Find the Positive

Happy Wednesday! I’m so excited about this week’s skill! It’s a skill that I couldn’t wait to add to the site, but I had to have patience (which is not easy for me!) otherwise I’d run out of things to post. I have a tendency to get over zealous about new things; go all out right away and then let them sizzle out. So I have to pace myself with everything I want to post!

The skill I posted today is called Find the Positive. It’s a rather simple skill that most of us take for granted. The gist of it is just what it says, find the positive. Every day find three things you are grateful for or just something that happened during your day that was positive. I love to do this skill at the end of my day as I’m going through my night time routine. It’s just like a quick recap of the day, but ONLY focusing on the positive things NOT the negative. Really, you can do this anytime throughout the day. This skill trains our brain to naturally look at the world through positive lens, instead of negative which is usually most of our go-to.

Studies show us that our brains cannot be anxious and grateful at the same time. It literally can’t do both at the same time. If we train our brains to be grateful and find the positive we lessen our chances of being anxious. Being grateful and having a positive outlook can do amazing things for us. Jen Sincero author of You are a Badass said in her book this amazing quote,
“Our thoughts become our words, our words become our beliefs, our beliefs become our actions, our actions become our habits, and our habits become our realities.” If we only think about the negative things in our life we start talking with negative words (which pushes people and opportunities away), we start believing our negative words, which may cause self-doubt and low self-esteem, and this process continues until we find ourselves in a crappy situation in life and unhappy. BUT if we start finding the positive in our lives that whole process becomes a much happier and satisfying one. When we think positively we speak positive words which attracts people and opportunity, and we start living happier, more successful lives.

Now, I know this sounds simple to some people and to others it sounds like the most daunting thing ever (or to others it may just sound like a bunch of witchy voodoo). Each of us will have our own struggles with this skill. For me, I fail regularly to make it a habit. I’m a fairly positive and grateful person by nature, but there are so many days I make excuses to not Find the Positive. I’m “too tired”, “too busy”, too lazy. I’d rather watch Game of Thrones all night instead of journaling for five minutes. But we need to take control of our own mental health and do the hard things like sticking to our routines and practicing our skills. You’re going to fail, but the only real failure is quitting. If you fall off the wagon one day, get back on the next.

Some quick tricks to help you stick to your habit are:

• Have a visual cue to remind you to do it. It could be a journal by your bed that you use to write down your three positives.
• Do it at the same time every day.
• Track it. Use marbles in a jar or a calendar with stickers. Any way you do it, track it and then reward yourself when you get to a goal number.

I hope you find success in this skill to become a more positive and happier person with many opportunities thrown your way. As always, if you have questions, comments, or just need a someone to connect with please feel free to email me.