Thinking Positively

(1) Ability to Trust Your Potential

We are all unique in our own way, we each view and experience the world through our own lens. Ultimately what this means is that nobody can use your abilities the way you can. This is why it is so important to believe in yourself completely. We can read all the books, gain all the knowledge, mirror others achievements and look to others for guidance, but in the end, there is no other person on this planet who knows how to use your abilities quite like you can. We can no doubt learn from others but it is only when we are truly being ourselves that we become powerful. Trust in your abilities and trust that you are the only person alive who can use those abilities to their fullest potential.

(2) Choose Wisely

It’s not what society thinks about how you live your life that’s important, but it is paramount to your success as a human being to take a good long hard look at the way you see reality without the interference of the masses who have been brought up to fall in line and live their lives in accordance with a flawed system based on conformity. The most powerful thing you have at your disposal at any given time is the fact that you have the power to make your own decisions. The choices you make today will create the situations and circumstances you find yourself in tomorrow…choose wisely.

(3) Successful Thoughts

Education is paramount to success (whatever success means to you) but education is not preparation for life itself…life itself is education, and every single day you are being tested by the thoughts you choose to entertain or repeat. The educated mind is the one that can entertain a thought without accepting it. The only thoughts that play a leading role in your life are the ones you choose to accept as true. Negative thoughts, doubtful thoughts and any thoughts that limit your growth have no place in your mind, so it’s your job as the governor of your mind to banish these useless thoughts from the community you rule inside your head. Your thoughts only have the power you give to them.

(4) Accept “what is”

Be willing to abandon any resistance to what “IS” in this moment. Most often we get uptight and dwell upon situations out of our control when we should just “let it go”. You have no control over the long line at the grocery store, traffic jams, or other people’s behavior…stop arguing with reality, you will lose every single time. A negative reaction is to wish it weren’t so, a positive reaction is to accept it as so. We hear people complaining all the time about things out of their control, they complain about the weather, the economy etc, Believe it or not, this is a habit just like everything else. Next time you are faced with a situation that is unpleasant but out of your control, remember that “it is what it is” and any negative response on your part is an argument against reality, and an argument you can never win.

(5) Automatic thinking

What have you done today that sets it apart from yesterday, or the day before that. The biggest reasons why people do not achieve their goals is because they haven’t set any to begin with, or they repeat the thoughts and actions as the previous day, month, year or even decade. Start to make at least one significant change each day and over time the results will show. Keep on doing the same things and inevitably you will manifest the same results.

(6) Self image

We all have things we believe about ourselves. We may believe that we’re too small, too tall, we’re beautiful, we’re ugly, we’re too sensitive or even too brash. The person we see in the mirror is not who we truly are…the person we see when we look within is who we truly are. Whatever your self image is, stop labeling yourself and begin to work on accepting your beautiful self completely. Life is about self discovery and it can be an amazing journey. Why rip yourself off of an incredible adventure by wasting time focusing on limiting beliefs created by a doubtful mind. If you really want to change your life, never give up on yourself, fall in love with yourself, and know that you’re worth the effort.

(7) influence

Taking responsibility for your reactions each day is so important. It is “us” who give power to the people and events that influence our lives on a daily basis. How much power and influence we allow these people or things to have over us is purely down to how we react. The more negative our reaction when someone pushes our buttons, the more power we give to that person, thus, we are more influenced by the outer world. By controlling our reactions and not taking others emotional baggage (anger, jealousy, bitterness) as our own and reacting in kind, then the personal power lies within, and we are more influenced by our inner world.

Barbara Ehrenreich on The Perils of Positive Thinking - TIME

Barbara Ehrenreich on The Peril of Positive Thinking - TIME

What makes you think unsullied optimism is such a good idea? Americans have long prided themselves on being "positive" and optimistic - traits that reached a manic zenith in the early years of this millennium. Iraq would be a cakewalk! The Dow would reach 36,000! Housing prices could never decline! Optimism was not only patriotic, it was a Christian virtue, or so we learned from the proliferating preachers of the "prosperity gospel," whose God wants to "prosper" you.

In 2006, the runaway bestseller The Secret promised that you could have anything you wanted, anything at all, simply by using your mental powers to "attract" it. The poor listened to upbeat preachers like Joel Osteen and took out subprime mortgages. The rich paid for seminars led by motivational speakers like Tony Robbins and repackaged those mortgages into securities sold around the world. (Read "Yes, I Suck: Self-Help Through Negative Thinking.")

Optimism wasn't just a psycho-spiritual lifestyle option; by the mid-'00s it had become increasingly mandatory. Positive psychologists, inspired by a totally over-optimistic reading of the data, proclaimed that optimism lengthens the life span, ameliorates aging and cures cancer.

In the last few years, some breast cancer support groups have expelled members whose tumors metastasized, lest they bring the other members down. In the workplace, employers culled "negative" people, like those in the finance industry who had the temerity to suggest that their company's subprime exposure might be too high.

No one dared be the bearer of bad news. The purpose of work, at least in white-collar settings, was to flatter and reassure the boss, who had in turn probably read enough of the business self-help literature to believe that his job was to motivate others with his own relentless and radiant optimism. (Read "A Primer for Pessimists.")

Two years into the Great Recession, it's time to face the truth: Optimism feels good, really good, but it turns out to be the methamphetamine of run-amok American capitalism. Meth induces a "Superman Syndrome." Optimism fed into what Steve Eisman, a banking analyst who foresaw the crash, calls "hedge-fund disease," characterized by "megalomania, plus narcissism, plus solipsism" and the belief that "to think something is to make it happen."

The meth-head loses his teeth and his mind; the madcap optimists of Wall Street lost something like $10 trillion worth of pension funds, life savings and retirement accounts. (See five reasons for economic optimism.)

Fortunately, the alternative to optimism is not pessimism, which can be equally delusional. What we need here is some realism, or the simple admission that, to paraphrase a bumper sticker, "stuff happens," including sometimes very, very bad stuff. We don't have to dwell incessantly on the worst case scenarios ” the metastasis, the market crash or global pandemic ” but we do need to acknowledge that they could happen, and prepare in the best way we can. Some will call this "negative thinking," but the technical term is sobriety.

Besides, the constant effort of maintaining optimism in the face of considerable counterevidence is just too damn much work. Optimism training, affirmations and related forms of self-hypnosis are a burden that we can finally, in good conscience, set down. They won't make you richer or healthier, and, as we should have learned by now, they can easily put you in harm's way. The threats that we face, individually and collectively, won't be solved by wishful thinking, but by a clear-eyed commitment to taking action in the world.

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