HOW TO RECONDITION YOUR BRAIN FOR POSITIVITY

By
No matter who you are or what your life is like,
there are probably going to be times when it
feels like everything is going wrong.
Maybe you lose your job or your romantic
partner leaves you…
Or you injure yourself, a family member falls ill,
someone breaks into your car or your new boss
turns out to be a total jerk.
And when you turn on the TV to escape from it
all, the news is full of horrible and disturbing
stories about a world in seemingly never-ending
crisis!
But it’s important to remember that you have the
power to change your experience at any moment.
And that’s because it’s your thoughts that create your own reality.
And I mean that very literally…
The things you choose to focus on determines
how you perceive the world – AND the
experiences you have as a result.
If you focus only on the negative things in your
world, the world can seem like a terrible place.
But when you focus on the positive things in your
world, you see that the world is actually full of
love and kindness and beauty and inspiring
people doing incredible things.

Here are 5 powerful tips on how to retrain your brain for positivity, so you can maintain an optimistic, inspired, motivated outlook – no matter what is happening in your life or the world around you.

1. Be Aware of Your Thoughts
Take the time to pay attention to what you spend
most of your time imagining and thinking about.
Start paying more attention to the things you tell
yourself – and always remember that you have
the power to change them.
This is called mindfulness. A technique I teach
my students is to set the alarm on your cell phone
to go off every 20 minutes. As soon as you hear it,
take a moment to reflect on what thoughts you
were thinking.
Were they positive or negative?
Were they fear-based or optimistic?
Were they judgmental or unconditionally loving
and accepting of what you were perceiving and
experiencing?

2. Reframe Negative Thoughts
Whenever you find yourself thinking something
like, “People are horrible,” or “I’m so stupid and
careless,” or “There’s no point in trying because I’ll
probably fail” – catch yourself and take the time to
transform that thought into a positive one.
For example, tell yourself: “Most people are
actually pretty awesome,” or “I’m actually really


clever and do great work when I apply myself,” or
“Of course, I should try! It’s the only way I’ll ever
succeed — and even if I fail, at least I will have
learned something, and I can try again with this new
information.”

3. Visualize Positive Outcomes
Another good idea is to spend more time
visualizing positive outcomes.
No matter what you’re about to do – go to a
party, take on a new challenge at work, enter
into a new relationship, make a new sales call, or
move to a new town – clearly visualize the
outcome you want to experience.
Imagine what that positive outcome will look like
and feel like. The more clearly you can see it in
your mind, the easier you’ll find it to make that
vision a reality.
Making a vision board is an empowering way to
represent your goals and dreams and clearly
picture your positive outcome.

4. Develop a Daily Gratitude
Practice
I also strongly encourage you to develop a daily
gratitude practice.
Spend some time every day to think about
everything that is good in your life. The friends
and family you have in your life.
Your home, your job, your pet, clean water,
electricity, the beauty of the natural world
around you. The fact that you have clothes to
wear and good food to eat.
When you take the time to acknowledge
everything that’s good in your life, you will
realize that your life is FULL of wonderful things
to be thankful for.
Make it a daily practice for a few minutes every
day.
A daily gratitude practice—either writing in a
journal or just speaking it out loud—will make it
so much easier for you to maintain a positive
mindset.
You may even want to deepen your practice by
incorporating meditation to help clear your mind
of negative thoughts.
5. Reduce Your News
Consumption
I see so many people constantly checking their
phones to catch the latest updates. But how does
that really help you?
First, most news is generally negative–news
about storms, floods, droughts, earthquakes,
accidents, robberies, murders, mass shootings,
wars, political corruption, jobs lost, congressional
gridlock, and so on.
Almost all of which you can’t do anything about,
except get upset. Knowing how to be optimistic
about the future will go miles for boosting your
positivity.
Furthermore, so much of what is called “news”
these days is mere conjecture and opinion pieces
written to provoke fear and outrage. All it does is
make us feel angry and helpless.
You’d be doing yourself a huge favor if you took
all the time and energy you normally spend on
reading or watching the news and devote it to
your own self-improvement and achievement of
your goals instead.
Now, I’m not saying never read the news – it’s
good to be aware of current events!
But if you only tune in once a week to spend an
hour or so catching up on the latest stories, I
guarantee you won’t miss out on anything
important.
And you will be able to focus so much of your
time and energy on what really matters in your
life.
Which tip do you plan to first incorporate when

No comments:

Post a Comment