To get started on your journey towards mastering the skill of positive thinking, you need to get rid of all traces of doubt and negative thinking as soon as possible.
If you continue doubting yourself, you’re never going to amount to anything in life. You’ll probably end up living a mediocre and unhappy life. Too scared to venture out of your comfort zone. Too afraid to deal with the reality that failure is a necessary – and important – step towards success.
Doubters will doubt themselves. They’ll doubt the people around them. They’ll doubt everything and everyone. These people are downers. They literally make everyone around them suffer just by being near them.
Does this sound like you? I sure hope not! No one wants to be around a Debbie Downer, so you definitely shouldn’t ever want to be one!
Just like most things in life, overcoming doubt and negative thinking is easier said than done. Sure, it’s easy to utter positive words when you need to. But deep inside you know your first instinct is to say something gloomy or depressing. You need to put a stop to your destructive inner voice right now.
Here are 10 powerful ways you can get started with removing negativity in your life so you can move forward and upward!
The past is gone, it’s over. You can try all you want, but you can never turn back the clock. Look at the present without letting your past cloud your judgment.
If you fail to move forward because the past is holding you back, then you seriously need to reassess your life.
Whatever happened in the past has got to stay in the past. If you continue letting it affect you, then your future may not turn out to what you want it to be.
One thing people often overlook is the fact that mistakes do happen. Sure, you can have the best-laid plans, but sometimes you just can’t stop mistakes from happening. Mistakes – whether it be big or small – are bound to happen. Don’t let it dissuade you though.
Don’t think that just because you made a mistake in the past, then you can’t ever succeed in the same task or project. No, you have to stop thinking like that. Otherwise, you’re just proving to your inner critic that it’s right!
Whenever a problem comes up, you probably try to find out what’s wrong. This behavior is totally normal – how else can you fix problems if you don’t know what caused it in the first place?
But getting hung up on these mistakes – especially if you’re the one who caused them – is just plain wrong. If you don’t stop berating yourself, then you can’t move forward to fix the problem. Have a little faith in yourself. A little positive pep talk will go a long way towards building your confidence!
A negative person’s first reaction to problems is to find out who made a mistake. Then they’ll go out and attack that person privately or publicly.
A positive person, on the other hand, will also try to find out who made the mistake. But, instead of focusing on the person, they’ll use their energy to try and solve the problem at hand. When the problem’s been solved and dealt with, then they’ll go back to the person who made the mistake. Instead of berating them, they’ll give some constructive feedback to help them avoid making the same error in the future.
When you know your thoughts are spiraling into negativity, you should admonish yourself right away. This is why self-awareness is so important – you can pinpoint the exact moment your inner self-destructive twin rears its ugly head out.
Once you realize where your thoughts are heading, tell yourself to stop. Take a deep breath. Go out for a walk to clear your head, or do whatever you need to do just to shut out that inner voice.
Friends are a good thing to have, but having positive friends you can rely on is even better. A positive person will help you overcome your negative thoughts. They will cheer you up when you’re feeling down. They’ll look at your problems from an objective point of view, so you can see the positive side, too.
Your negative friends won’t do the same for you. Instead of cheering you up, they’ll probably try to drag you further down. They’ll feed on your negative thoughts, and they’ll spread even more negativity your way.
Having a journal is a great way to track down your thoughts. Whenever you’re feeling down, write it down. In the same entry, write your positive responses to your negative thoughts.
Think about how you can turn a negative situation into a positive one. Then highlight the positive notes in your journal. That way, when you feel down again, you can easily find your positive entries to help cheer you up.
Additionally, you can also use your journal to write down all the good things you currently have going for you. Whether it’s your job, your pet, your family, or the latest gadget you’ve saved up for months, write it down if it makes you happy and makes you think positive thoughts.
Failure isn’t the big bad wolf you probably think it is. Sure, failing big time might sound scary. It’s something you probably don’t ever want to experience. But think about how many times successful entrepreneurs failed before they succeeded?
The truth is successful people have probably failed more times than you can fathom. That may sound silly, but it’s true. Successful people think of failure as stepping stones towards success. Win or lose, they get something from the experience!
You can’t belittle your achievements. No big thing can be completed without its many small parts. If you’re aiming to be a millionaire in a year, then be thankful if you’re earning any profit at all.
Big dreams start small. Break down your big goals into mini goals.
That’s how you make success look easy!
Every time you hit a mini-goal, celebrate. Don’t think it’s just a small win. Don’t forget small wins often lead to big wins! Enjoy every step of the process and just continue on with taking it one positive step at a time.
Your dreams and your goals aren’t set in stone. You can define it any way you want – it’s yours after all. But if something happens along the way and you cannot achieve your dreams exactly as you’ve hoped for, then don’t fret. Sometimes, you have to adapt and adjust.
When you first planned your steps towards achieving your goals, you may not have considered some important factors. You’ve come a long way, you don’t want to break down now. Think about alternatives and how these might turn out to be better than what you initially hoped for!