Put Positive Thinking into Practice
In our recent blog posts, we talked about the benefits of positive psychology and some tips for overcoming a negative mindset. We thought it would be a good idea to follow this up with some practical tips to reframe your thinking.
Here are some ways you can create a new, more positive mindset and more effective behaviors:
Identify what you want to change & take charge of your situation – identify the things that you tend to view with a negative mindset. You might want to start small by focusing on one area to approach in a more positive way. Take personal responsibility and be proactive.
Check yourself – during the day pause and evaluate what you’re thinking. If you find that your thoughts are negative, look for something positive about the situation and reframe your thought.
Look for humor – give yourself permission to smile or laugh when you are facing a difficult situation – it will reduce your stress.
Find more balance in your life and follow a healthier lifestyle – For example make more time for exercise, get more sleep, and eat something healthy. All these things will make you feel better and will reduce stress.
Capture your thoughts in a journal – write down what you’re grateful for so you pay more attention to the good things in your life. Think about a bright future for yourself and write what it looks like. When you imagine your future in positive terms, research suggests that you will be happier in the present.
Focus on your strengths – each day, pick one of your strengths to focus on such as organization or creativity and write down how you plan to leverage that strength in a new way and act on it.
Associate with more positive people – find some positive people who you can depend on for helpful advice and feedback. Negative people increase your stress and may make you doubt your abilities causing more negative self-talk.
Practice positive self-talk – don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to someone else. Instead, be gentle and encouraging to yourself. When a negative thought surfaces, evaluate it rationally and respond to it with a more positive spin.
When we continue to replay negative thoughts in our mind, we start to believe them, and these negative thoughts will create a negative mindset. To overcome this, you can start with a technique called “reframing”.
Reframing is a simple method to shift your thinking about a situation to give it a different meaning. The reframing process is not difficult, but it takes some time and practice. What you think influences how you act so when you change your mindset, you will find it much easier to adapt your behaviors.
We will illustrate this with a few examples of negative self-talk reframed in a more positive way:
Negative Self-Talk: “I’ve never done it before, I will fail.”
Positive Self-Talk: “It’s an opportunity to learn something new.”
Negative Self-Talk: “It’s too complicated, I can’t solve it.”
Positive Self-Talk: “I’ll tackle this problem from another angle.”
Negative Self-Talk: “I don’t have the resources to do this.”
Positive Thinking: “I’ll find a way. Necessity is the mother of invention.”
Negative Self-Talk: “There’s no way it will work.”
Positive Thinking: “We can find a way to make it work, we just need to be creative.”
Negative Self-Talk: “It’s too much of a change, it won’t work.”
Positive Thinking: “Let’s take a chance and see what works.”
Negative Self-Talk: “No one ever tells me anything.”
Positive Thinking: “Let me see how I can open the communication channels.”
Negative Self Talk: “I’ll never learn how to do it. I won’t get any better at this.”
Positive Thinking: “I’ll give it another try and I can always ask for help.”
Reframing is not denial that you are facing difficulties. It is viewing the challenges in a different light so you can more proactively address them instead of dwelling on the problems and being overwhelmed by negative emotions. Reframing will help you build your personal resilience.
If you have a tendency towards a negative outlook, don’t expect to change overnight. It takes time and practice. If you follow these tips, your self-talk will eventually contain less self-criticism and more self-acceptance. You will typically find that you are also less critical of the world around you.
When you have a more optimistic state of mind, you will be better equipped to handle your stress constructively and you should start to see more positive physical health outcomes too.
Sources:
Reframing: The Transformative Power of Suffering by Linda and Charlie Bloom posted on www.psychologytoday.com December 14, 2017
Positive Thinking: Stop Negative Self-Talk to Reduce Stress by Mayo Clinic Staff posted on www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle February 3, 2022
What is Positive Thinking? By Alison Sherwood posted on www.webmd.com/mentalhealth January 16, 2022
Book: Mindset Wizardry: The Magic Behind Thriving in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) World by Debbie Sehulster & Javier Iglesias, 2022.