Useful tips for building a positive attitude

• ·         Take one step at a time. If you want to exercise, be more calm, and eat healthy, all at the same time, you may find yourself quickly overwhelmed, see no progress in any of those areas and become discouraged.

          It is better to choose just one thing that you want to build a positive attitude on at a time, and work on it.

          You may want to make it one of your positive habits. Keep track of your improvements so that you can compare where you stand today and where you stood a month ago or a year ago.

          When you are comfortable with the area of your life in which you to choose to make a difference, move on, and start building a positive attitude on another area.

·         Watch your words. When you find yourself saying or thinking “I don’t like that”, “I hate this.” change those words for positive statements.

As Mike Dooley well explains in “Infinite Possibilities”, our words, thoughts and actions all shape our reality-what is and what will be. You can choose to use words that will shape a reality that you want to experience.

·         Find a role model on a strong person with appositive attitude. When I was a student, I had a good friend as a role model, because she kept the most optimistic attitude to anything that life threw her away.

I have always admired the painter Frida Kahlo for her strength to go on with life and become a great artist despite severe back problems, emotional setbacks and miscarriages.

The advantage of having a role model is that you can find inspiration in them, and when   faced with difficult circumstances you can ask yourself, “what would this person do?”

·         Accept what you feel to be able to move on. Full acceptance of your state is the first step to calm when you feel upset, angry, nervous or negative in any way.

Getting upset with yourself because of not having a positive attitude will not help you to feel positive. Instead, when you fully accept what you feel you open the door for a better state of being.

Follow these steps of positive thinking:

1.      Be aware of your thoughts. Choose a quiet spot to just sit and observe what goes on in your mind. Don’t engage with any thought; just watch your mind wanders? Meditation helps to do this.

Most people are over-identified with their thoughts and as a consequence they suffer. Be aware of your thoughts. Realize that your mind is not you.

2.      Realize your negative thoughts. You may need a bit of soul-searching, as some of our negative thoughts are really deep beliefs about life.

Negative thoughts trigger negative emotions. A negative emotion (fear, jealousy, worry, anger, and many more) points at something going on that doesn’t match with what you actually want or are.
Most people often just react to the negative emotions. You can take your negative emotions as indicators that you are maintaining negative thoughts.

Don’t be at the mercy of your emotions; rather use them to know yourself better and understand which thoughts and beliefs cause your negative emotions and why.

3.      Change your negative thoughts for positive ones. You can only think of one thing at a time, so if you think about something positive, there is no room for negativity.

Acknowledge the existence of the negative thought. Replace it for a positive one.

For example, if you find yourself worrying about money and bills to pay, you could instead think that you always have all the money you need at any point, or you could feel grateful that you have money to spend.

This example is simple though. If you wanted to dig deeper, you could still think about what is worrying you, but in a way that is positive about it and made you feel good. Having a positive attitude is seeing the glass half full.

You can always be supportive of yourself and take the necessary steps of positive thinking by repeating these positive self statements. There are also other good positive thinking programs that can help you become a more positive person.