How Positive Thinking Builds Your Skills, Boosts Your Health, and Improves Your Work
Positive thinking sounds
useful on the surface. (Most of us would prefer to be positive rather than
negative.) But, “positive thinking” is also a soft and fluffy term that is easy
to dismiss. In the real world, it rarely carries the same weight as words like
“work ethic” or “persistence.”
But those views may be changing.
Research is beginning to
reveal that positive thinking is about much more than just being happy or
displaying an upbeat attitude. Positive thoughts can actually create real value
in your life and help you build skills that last much longer than a smile.
The impact of positive
thinking on your work, your health, and your life is being studied by people
who are much smarter than me. One of these people is Barbara Fredrick son.
Fredrick son is a
positive psychology researcher at the University of North Carolina and she
published that provides surprising insights about positive thinking and it’s
impact on your skills. Her work is among the most referenced and cited in her
field and it is surprisingly useful in everyday life.
Let’s talk about Fredrick discovery and what it means for you…
What Negative Thoughts Do to Your Brain
Play along with me for a
moment.
Let’s say that you’re
walking through the forest and suddenly a tiger steps onto the path ahead of
you. When this happens, your brain registers a negative emotion — in this case,
fear.
Researchers have long
known that negative emotions program your brain to do a specific action. When
that tiger crosses your path, for example, you run. The rest of the world
doesn’t matter. You are focused entirely on the tiger, the fear it creates, and
how you can get away from it.
In other words, negative
emotions narrow your mind and focus your thoughts. At that same moment, you
might have the option to climb a tree, pick up a leaf, or grab a stick — but
your brain ignores all of those options because they seem irrelevant when a
tiger is standing in front of you.
This is a useful
instinct if you’re trying to save life and limb, but in our modern society we
don’t have to worry about stumbling across tigers in the wilderness. The
problem is that your brain is still programmed to respond to negative emotions
in the same way — by shutting off the outside world and limiting the options
you see around you.
For example, when you’re
in a fight with someone, your anger and emotion might consume you to the point
where you can’t think about anything else. Or, when you are stressed out about
everything you have to get done today, you may find it hard to actual start
anything because you’re paralyzed by how long your to–do list has become. Or,
if you feel bad about not exercising or not eating healthy, all you think about
is how little willpower you have, how you’re lazy, and how you don’t have any
motivation.
In each case, your brain
closes off from the outside world and focuses on the negative emotions of fear,
anger, and stress — just like it did with the tiger. Negative emotions prevent
your brain from seeing the other options and choices that surround you. It’s
your survival instinct.
Now, let’s compare this
to what positive emotions do to your brain. This is where Barbara Fredrickson
returns to the story.
What Positive Thoughts Do to Your Brain
Fredrickson tested the
impact of positive emotions on the brain by setting up a little experiment.
During this experiment, she divided her research subjects into 5 groups and
showed each group different film clips.
The first two groups
were shown clips that created positive emotions. Group 1 saw images that
created feelings of joy. Group 2 saw images that created feelings of
contentment.
Group 3 was the control
group. They saw images that were neutral and produced no significant emotion.
The last two groups were
shown clips that created negative emotions. Group 4 saw images that created
feelings of fear. Group 5 saw images that created feelings of anger.
Afterward, each
participant was asked to imagine themselves in a situation where similar
feelings would arise and to write down what they would do. Each participant was
handed a piece of paper with 20 blank lines that started with the phrase, “I
would like to…”
Participants who saw
images of fear and anger wrote down the fewest responses. Meanwhile, the participants
who saw images of joy and contentment, wrote down a significantly higher number
of actions that they would take, even when compared to the neutral group.
In other words, when you
are experiencing positive emotions like joy, contentment, and love, you will
see more possibilities in your life. These findings were among the first that
proved that positive emotions broaden your sense of possibility and open your
mind up to more options.
But that was just the
beginning. The really interesting impact of positive thinking happens later…
How Positive Thinking Builds Your Skill Set
The benefits of positive
emotions don’t stop after a few minutes of good feelings subside. In fact, the
biggest benefit that positive emotions provide is an enhanced ability to build
skills and develop resources for use later in life.
Let’s consider a
real–world example.
A child who runs around
outside, swinging on branches and playing with friends, develops the ability to
move athletically (physical skills), the ability to play with others and
communicate with a team (social skills), and the ability to explore and examine
the world around them (creative skills). In this way, the positive emotions of
play and joy prompt the child to build skills that are useful and valuable in
everyday life.
These skills last much
longer than the emotions that initiated them. Years later, that foundation of
athletic movement might develop into a scholarship as a college athlete or the
communication skills may blossom into a job offer as a business manager. The
happiness that promoted the exploration and creation of new skills has long
since ended, but the skills themselves live on.
Fredrickson refers to
this as the “broaden and build” theory because positive emotionsbroaden your sense of possibilities and open your mind, which in
turn allows you tobuild new skills and resources that can
provide value in other areas of your life.
As we discussed earlier,
negative emotions do the opposite. Why? Because building skills for future use
is irrelevant when there is immediate threat or danger (like the tiger on the
path).
All of this research
begs the most important question of all: if positive thinking is so useful for
developing valuable skills and appreciating the Big Picture of life, how do you
actually get yourself to be positive?
How to Increase Positive Thinking in Your Life
What you can do to
increase positive emotions and take advantage of the “broaden and build” theory
in your life?
Well, anything that
sparks feelings of joy, contentment, and love will do the trick. You probably
know what things work well for you. Maybe it’s playing the guitar. Maybe it’s
spending time with a certain person. Maybe it’s carving tiny wooden lawn
gnomes.
That said, here are
three ideas for you to consider…
1. Meditation -
by
Fredrickson and her colleagues has revealed that people who meditate daily
display more positive emotions that those who do not. As expected, people who
meditated also built valuable long–term skills. For example, three months after
the experiment was over, the people who meditated daily continued to display
increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, and decreased illness
symptoms.
Note: If you’re looking
for an easy way to start meditation, here that was recently sent to me.
Just close your eyes, breathe, and follow along.
2. Writing — published in the Journal of Research in Personality, examined a group of 90 undergraduate students who were split into two groups. The first group wrote about an intensely positive experience each day for three consecutive days. The second group wrote about a control topic.
2. Writing — published in the Journal of Research in Personality, examined a group of 90 undergraduate students who were split into two groups. The first group wrote about an intensely positive experience each day for three consecutive days. The second group wrote about a control topic.
Three months later, the
students who wrote about positive experiences had better mood levels, fewer
visits to the health center, and experienced fewer illnesses. (This blew me
away. Better health after just three days of writing about positive things!)
Note: I used to be very
erratic with my writing, but now I publish a new article every Monday and
Thursday. I’ve written about my writing process and how you can stick to any
goal in a more consistent manner in the articles .
3. Play — schedule time to play into your life. We schedule meetings, conference calls, weekly events, and other responsibilities into our daily calendars … why not schedule time to play?
When was the last time
you blocked out an hour on your calendar just to explore and experiment? When
was the last time you intentionally carved out time to have fun? You can’t tell
me that being happy is less important than your Wednesday meeting, and yet, we
act like it is because we never give it a time and space to live on our
calendars.
Give yourself permission
to smile and enjoy the benefits of positive emotion. Schedule time for play and
adventure so that you can experience contentment and joy, and explore and build
new skills.
Note: for more ideas on
the importance of play, on how one man cured his anxiety.
Happiness vs. Success (Which Comes First?)
There’s no doubt that
happiness is the result of achievement. Winning a championship, landing a
better job, finding someone you love — these things will bring joy and
contentment to your life. But so often, we wrongly assume that this means
happiness always follows success.
How often have you
thought, “If I
just get ___, then I’ll be set.”
Or, “Once I achieve ___, I’ll be satisfied.”
I know I’m guilty of
putting off happiness until I achieve some arbitrary goal. But as Fredrickson’s
“broaden and build” theory proves, happiness is essential to building the
skills that allow for success.
In other words, happiness
is both the precursor to success and the result of it.
In fact, researchers
have often noticed a compounding effect or an “upward spiral” that occurs with
happy people. They are happy, so they develop new skills, those skills lead to
new success, which results in more happiness, and the process repeats itself.
Where to Go From Here
Positive thinking isn’t
just a soft and fluffy feel–good term. Yes, it’s great to simply “be happy,”
but those moments of happiness are also critical for opening your mind to
explore and build the skills that become so valuable in other areas of your
life.
Finding ways to build
happiness and positive emotions into your life — whether it is through
meditation, writing, playing a pickup basketball game, or anything else —
provides more than just a momentary decrease in stress and a few smiles.
Periods of positive
emotion and unhindered exploration are when you see the possibilities for how
your past experiences fit into your future life, when you begin to develop
skills that blossom into useful talents later on, and when you spark the urge
for further exploration and adventure.
To
put it simply: seek joy, play often, and pursue adventure. Your brain will do
the rest.
How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Using Affirmations
“All that we are is the result of what
we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” ~Buddha
I used to teach Adult Upgrading. My
students were people who had never completed grade school and/or high school.
For a variety of reasons, they were now ready to try it again.
New students would say, “I wasn’t ever
any good at school.” “I can’t do math.” “I hate fractions.”
It’s my belief that our self-talk is programming ourselves
for our statements to be true.
Those students thought they’d been
stating the facts, not revealing programmed beliefs.
My work was less about teaching math
than it was about coaching them toward a change in their beliefs about
themselves.
“I never again want to hear you say
you’re not good at math,” I’d say. I’d ask them to switch to “I’m learning
math” or “I’m getting better at math” or “I’m working on fractions.”
I’d help them start to notice their own
negative self-talk and then transform it into positive statements. “Sure it
sounds weird. So humor me,” I’d have to say. “Yes, I know it doesn’t feel like it’s true. Not yet, anyway.” They’d
roll their eyes at me.
I’ve read that schools teach fractions
before many of our brains are developmentally ready to cope at that conceptual
level. I believe this, because I’ve met so many people whose problems in school
began around the time fractions were introduced.
Children’s developing self-images are
vulnerable. Once children begin to feel stupid about a school subject, begins. It soon defeats their egos along
with their will to learn.
My adult students did humor me, probably
because I was such a nag about wanting to hear only. My use of pizza-portions and other grocery
items as examples of fractions helped them realize they already knew about
fractions and used them frequently in everyday life.
Gradually they’d begin to feel better
about math. Many would even begin to enjoy it. Grade school math felt easier.
Positive self-talk became natural. Other subjects became less overwhelming,
too.
We all
keep saying self-defeating and/or negative things to ourselves, don’t we! At
the same time, we keep wishing it could all change. Well, it can change!
Affirmations. I’m sure you’ve heard
about them. An affirmation is, simply, positive self-talk. It’s a statement
about ourselves or our situation, phrased in the present tense as if the
statement is already true.
Affirmations
work to help us change. I’d like to share with you one method to start creating
very personal affirmations.
1.
Identify
your negative self-talk and beliefs.
2.
Create
affirmations out of those beliefs.
3.
Begin
using the new affirmations.
4.
See
the “magic” gradually unfold.
1. Identify your negative self-talk and beliefs.
Do this in handwriting, not with a
computer. Connecting your physical self with your neurons and psyche and
intuition is important here. What our bodies do, our subconscious learns from.
Fold a piece of lined paper in half
lengthwise, and then unfold it. Down the left side, write a list of those
self-limiting statements you’ve been thinking and saying. “I can’t afford a
vacation.” Or “It’s hard to lose weight.” Or “I’ll never meet the right
guy/woman for me.”
Stick to one theme or personal issue on
this first list. Write everything that comes to mind on the
topic. Don’t think, just be spontaneous and real. It needs to be a
stream-of-consciousness set of statements.
Then spend a few days listening closely
to yourself, to what you’re saying, thinking. Ask a friend to listen, too. Add
every negative self-talk statement to your list as it comes up.
After you think you’ve written them all,
wait. More will come. As you empty out the top layer in your mind, the next
layer will be revealed and released.
2. Create some affirmations out of those beliefs.
This next part is not easy, but you can do it!
You are going to write some new
statements. You may feel huge resistance as you do it. Maybe you won’t believe
a thing you write. Perhaps you’ll feel discouraged. You’ll probably think it’s
weird. But humor me, just like my students did.
Down the right side of your paper,
across from each left-side statement, write a new one that transforms that
negative statement into a positive.
Examples:
·
“I
can’t afford a vacation” becomes “I can afford to take a nice vacation.”
·
“It’s
hard to lose weight” becomes “Losing weight is easy for me.”
·
“I
can’t save any money” becomes “I’m good at saving money.”
·
“I’ll
never meet the right guy/woman” could become “I’m open to new relationships” or
“I’m ready to meet my perfect mate.”
The new statements must be in the
present tense. Write “I am…” rather than “I will be…” or “I’m going to
be…” Avoid using the word “try” because “I’m trying” is a self-perpetuating
statement.
To get around your disbelief about
writing something that feels untrue and seems impossible, you can write things
like “I’m learning to….”
and “I’m getting better at….”
It’s still present tense, still a positive affirmation. Something like
“I’m getting better at saving money” might feel better than
“I’m good at saving money.”
3. Begin using the new affirmation statements.
Fold the paper in half again. Never
again read the left side. Ignore it forever.
Post the folded paper,
positive-statements on top, somewhere you’ll see it often. Above the toilet
paper roll. Over the kitchen sink. Read your affirmations from time to time,
but there’s no need to dwell on your list. It is simply an
occasional reminder that you’re transforming your thinking.
If you catch yourself thinking or
saying any of your old (negative) beliefs, stop yourself. Transform it
into the positive, right then and there.
Ask your family and friends to help by
simply pointing out any negative self-descriptions when you say them. When they
do, transform the negative to the positive immediately, and say the new
statement aloud to them.
You’re literally changing your mind.
4. See the “magic” gradually unfold.
The “magic” will happen, if you do the first
three tasks. Truly! I’ve done this ever since I learned how, and I promise you
it absolutely works. I have a good and happy life and things generally go my
way. I believe it’s because I do this kind of work ongoingly.
Soon you will not only say you’re good at handling money (or
whatever your issue is), but you’ll also begin to believe it and—here’s the magic—one day you’ll
notice that you are good at it!
The negative statements will gradually
disappear from your mind.
If you stick with this, what’s
absolutely true is that:
·
When
you write it, the magic begins.
·
After
you write it, you can start reading it.
·
When
you start reading it, you’ll be able to start saying it.
·
When
you start saying it, you start hearing it.
·
When
you start hearing it, you start to believe it.
·
When
you believe it, things begin to change.
·
When
things begin to change, you will understand. And believe.
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness
has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” ~ Goethe
“No matter how far we come, our parents are always in us.” ― Brad
Meltzer
This weekend, my mother celebrates her 60th birthday. In
two months, my father will celebrate his 60th as well. Unfortunately, the
miles separate us. And I regret not being able to be there to celebrate with
them.
My mother and father have been wonderful parents to me.
They have worked hard to provide a stable foundation for my life and future.
They have taught me invaluable lessons about work, marriage, parenting,
relationships, and life. And to celebrate their 60th birthday, I thought I
would use this public forum to give them the praise they deserve.
60 Life Lessons I Learned from my Parents
• Admit mistakes. It would be foolish for me to claim my
parents have been perfect. They aren’t. But when they make a mistake, they
humbly admit it. And work to fix it.
• Appreciate teachers. My mom worked a number of jobs while I was
growing up ― including being a teacher. From her, I learned to appreciate the
time, energy, commitment, and care that teachers show every day.
• Assist your neighbor whenever possible. Everywhere I’ve lived, my parents knew our
neighbors. More importantly, they recognized their needs and assisted when
possible.
• Attend church. Worship has always been important to my
family. Then and now.
• Be a good friend to find a good friend. Healthy friends cultivate healthy
friendships. And my parents taught and modeled what it means to be a good
friend to others.
• Be content with little. There were numerous times growing up when
money was tight. Nevertheless, my parents were content in it.
• Be content with much. There were also times when the bank
accounts were healthy. Even more impressive, my parents were content then as
well.
• Be open to criticism. We never stop learning, growing, and
changing. My mother and father were always open to being challenged in new
ways.
• Be quick to help. If a need in the
community was articulated, my parents were among the first to be there. They set
a healthy example from the very beginning that life is not all about getting…
it’s about giving.
• Care about the right things. Our lives and resources are finite. And you just can’t care about everything.
Seek to care about the right things.
• Care for the fatherless. My parents
provide, protect, and care for the orphan and the fatherless. And if there is a
greater compliment to be given, I’m not sure what it is.
• Celebrate holidays with family. Even when we lived far away from extended
family, I always remember making it home for the holidays as a kid. And as an
adult, I still do.
• Choose the narrow path. Many will choose
the broad, well-trodden path. My parents never did. Their values always
dictated their decisions even when they were unpopular.
• Come home for lunch. I distinctly remember my dad
coming home from work each day for lunch―usually for a hot dog on bread with
chips. Let me repeat that, I always remember my dad coming home from work for
lunch.
• Commit to your spouse. My parents have remained faithful to each
other in every possible way for 40 years. I can’t thank them enough.
• Compete but remain fair. Competition runs deep in our family. But so
does fairness. And I’d hate to have the first without the second.
• Concern your life with more than money. My mother and father always concerned
themselves with greater pursuits than money.
• Disagree humbly. Nobody gets it right every time. I’m glad I
learned from them the importance of being able to disagree with genuine
humility… sometimes I wish I learned this even more.
• Discipline is a virtue. Self-discipline ought not be feared, but
nurtured.
• Don’t fear change. My family moved a number of times while I
was growing up (5-6 times before graduating high school). Through the
experience and their example, my parents taught me never to fear it.
• Don’t look for wealth in money. True wealth is
never measured on a bank statement. And they never evaluated theirs by the
number of zeros printed on it.
• Eat cereal for dinner. Not sure why we had
cereal every Sunday night for dinner… but surely, that’s where I learned it.
• Education is worth pursuing. My mom and dad had twin sons while still in college. They
both graduated. Well done.
• Express gratitude. Gratitude is a discipline best experienced
in both the good times and the bad. My parents displayed it regardless of
external factors.
• Forgive quickly. Wrongs happen and mistakes are made.
Sometimes, those decisions hurt. But not granting forgiveness only harms yourself.
• Get on the floor with your kids. My dad worked hard. But when he would come
home, he would get on the floor and play with his kids. If I haven’t said it
yet, “Thank you.”
• Have an opinion. You can always count on my mom to have an
opinion. And thankfully so. She taught me the value of forming one.
• Invite others. My family always sought to include others
into our plans and lives. From them, I’ve learned the value of this simple
question, “Would you like to come with us?” Our world needs more people like
that.
• Laugh often.
• And then laugh some more. Needless to say, I love the culture of joy
my parents established in our home.
• Learn from others. My parents never considered themselves so
above someone else that they couldn’t learn something new from them. And I’ve
always appreciated that trait.
• Live in Aberdeen, SD. We moved a number of times growing up. But
somehow, my parents always returned to Aberdeen, SD… and that’s where they
continue to live today. Know that I look forward to visiting home again soon.
• Live within your income. My parents always made adjustments in their
spending based on their income. They taught me the value of frugality when
necessary. But more importantly, they taught me the joy of living within my
means.
• Love conversation. Both my mom and dad
excel in the gift of conversation. They use both their ears and their mouth
during communication. And evenings spent in the living room talking about life
pass too quickly.
• Love is best spoken and shown. Words are
important. But so are actions. My parents express love using both.
• Love your work. Both my mom and my dad love their work.
It’s no coincidence that I do too.
• Overcome difficulties. This world isn’t
easy. And our lives are defined by how we respond in adversity. The greatest
among us overcome trials and seek to learn from them.
• Pack an afternoon snack. My dad also taught
me the value of a fun-size Snickers bar in the afternoon.
• Parenting matters. Stephanie Martson once said, “Everything our children
hear, see, and feel is recorded onto a cassette. Guess who is the big star in
their movie? You are.” The lives we live and the decisions we make absolutely
matter in the worldview of our children.
• Play athletics. I learned to love sports from my dad.
• Play board games. But I learned to love board games from my
mom.
• Practice generosity. Give your life and resources to others as
much and as often as you can. They need your help. Your kids need the example.
And you need the practice even more than them.
• Remain honest. It’s no great accomplishment to be honest
when it is easy. But our true appreciation of honesty is displayed when it is difficult. And a
truly honest man or woman is hard to find these days. I’m so glad to have two
in my life.
• Respect character. Your character is of far more value than
anything you can sell it for. Don’t trade it for something foolish like money,
fame, power, sex, or the entire world.
• Rise early. I have vivid memories of playing basketball
with my father at 6am before school would start. Great memories. But an even
greater example.
• Schedule rest. As long as I can remember, my mother and
father have taken naps on Sunday afternoons. They were probably just tired. But
for me, it became a healthy model of appreciating both hard work and scheduled rest.
• Seek God. Some people choose
to reject God. Others choose to ignore Him. My parents taught me to seek Him.
And as the old saying goes, “If you seek, you will find.”
• Serve others. As I learned from them in both word
and deed, life is bigger than yourself. And truest life, fulfillment, meaning,
and joy is found in the service of others.
• Study words. My mother loves games that value words:
Scrabble, Boggle, even Words with Friends. And even to this day, unless I
cheat, I am unable to beat her.
• Take care of the elderly. The sunset is no less beautiful than the sunrise. I’m
grateful for parents who see the beauty in young children, but I am also
grateful for parents who have stood by those at the end of their life as well.
• Track spending. My dad is a banker with a mind for numbers.
As a result, I can’t possibly remember the complicated system that he used to
track our family’s budget… nobody else could either. But what I did learn is
the importance of tracking dollars and developing budgets. And I’ll take that
any day.
• Trust others. I learned optimism from my parents. They live their lives
seeing the good in others and trusting them because of it. They taught me it is
better to trust and get burnt once in awhile than to live your entire life
suspicious of everyone around you.
• Use your talents. As I mentioned, my dad is a financial guy and my mom is a
gifted teacher and trainer. Apart from their careers, they often use their
talents in various community-based organizations to better the lives of others.
They recognize their gifts and utilize them whenever possible.
• Vacations don’t have to be expensive. We went on summer vacations almost every
summer growing up. And while a few of them required a significant financial
investment, most of them didn’t. But we enjoyed all of them regardless of the
destination (except for maybe the drive through the Colorado mountains without
an air conditioner…).
• Value children. Both my mother and father love children and
continue to invest their lives into kids. As a matter of act, even at age 60,
you can still find my dad on the floor playing with his grand-kids.
• Value education. The ability to learn is a gift and a responsibility. My
parents taught us early not to take it for granted.
• Value family. I’m so thankful to have grown up in a family that was
filled with love, care, and joy. If you did not, seek to develop those
attributes in your own life/family today. I can attest that your kids will
forever thank you for it.
• Volunteer. Give freely to your community. Your gift is needed. And
it makes the world a better place for everyone.
• Work hard. My parents have not wasted their lives. Their example has
taught me the value of working hard and pursuing lasting significance over
worldly success.
Mom and Dad, I can’t possibly express how
thankful I am for each of you. Happy 60th birthday. Here’s to 60 more.
One thing
that I noticed immediately when joining Buffer was our emphasis on cultivating
positivity. If you take a quick look at you can see the high priority we place
on this. Since I joined the team, positive thinking is something I’ve
focused on a lot, and it’s been fun to see how spending time with positive thinkers rubs off on me.
At the
moment, some of us are experimenting with sharing one great moment we had at
the end of each day. I’ve found that making this a habit has encouraged me to
look out for positive moments during the
day, since I know I’ll need to share one later on. It’s also been a great way
to increase my feelings of gratitude—often for everyday things, like a great coffee
to start the day or encouragement from a friend.
I wanted to really dig
into positive thinking as a habit and see what science has to say about it. I
found some really interesting research on how positive thinking can improve our
health and happiness, as well as some great advice to cultivate a habit of
being positive.
Why be positive in the first place? – Consider these 3 key benefits
Before we
get into building positivity into your life, let’s look at why we would even bother. What are the real benefits of being more positive?
The first
thing I realized is how negative emotions affect us: they have proven many
times and scope of work. It’s one of the most powerful ways shut our minds
off to opportunities or new ideas. This is why is so great—it encourages listening with a positive
emotion (agreeability) in mind, so that our minds will more
naturally open up to what the speaker is saying.
We know that the effects
of negative emotions are biological instincts programmed into our brains to
help us survive. For example, if we were to come across a dangerous animal in
the wild, the negative emotions of fear and anxiety would narrow our focus so
that all we could think about was not becoming that animal’s dinner. This
helped us to more efficiently direct our energy and mental functions towards
that objective, without wasting our resources on unnecessary actions like
working out which direction we’re going or thinking about what to have for
dinner when we get home.
Of course, modern life
doesn’t often put us in life-and-death situations like this, so allowing
negative emotions to narrow our thinking can be harmful. It can make us less
open, more hard-headed and more difficult to communicate with.
1. Negativity doesn’t work – Literally – Our subconcious brain can’t handle it
The other
thing about negativity is that according
to the latest studies. So when we hear phrase like “don’t smoke” or “don’t
touch that,” our subconscious skips over these negative words and simply hears
“smoke” or “touch that.” Ourconscious mind can obviously process these
words, but it’s the subconscious that makes a lot of our decisions without us realizing.
For young children, this
can often be an issue because they haven’t learned to use their conscious minds
to process those negative words and take control of the subconscious to make
sure they follow instructions correctly. It’s no surprise why children decide
that way if you look at the split between conscious and subconscious mind
according to psychology:
What this means for us
is that we struggle to change our habits or thought patterns when we tell
ourselves negative phrases, since only our conscious minds can take those in.
We can make this much easier and let the subconscious do its job by using
positively-framed phrases like “refrain from smoking” or “walk away from that.”
2. You’ll improve your outlook of the future
Positive thinking can
actually improve our overall happiness. I’ve written about this before in terms
of noting down things we’re grateful for on a regular basis and how that can
improve our happiness.
also
showed that positive emotions are more likely to encourage people to plan ahead
and think of actions they would like to take or activities they’d like to
participate in the future. Negative emotions, on the other hand, led to
participants being less inclined to think positively about their future.
3. You’ll be more healthy
Yep, positivist has shown to directly affect your physical health used the ancient practice of
loving-kindness to test how
cultivating positive feelings like love, compassion and goodwill towards others
could affect the emotional and physical health of the participants.
Compared
to the control group who did not participate in the meditation, the mediators
showed increases in positive emotions like amusement, awe and gratitude during
the research period. They also reported feeling more socially connected and
closer to the people around them.
Physically,
these participants showed improvements in which
is linked to cardiovascular health and a general indicator of physical
well-being.
Cultivating the positivity habit – 4 things to start with
Now that we know how
beneficial positivity can be to our health and happiness, let’s look at some
ways of building a habit of being positive.
1. Prepare your environment
Leo Babura
always has great advice on building habits, and. The environment we try to
build new habits in (or break old ones, even) has a huge effect on how
successful we are. Environment in this case includes the people we spend time
with and the messages we hear or tell ourselves, as well as our physical
environment.
The trick here is to
ensure your environment is as conducive to you continuing your new habit as
possible. Here are some of Leo’s suggestions for how to achieve this:
·
Hang
out with people who are doing the habit you want to do.
·
If
there are people around you who don’t do the habit you want to do, talk to them
about what you’re trying to do, and ask for their help. Ask them to support
you, and not rag on you all the time for changing.
·
Join
a supportive community online who are doing the things you want to do.
·
Read
blogs and books that inspire you to do the habit.
·
Have
reminders all around you.
·
Create
a public challenge for yourself, to create accountability.
·
Have
a habit partner you report to each day, and make a vow never to miss.
In terms of being
positive, you could find a friend or family member to do this with to keep you
accountable, or set a daily reminder so you don’t forget. Filling your work
space with positive sayings or images could help, and reading books that
encourage positive thinking will reinforce this.
2. Start smaller than you think – The “floss only 1 tooth” – approach
Another
of my favorite pieces of advice from is to make your habit so small that you
can’t say no. If you do this to start with, you can focus more on building a
habit, rather than on results or how big your habit is.
Here’s Leo’s explanation
of why this works:
Another common habit that too few people
actually do is flossing daily. So my advice is just floss one tooth the first
night.
Of course, that seems so ridiculous most
people laugh. But I’m totally serious: if you start out exceedingly small, you
won’t say no. You’ll feel crazy if you don’t do it. And so you’ll actually do
it!
That’s the point. Actually doing the habit
is much more important than how much you do.
Right now
I’m just taking note of one great moment I noticed, at the end of each day.
Sometimes it only takes a few words to share this, sometimes it’s two
sentences. I’ve incorporated it into my daily practice of with the Buffer team, so it’s
easy to remember and easy to do.
Starting small has
helped me to incorporate the practice into every day so it’s becoming a habit,
without worrying about what a big task it is.
3. Take note of 1 positive moment every day
Noticing
the positive things that happen in your everyday life has been proven to be of increasing your positive thinking.
This doesn’t just happen when you’re doing the exercise: the effects can
actually last much longer.
had one
half of them write about positive experiences for three consecutive days. The
second half wrote about control topics that didn’t affect their emotions. After
three months, the study found that the students who had written about positive
experiences still had better mood levels and fewer illnesses. If your like they do for me, not to
worry, you can take notes there too with something like Aqua notes:
Negativity that’s often
said to improve positivist is to write down (or share with someone) three
things you’re grateful for at the end of each day.