Positive Thinking Never Worked!

Not a very positive title for a blog (and someone) who is generally a very positive and motivated person is it?

The fact is that masking underlying insecurities, fears, frustrations and sadness by “flicking a switch” or somehow fooling yourself into thinking positive is, at best, unsustainable and at worst, leads to a roller coaster ride of ups and downs that can do more harm than good in your life.

WAYS TO BECOME MORE POSITIVE WITHOUT POSITIVE THINKING

Instead, here are some methods of dealing with feeling negatively and improving your motivation so that you can move on and be happier and more productive in your life:

1. Objectivity

One of the most destructive things our mind’s do on us is blow our fears, insecurities and negative feelings way out of proportion.  We not only think up the fear but we lament, visualize, enhance and run the worst-case scenario over and over again in our minds.

Reality tends to be much different, the worst case nearly never comes true – so what we want to do is find ways to look at negative stimulus in our lives more objectively.  Being able to put our fears and insecurities into perspective, lower their “alert” level and get on with living life is far more constructive and healthy than trying to ignore or pretend they do not exist.

In Attracting Greatness, methods such as visualization, conscious breathing, yoga and especially meditation are used to take the edge off of our lives and let us live much more in the moment preventing what “may” happen from taking over our lives.

2. Expect And Welcome Setbacks

Another rather destructive notion from die-hard positive thinkers is to pretend that bad things will not happen…but yet they do and they will.

So, a much better strategy is to become adaptable to setbacks, understand that they will happen and that we get an opportunity to learn and grow from each one.  Again, the idea is to not be as surprised when negative things happen, but to have prepared yourself to be mentally strong so when they do happen you can deal with them and move on.

3. Positive State Change

Learning to be more positive is not all bad, but it takes more than just “thinking” positive.

Instead, try putting yourself into more positive “states” .

Here’s something really cool you can do to help you through the most challenging times in your life.

Start with vividly recalling one of the most positive times in your life.

I mean everything about that time.  Who you were with.  What the sounds and smells were.  How your body felt.  What you were thinking.  Were you warm or cold? Did you have energy or were you tired?  What was your body position?  How did you appear to others at that moment?

What you want to do is be able to re-create that image exactly in your life such that you feel your body state changing back to what it was then.  If this isn’t happening right away, go back and imagine that time again and get even more specific.

You will reach the point where you can “go back to that state” anytime you wish and at least temporarily change the physiology and psychology to a much more positive one.

Not exactly positive thinking is it?

YOUR TAKE…

What about you, do you have an opinion on positive thinking or how you can deal with negative thoughts in your life?  Leave us a comment.