The Power of Positive Thinking: 6 Ways to Build Positive Thinking Skills
Maureen Considine
Thoughts are more than just bits of information that run through your head all day, they are very powerful form of energy. In fact, science can now prove this idea.
Each person has thousands of thoughts in a single day. Thoughts are very powerful, and they can help us create the life you want. The idea is that the more one focuses on positive ideas, feelings, and thoughts, the more of them they will bring into their life.
What can positive thinking do for you?
With positive thinking, you can create more success in your life, and you can turn failure into something of value.
Positive thinking can improve your health, your relationships, your business, and your career. It can apply to every area of your life.
The thoughts you think determine how you feel. This mind-body connection is an important component of your wellbeing.
Why you don’t always think positively
Everyone has limits. You have limiting beliefs as well, especially when it comes to the amount of success you think you are capable of. This translates into the amount of money you think you can make. You limit yourself, often without even knowing it.
It’s your inner voice that implements these limits — your critical self-talk. Fear and low self-esteem create these imaginary limits, as well as outside factors. Perhaps it was the teacher who said you wouldn’t amount to anything, or the pressure other adults put on you.
People are wired to look for what’s wrong so that they can find the thing to fix. Makes sense right, the thing is, what that really does is causes you to focus on what’s missing, which will create more of that.
6 Ways to train yourself to think positively
There are six things you can do to keep your thoughts positive.
1.Focus on the different possibilities. There’s usually more than one way of doing something — more than one solution to every problem. Sometimes it takes effort to find alternatives and so it is easy to fall back to old patterns. Focus on the fact that there are endless possibilities available to you at any given time.
2. Think about what you’ve accomplished. You tend to focus on the parts of your to-do list that you failed to get done. This can be very overwhelming and unmotivating. It makes you feel like you spend so much time working and getting nowhere. But it’s usually not true. By looking at what you have accomplished, you can change your outlook and productivity.
3. Write down your goals as if you’ve already reached them. Next time you write down a goal, do it in the present tense. If you write it as though you’ve just reached it, you can experience the joy of having done so. I know this might sound backwards, but it’s a more powerful approach.
4. Have high expectations for yourself and others. When it comes to relationships, positive thinking can be powerful. High expectations can foster confidence and the motivation to try, to excel and then to achieve beyond the limits you set for yourself.
5. Use affirmations. Uplifting and encouraging statements can shift your negative thought patterns back on track. You might have that one negative thought that plays over and over in your mind. It comes at the most inopportune time and sticks around. Using affirmations, however, is one way to kick it out.
6. Take a step back for a new perspective. Can you stop and look at the situation? Try to see it from another perspective — even try running it by a trusted friend or coach. Oftentimes the problem is in how you are seeing the situation or the belief you hold around it. Someone to provide a new insight can be key.
Finding yourself thinking negatively from time to time is normal — and it can sometimes be hard to recover from these thoughts. But building up your positive thinking skills can have a big impact on your future. What positive thoughts do you focus on thinking?
Maureen Considine is Founder and CEO of Finding Your Way Coaching. A Master Coach with expertise in Income Acceleration, Business Development, Sales and Mindset, she is the Wealth Health Creation Strategist for entrepreneurs, executives, and other high performers. Maureen has over 25 years of experience in sales and marketing. She has helped hundreds of clients grow their businesses and reach their true potential using her unique, intuitive, and holistic approach. Maureen has a B.A. in Psychology, with training in mindset and the Psychology of Sales.