What is positive thinking?

“If you don’t learn to control your thoughts, you will never learn how to control your behavior” – Swami Vivekanand

It happens with most of us when people around us suggest to stop finding negative in all things. Our friends or family members would say – “just b

e positive” or “look at the bright side”, but we often don’t know how to make it.

We are not able to think positive because primarily we don’t know that what positive thinking is. Most people tend to ignore negative things happening around them. They just think that everything is good around. But this way they don’t focus on things that need to be changed. If you’re standing in front of a wild animal and say that there is no such animal around, it might eat you up.

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Secondly, many of us tend to create negative thoughts by focusing on the ‘not perfect’ things around us. We blame others for anything bad happening in our life. We also tend to discuss the bad things in the lives of other people with our friends and relatives. This pattern of thoughts create several negative emotions in our mind, and thus create more negative thoughts and we again focus more on negativity around us. This vicious circle goes on and degrades the quality of our life. Now let’s see what positive thinking is -

Positive thinking is the ability to find good things in negative situations which make us emotionally fit and hence improve the quality of our lives. It simply means to experience more positive emotions throughout the day such as – peace, happiness, excitement, proud, love. It also means staying away from negative emotions such as – anger, fear, doubt, sadness, guilty, hatred.

Why to become positive thinker – Benefits of positive thinking

Positive thinking has been suggested and taught by several mentors and gurus across the globe. It has been recognized as a key common trait in the successful people. Its impact is huge in several areas of life.

§ Uplifts quality of life – Those who are positive thinkers, they are the least impacted by the challenges of life. It’s not that they don’t face any problems. Even positive thinkers face problems and challenges in life but such things don’t impact their mental state and thus they get clear insights on easily getting through such situations.

For instance, a negative thinker would feel stressed when his car is being hit by someone. He would get frustrated, angry and would yell upon his own family because of such mental state. And this makes his relations bitter with his own family. On the contrary, a positive thinker understands that the incident happened unintentionally; he would guide the other person to be careful next time and would take necessary actions to mend his car. All this time, he would be in a normal state of mind and it doesn’t at all impact his behavior with his family or friends.

Thus, positive thinking makes day to day life very easygoing for self and for those around us.

§ Keeps us in good health – Our mind and body are miraculously connected to each other. The emotions we create on regular basis have a deep impact on our health. It was found in a research that most of the Indian ladies, who suffered from aches in their knees, were those who used to suppress their emotions most often. When we feel happy and peaceful, it helps us to be away from diseases.

§ Helps in building strong relationships – When we feel peaceful and happy, we tend to ignore little fights and arguments with those around us. It not only makes us feel good, but it also impacts the behavior of other people. Positive thinking makes us soft spoken and the same behavior reflects in other too. It refines our behavior and conversations with those around us.

§ Attracts financial abundance – Money follows those who maintain peace. Positive thinking creates good vibes at home and at the workplace. The good vibrations attract money and also multiply it. Positive thinking makes our minds more productive, and focused. Thus it helps at the workplace too. Also the place where people speak softly with each other, and maintain love and respect, attracts riches.

5 amazing ways to become positive thinker

How to identify negative thoughts

When a person creates more thoughts that are negative, he himself has no realization about it. A simple awareness can do wonders. If you are aware of your negative thoughts, you would tend to work against it. Look for the below mentioned signs in yourself. If some or all of these relate to you, your thought direction needs to be changed.

§ Worrying often – Negative people have the tendency to ponder a lot upon every matter. This makes them worried about things. They always expect the things to go wrong. Even when everything is going right, they would find something doubtful in it and would keep worrying about it. If you worry a lot about something or several things, aware yourself that you are in the direction of negative thought patterns.

§ Complaining a lot – Everyday we meet with different people around us, we discuss different things with them, and we read articles in newspapers. People with negative thinking pattern find out negative side of the things too frequently. They complain too much about things and people in a way that shows that everything and everyone is against them. They would even complain about minor things, about things and people around them, prices of things etc.

§ Not leaving the comfort zone – These people can’t imagine a good result in trying something new. They have an element of doubt, fear and discomfort when they get a chance to try something new. Mostly their first answer to any new thing would be ‘no’. They don’t take up actions in the direction of new experiences, and thus they are generally found doing same things over and over.

§ Not growing much – There are several reasons for not being successful, but negative thinking is much related to this. Negative thinking doesn’t allow people to see possibilities in life. They have a firm mindset that they are not skilled enough, or they are not lucky enough to have something. They get trapped in the thought circle of being in the assumed miseries of life. Because of this attitude, they don’t grow much in life. They can’t be seen working hard for anything new.

§ Experiencing bad feelings often – Those who think negative, generally feel more grief, worry, fear, hate, frustration, anger and other negative emotions. Sit quietly for 5 minutes and recall the emotions that you mostly feel throughout the day. If these feelings are not good, if it is any or few among these mentioned here, be aware that your thought pattern is negative and it needs to be changed.

These are some of the major ways to find out if you are a negative thinker.

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5 amazing ways to become positive thinker

Now that you understand the need of turning from a negative thinker to a positive one, you must act upon things that would make your thought process better than before. Here are the most effective and easy ways to develop a positive mental attitude:

§ Stop negative self talk – Self talk is the starting point of our thought process. Any person’s behavior is a reflection of his self talk. Our behavior and our discussions are highly impacted by what we often tell to ourselves. When you are alone and talking to yourself, keep a check that things are you thinking about. It might sound difficult to keep a check of your thoughts every time, but when just give it a start. Initially it might not be possible every time to keep a check, but at least you would make it at some times of the day.

When you’re alone, and talking to yourself, you just need to ask yourself ‘what am I thinking about right now?’ Whatever answer you get, again ask yourself ‘Is it a positive talk or a negative one?’ Now, if the answer is ‘Negative’ simply decide to focus on something positive. Look around, find good things around you. Think about nature, good people or anything that creates positive feelings in you. When you do this for about a week, you will see changes in your thought pattern and changes in life experiences.

§ Start meditating and exercising – The most effective and pure form of knowledge is the one that comes from inner wisdom. As we meditate on regular basis, the energy field around us changes. It also upgrades our thought process and makes every cell of the body better than before. Meditation brings the mental state to its original form - to being peaceful. In the chaos of life, when several thoughts and negative emotions become too frequent, meditation is the best and very effective way to train the mind to remain peaceful even in the toughest moments.

Along with meditation, exercise also has very astonishing effects on our mind and body. It makes the body fit and healthy and also keeps the mind in positive state. The blood circulation through exercise gives our mind the energy that it requires.

Meditating and exercising are just like putting the mobile phone on charge. It truly gives the energy to work throughout the day with more power and more energy and to remain positive. Thus, start charging your mind by meditating and exercising every day.

§ Practice gratitude – This universe is a form of energy and so are we. We all are connected to the universe in a very unique way in which we can even communicate to it. Just like we humans communicate to each other, there is a language through which we can communicate with the universe. It is the language of emotions. The universe replicates our emotions in our lives. When we feel the gratitude for the things that it has given us so far, it receives the signal of fulfillment, signal of being blessed. And it replicates the same feelings more in our lives by offering us such fulfilling experiences.

Those who express gratitude to the universe on daily basis for few minutes, attract best experiences in life. Close your eyes and start saying 3 things that you are grateful for. Feel the blessing, feel the happiness, feel the fulfillment and universe will bless you more with such experiences and this would shift your thought pattern towards positivity.

§ Find good in others and situations – This is a common habit found in the negative thinkers that they keep finding bad in things in situations and people. It’s like they always carry a ‘not good’ colored glass in their hands and they see the world in the color of being ‘not good’. It’s not their fault at all. It’s the life experiences that made them a bad finder.

Now if you want to become a good finder, it is very simple. Just change the glass from ‘not good’ to ‘what is good’. When you make opinion about someone or about a situation, just ask yourself ‘What is good in it?’ You will definitely find at least one good thing in everything and everyone. This will shift your focus from finding bad to finding good, and will turn you into a positive person.

§ Keep your body gestures and facial expressions of peace and happiness – You must have seen some people whose face tell their story of being a rude or an angry person. Such people have a permanent frown on their forehead and their behavior is unpleasant with most people. It is because the emotional states are associated with the body gestures and facial expressions too. If you wear a smile on your face, it is not possible to feel a negative emotion. So next time when you feel frustrated, notice your facial expressions and change it to the one of being at peace. Along with the face expressions, change the body gestures to that of being relaxed. Gradually your body would get trained to become peaceful instantly from a state of being frustrated. Similarly you can do the same for different negative emotions too.

This magical trick will also help you a lot in developing the habit of being positive and calm.

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It’s an everyday phenomenon – practice positive thinking everyday

The things that you have learnt in this article are not a onetime task. These ways are a part of gradual changing process. Initially you might not see any major change in yourself, but gradually within a week you will start noticing changes in your behavior. Gradually when you will start developing a positive mindset, you will observe that your life experiences would change too. You will see changes in your relationships, in your work and in the overall quality of your life.

If you follow through these tips, you will definitely start observing changes. Please come back to this post and share your experiences in the comment box.

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There is a perfect step by step plan to make positivism a part of your daily life. Find practical techniques in my book to bring more positive emotions in life.