Globally we are all experiencing lockdown in some way or another due to the pandemic. It’s certainly a weird time for most of us and worrying as well. Anytime we are forced out of our routine and habits, we have opportunities for growth. Resilience is now, more than ever, a critical skill as our lives are affected not just by what happens to us but how we choose to respond to those events.
What is positive thinking?
Positive thinking is a mental and emotional attitude of expecting good and favourable results, and not getting discouraged when plans do not proceed as expected. It means trying over again and not accepting defeat. It is an attitude of focusing on the good and positive in a situation, and not on the negative. With this frame of mind, you don’t accept defeat, and do not allow anything negative to affect your mood and state of mind.
A lot of people assume because you have a positive mind, everything in your life is great. I can assure you this is not how it works. Life happens, and we are all going to experience struggles, fears, insecurities and flaws. But being positive isn’t about a life without those things. It’s about learning how to move past them and keep going even when it gets tough.
It feels good to approach life from a positive perspective. If you want to start behaving in a more positive way, then you have to start with your thoughts. Your thoughts affect how you feel and behave in any situation.
Negative Thinking
When you think negatively, your energy is very low. Being sad or upset drains your energy from you and robs you from doing the things you want to do. It becomes very easy to avoid engaging in activities that you make you feel good or benefit your life. If you feel that seeing the bad in everything is your default setting, then experts say you have to think positive thoughts to counteract the negative and do this on repeat until the brain can feel more positive. It’s all about ‘rewiring’ your brain so what you do habitually leans more strongly towards the positive than the negative. Negative thinking can be terribly intrusive on your day. Negative thoughts can set up camp in your brain and crowd out any other positive thoughts, sometimes leaving you feeling low and depleted. Negative self-talk and thinking can be a hard pattern to break but that does not mean that it is impossible.
Positive Thinking
When you think positively, your energy increases. Positive thinking does not mean that you have to completely ignore negative events in your life or the emotions that accompany them. It is normal to experience hardships and have an emotional response. Rather, positive thinking means that you believe that the hard times will not last forever, and trust that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even when going through a challenging period. This keeps the negativity from greatly impacting your life.
Conclusion
Thinking positively can help reduce stress. It helps you to look at a situation with a new perspective. It helps you to see failure as an obstacle, not a dead end. And it helps you to stay calm, even in the midst of an ugly situation.
