This is episode 150 of the Absolute Mind podcasts and today I am covering positive thinking.

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Positive Thinking

Would you class yourself an optimist or a pessimist? Do you look for the good or always see the bad?

In life, we can quickly become dragged down by our negative internal thoughts when all we seem to see or hear or experience are negatives, when we allow these thoughts to consume us it can seem very difficult to change them and we can begin to believe that, "that's just our luck" "I'm just unlucky", "bad things always happen to me". But you can change the way you look at things and the things you look at will begin to change all with a little practice and seeing the world in a new light.

How Can You Begin To Think Positive?

A few years ago I read a book called "The Secret" and this really opened my eyes to how what we think and believe is happening to us because of our "bad luck" when in fact those things are happening to us because we wait for them, we look for them sometimes without even realising we are, I've seen many people in my practice who wake up asking themselves whats going to go wrong today, or when they stump their toe they ask "what next"

How can you expect a positive outlook when you proactively look for a negative?

Have you ever tried to stop thinking that way? Have you ever just stopped yourself midway through your internal thought and tried to look for a positive in what just happened? No?

Here are a few tips I find have helped my clients to change the way they think and to start thinking more positively.

1. Observe your thoughts, when a negative thought comes in stop allowing it to consume you and become a part of you. observe it and look for an alternative positive way of looking at it.
2. Gratitude lists, have a list of things you're thankful for in life.
3. Transform negatives into positives there is always a positive in any situation you just have to look for it.
4. Surround yourself with positivity, they say that we become like the 5 people we spend most of our time with. So if you are surrounded with negative people try to limit the time with these people, if you cant avoid the time with them for work example be sure to avoid negative discussions and crack on with work instead. If social media makes you feel negative about yourself avoid it as much as possible or have a cull of "friends" on there that you feel negative about.
5. Look for opportunity, in any negative situation look for what positive opportunity you can have from it, what have you learnt from it.
6. Stop yourself mid flow of any negative thought, shout out in your head STOP shake that thought process, and when you have disrupted that thought process breathe and reprocess that thought.
7. Exercise, always on my list of feeling good and feeling positive is exercise. When you exercise you release endorphins, those happy hormones which let's face it that's the aim of today's podcast is to feel good and feel happy so get yourself moving more.
8. Start your day positively! You have two choices when you wake, you can either be positive or be negative. Everybody should be waking in the morning thankful. Thankful for life, thankful for being able to breathe, thankful for one little thing. Have a nice morning routine that makes you feel good, don't snooze until you have little time to get ready, when the alarm goes get up, move, eat breakfast, and enjoy your morning instead of rushing around annoyed you have "no time" in the morning. We all have time.

Trying to change your mindset will take time but take some steps to start doing more positive things and you will start to feel different. You weren't born negative, you've learnt this behaviour and you can learn a new way of doing things and thinking.