Five Tips For A Positive Mindset

Keeping yourself in a positive frame of mind is hard … if you let it be.
 
I wrestle with it every day.

I want to be in a positive mindset, but sometimes – the path of least resistance leads me to be negative.

Skeptical.

Cynical.

It’s easy to be cynical. The world is full of so many frustrations.

But when I am fortunate enough to catch myself red-handed at being negative, I do have a couple of tricks that help me turn my disposition around.

Everyone benefits when you’re in positive state of mind. But no one benefits more than you yourself.

The real trick is to put yourself in a mood conducive to positive thinking. A good mood. These five tips will help you through this process:


1. Smile

Yup, that’s it. Simply force yourself to smile. In the same way you force yourself to get out of bed in those wee early mornings of winter where all you want to do is continue sleeping in the warm comfortable bed rather than put your feet on that cold floor and start your morning preparations so that you can meet whatever obligations face you for that day.

Smile. Like stretching. Hold it for a minute – square on your face. As your mother always told you when you were little about making scary faces at people “your face will freeze that way”.

I promise you that after a minute of forcing a smile, you will actually feel like smiling.

Don’t ask me why. Why isn’t important. Just do it.


2. Laugh

In the same way you forced yourself to smile, just break out in a forced laugh. It works the exact same way. And it’s good for you to. Nothing to laugh about? Laugh anyways. Just do it.

Granted – you do have to be careful about where – you can’t really just break into a laugh if you’re in a meeting and being told information you don’t like. But once you have a moment alone – break out into a good hard laugh.

A word of warning though - you should never do it in the washroom stall in a public bathroom either.

Once you have gotten past points 1 and 2, step three actually comes more easily.


3. Listen to yourself

Absolutely. Hear your own words (or thoughts in your head) and ask yourself “If I were someone else – would I want to be around me right now?”.

This usually is enough for me to shake myself out of the negative mindset. But if not, I move on to step 4.


4. Go find somebody else and tell them a joke

Anyone who works with me has probably experienced this. Suddenly I will simply appear at a colleague’s desk or office … and I will tell them a joke. They often look at me strangely and I walk away … because usually I am the only one who enjoys my jokes.

Did you hear about the pirate filing his health benefit claims?

After being on the high seas for several years, he arrives home and heads to his insurance company to pay his medical bills.


“I see you have a hook for a hand, how did that happen?” asks the adjudicator.


“Arrgggh … I was in a sword fight, and the bugger cut it off”, answered the Pirate.


“I see you have a peg for a leg?”


“I had to walk the plank and a shark bit it off”, replied the Pirate.


“hmmm, I see…. And the patch on your eye?”.


“Seagull poop”, explained the pirate.


“Seagull poop? I didn’t know it was dangerous enough to cause you to lose an eye?”


“Argggh … it’s not”, explained the Pirate. “It was the first day with me new hook!”


5. Turn obstacles into challenges

This is the tough one. This is the one that requires the most practice. This deserves to be the topic of a whole book. I’m certain many volumes have been written on this topic. But in short, the times that cause us the most frustration are those times where we feel we are not in control of meeting our obligations. You can identify these situations because you find yourself using the term “they”.

When you find the cause of your problems appear to be “they”, then it is time to empower yourself. You need to use instead terms like “I” or “we” to regain control.

Once you catch yourself saying something like “They really messed this up”, you need to answer that sentiment by, “here is what I / we are going to do to resolve this problem”. Then list your options as to what you can do to remedy the situation.

Don’t let “they” put obstacles in front you. Instead accept that obstacle as a challenge that you will address.

It is amazing how assuming control of a situation injects a positive confidence into your mindset.

In short, the first four are easy. And they do work. They can be applied at the drop of a hat. But the fifth tip is really more of philosophy that I am simply sharing with you. Should you choose to attempt to turn obstacles into challenges, understand that it is an effort you will likely not achieve perfectly the first time you attempt it. But with practice … you will find … over time … your thinking start to change.

Negative people blame others for their woes.

Rightly or wrongly. It doesn’t matter.

But a person successful in maintaining a positive mindset is one that accepts the cards they are dealt, and takes control of how the hand will be played.

Beware The Ostrich And The Bear

You all know about the Ostrich.

When the Ostrich perceives danger he sticks his head in the sand – to hide – believing that nobody else can see him.

But he is still in plain sight. In open view. Visible to all around him – save his head buried beneath the ground.

He thinks he is invisible.

He thinks he is safe.

He is in his "happy place".

Often when we think of the future … we only envision our happy place. Where all is well. Where no problems can be seen.

But often when we think about the present … we think about all the obstacles facing us at the moment.

We think about the insurmountable debts we owe.

We think about the people around us who seem to be causing us problems of one type or another.

We think about our jobs and the frustrations that our daily work prevails on us.

We think about the things around the house that need repairs. And convince ourselves that our home is falling apart.

And we come to the conclusion that life – at this moment – stinks.

Very seldom do we look at the current status of our lives with the same optimism we hold for our future.

Very seldom do we take into account all the good things about the here and now.

We dwell on the bad. We swim in the pool of negativity. We embrace it and we wallow in our own self-perceived misery.

And we feel sorry for ourselves. We seem to actually enjoy feeling sorry for ourselves.

Because nobody else could possibly have it as bad as we do right now.

The grass is always greener in everyone else's yard.

We convince ourselves that times are … bad.

There is an old story told by theologian Emmet Fox . I tell this story every chance I get to anyone who I see who has convinced themselves that everything is just plain horrible at that moment.

I tell it to people who only dwell in the negative moments.

And quite often I tell it to myself.

Because I am as prone to dwelling in the negative as much as anyone else.

There once was a Bear that was foraging through the woods when he happened to stumble upon a hunter's camp.

No one was at the camp – the men were all out hunting.

But the Bear smelled something good coming from a big black kettle cooking over an open fire. The Bear grabbed that kettle in his big old bear arms to get a better smell … and perhaps to eat the stew inside … simmering in the kettle.

But the kettle was very hot, and it burned the arms of the Bear.The Bear knew only one line of defense and squeezed the pot even tighter. And the tighter he squeezed the more the kettle burned.

Until finally the Bear could stand it no more and passed out from the excruciating pain.

You are probably asking yourself "So what does this story have to do with dwelling in negative thoughts?"

Well, consider yourself to be the Bear.

And consider that burning hot black kettle to be negative thoughts in your mind.

Had the Bear simply let go of the kettle, he wouldn't have gotten so badly burned.

When we dwell on the negative – our immediate response is to think about such things harder … and harder .. and harder … until it simply burns you, scars you, possibly even destroying you.

You have to let that kettle go.

This is not to say you become the ostrich , who sticks his head in the sand to hide from his problems.

Because then you are prone to let the problems destroy you as well.

You have to change how you approach your problems.

You have to change your approach from that of how bad everything is .. to an approach of "how can I make it better?".

For example – you can make a list of all your options you can think of to make the negative to be a positive.

You have to figure out how to make lemonade from the lemons.Yes, I know – I hate that cliché too.

But the funny thing about the clichés we hate is that a cliché becomes a cliché only because it's so true.

When bad things happen, you cannot afford to be the Bear who hugs the kettle – it will burn you too badly.

But you cannot afford to be the Ostrich with his head in the sand – or the problems you are hiding from will prevail.

Instead you have to sit down and figure out a plan of attack.

A business plan if you will.

So you can open up a lemonade stand.