinking
There are 10 effective exercises that can help you look at the world in a new way and feel that you are building your own destiny:
- Exercise #1 Practice gratitude. Write down everything you are grateful for, including every aspect of your life.
- Exercise No. 2 When a problem arises, do not deny it. Write 5 to 10 ways to solve this problem. Try it in practice.
- Exercise No. 3 Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. Write down all the attitudes that prevent you from taking a sober look at your circumstances. Replace them with positive affirmations. For example, the attitude “I never have money” can be replaced with “I can earn money to live in abundance.”
- Exercise No. 4 Read motivational literature and stories of great people. You will be inspired by their example and become more productive.
- Exercise No. 5 Before going to bed, don’t think about bad things. You need to restore your strength, imagine a peaceful picture: sunset on the seashore. Remember an interesting story from your life, you can share your memories with a loved one.
- Exercise #6 Be open to new knowledge. It is useful to attend events that you have not done before. Don't be afraid of new experiences.
- Exercise No. 7 Monitor your condition throughout the day. Answer the questions: how am I feeling? Which emotion is dominant? What do I want to do now?
- Exercise No. 8 If an unpleasant situation arises, write 5 options for a successful outcome and 5 options for an unsuccessful outcome. What you will do if everything goes well and what if it goes badly. The method helps to develop logical thinking.
- Exercise #9 Don't be afraid to ask for advice or help. You can ask people you trust for their advice. You don’t have to follow it, choose the most suitable option. But remember that the responsibility for the decision is still on your shoulders.
- Exercise #10 Live life to the fullest and take time to relax. This is a useful pastime, as you understand where you need to go. Don’t be afraid to dream in your free time, develop your imagination and erase boundaries as much as possible.
All in your hands. Positive thinking is a way to look at things objectively. You take the position of an observer who helps to evaluate everything that is happening. But at the same time, you act, and do not sit idly by.
The main thing is to take your time and not act on emotions. Over time, you yourself will begin to manage your emotional state, and this will give you unlimited freedom of choice. All fears will subside and a feeling of clarity will come, but you don’t need to stop there either, continue to learn and gain new knowledge.
Find reasons within the company to communicate and lift your spirits on your own.
Under no circumstances should subordinates feel like “cogs in the system,” says Tatyana Starikova
“We organized a Day of Spontaneous Acts of Kindness in the company: on the cork board at the coffee-zone, the most visited place in the office, employees hung multi-colored stickers with thanks to their colleagues,” Tatyana Starikova, head of the personnel department of the Internet company RealWeb, gives an example. – There was also a box with forfeits containing ideas on what other spontaneous kind things could be done for colleagues: say a compliment, treat them, draw a portrait. The newscast was broadcast online through the internal portal and offline inside the office.”
This is a great way to remind how nice it is to do something unexpectedly good and how important it is to give thanks. The costs are zero, and the mood is uplifting and conducive to further interaction.
Build up those intangible methods that don't require a lot of expense. This applies to both state and internal corporate holidays. “We did not have the opportunity to celebrate the New Year magnificently in 2014,” Oleg Manukovsky gives an example. – We came up with a kind of pre-New Year’s week, during which every day we developed certain activities aimed at team building, raising positive morale and festive mood among the team. For example, we held a tangerine day: when employees decorated the office with tangerines. We remembered our childhood in this way.” Employees came to work wearing orange and yellow clothes.
The main thing is attention, to lift people’s spirits, you don’t need to spend a lot of money, recommends Anna Makarova
“In any holiday, it is always possible and even necessary to emphasize the collective moment: organize all kinds of competitions for knowledge of the history of the company or a quiz on the topic of guessing colleagues from their childhood photos,” Anna Makarova, HR manager at the consulting company Welhome, gives an example. “Needless to say, this will not require any financial investments.” Such corporate-family methods of organizing corporate space are deeper: they penetrate each employee more effectively than a large event with artists, luxuriously set tables and dancing.
Overcoming difficult situations
I hope you have adopted a few strategies from this article to increase your positive feelings in the workplace. But what to do with those people who constantly sow negativity around us? Here are some tips for you:
- Sometimes the most appropriate response to other people's complaints and negativity is simple empathy. Don't take their complaints to heart and don't sympathize. Sympathy does not solve problems, it connects.
- Keep your distance. We deserve to be happy, and when others try to steal that joy from us, a little distance is considered acceptable. Long distance is not always an option, so what then? Imagine a shield that goes up so that you can see and hear, but are not infected by the toxicity of negativity.
- Gratitude game. Sometimes we just want to tell a person “hey, stop being so negative!” But I promise you that this will not help. Instead, ask, “tell me three good things that happened today?” This approach is called the gratitude game.
Yes, sometimes life gets complicated. Positive feelings must be genuine. This is not a fake smile, a game of happiness in times of tragedy or intense sadness. When life is hard, you will feel bad. Developing positive habits will help you sustain yourself during dark times, but it won't make your pain go away.
When things get bad, be alert and think about what could be worse. Pay attention to extreme words like “always,” “never,” and “worst.” Are you always late with your work? Is this really the worst day of your life? Is it true that your boss never notices your hard work? Ask yourself these kinds of questions before you start setting yourself up for negative emotions.
When we lose someone in our life, we grieve. Give yourself time and space to move through all five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.
Keep in mind that emotions are only one part of Dr. Seligman's five elements of happiness model: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement. Although positive emotions may not be possible at some points in our lives, we can still focus on the other four patterns. Focus on what matters to you: rely on strong relationships, recognize and enjoy your successes in other areas of your life, and more.
Conclusion
I have listed all the positive mood strategies at the end of this article. There you will also find an action plan that you can use in your experiments with different approaches. Try to maintain your optimism and charge other people with it. This will have an immediate positive effect on your career. Follow the advice from the article to protect yourself from the negative emotions of people around you.
Action plan for becoming a positive person
You may find it helpful to take a few notes on each of the 21 strategies to help you remember each one.
Reducing the number of negative thoughts in our head
- calculate the worst, best and most likely options;
- reject negative thoughts;
- change your perspective on a negative situation.
Increasing the number of positive thoughts in our head
- gratitude journal;
- create a portfolio of positive moments;
- Find a specific point in your life that you associate positive thinking with.
We create a positive environment
- Change your physical space;
- Take a break from your daily movement;
- Take a social media sabbatical.
Creating Positive Relationships
- Emotional constructive question;
- Give more positive reviews than negative ones.
- Practice random acts of kindness.
Creating positive habits
- Balance of work and play activities;
- Find joy in your work;
- Use your natural strengths.
Attitude towards negative people
- Showing empathy;
- Keep your distance;
- Gratitude game.
Actions in difficult times
- Stick to extreme words;
- Give yourself space to get through the difficult phase;
- Focus on what matters to you.
After reading the article, use this action plan to record your experiments with
different approaches.
Strategy | Dates when the strategy was applied in the allotted 2 weeks | Your application experience |
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Take care of bright memories from the past
Photo: Pezibear on Pixabay
There are many sayings about the past: What has happened has passed away, What can be said about what cannot be brought back, Protect the past, but also know the new. Wise people have always known that it is better to remember only the best from the past. It warms the soul and charges a person with positivity
. But all the bad things, as correctly noted by folk wisdom, are best left behind as ballast.
Read good books
After school, people are sure that they already know everything. Therefore, they practically stop reading. To set yourself up positively , you need to start reading those books that will not only help you answer your questions, but will also give you a lot of positive energy and mood. Choose the topic of the book that interests you, look at the content, what this book is about, and whether it will help you. Believe me, today the book industry spoils us with an abundance of literature.
And a minute of advertising! Love books as the website book24.ru loves them and everything in your life will definitely improve!
How to cheer up using the Internet
In the age of information technology, you can cheer yourself up quite simply by using the Internet.
Meet me
If you feel sad and lonely, lack communication, or want to share your experiences with someone, social networks and dating sites can help you. It can also be very interesting there, especially if you previously did not know your interlocutor at all. Make yourself a virtual friend, a guy, don’t be afraid to meet and communicate. You can tell your pen pal about how your day was. Who knows, maybe something serious will come out of this communication.
How to cheer up a girl on VK? Send her a funny picture, an anecdote, give her a compliment, invite her on a date - there are many ways, and not only your mood will improve.
Read funny stories
On the Internet you can find a lot of funny jokes, poems, or just funny stories from life. There are also a lot of funny postcards, interesting sayings of famous people that make you think or just lift your spirits. Sometimes even a short phrase or positive caption can improve your mood. Therefore, during attacks of apathy and depression, often look at funny sites with funny pictures.
Smile more often
Photo: VyacheslavLn on Pixabay
Everyone knows that how you start the day is how you will spend it, but people are not sufficiently aware of all this. When you wake up, smile at the new day and don’t let circumstances ruin your mood. Because if the morning starts with bad news or circumstances, then the whole day will go like this.
A smile is important not only for yourself in the morning at home, but it is also important for those around you. Therefore, smile at passers-by as often as possible, give them a good mood for the whole day, and they will give it to you when you are already walking in a bad mood. Start smiling daily and keep smiling all day long.
.
Good mood good painkiller
It's hard to believe, but laughter, fun and good mood are also excellent pain relievers. This has been confirmed in the most empirical, experimental way. Scientists from Oxford conducted such research.
Don't get bored The experiment was quite simple. A group of several dozen people of different ages (from 16 to 62 years old) was recruited from volunteers and divided into two equal parts. The first group of subjects were shown comedy videos, and the second group were shown boring, uninteresting videos.
It was found that those volunteers who had fun experienced 10% less pain than those who were forced to be bored.
Scientists from Los Angeles conducted similar studies in 2007. As a result, it was recommended that during painful medical procedures, children should be shown funny videos specifically for the purpose of reducing pain.