Our outlook and attitude play a huge part in how happy and confident we are and how successful we become. People who think positively are often more relaxed and calm, and they smile more than those who tend to focus on the negative and let stress get to them.
Not only does how you think and feel affect you, but it also affects those around you. In short, your mood affects your day. Developing and keeping a positive outlook is essential if you wish to lead a positive and fulfilling life.
Optimism & A Positive Outlook
There are many ways you can develop a more positive outlook and change how you react to the situations that you encounter in day-to-day life. Changing your attitude and not slipping back into negative thinking will take time, but eventually the new positive outlook will become second nature. The five main key points to remember when changing your outlook are:
Turn your way of thinking into positive thinking and practice thinking positively daily. Work to complete one task at a time and think only of the positive outcome and how good you will feel when you have completed the task. Never give in to doubt - just keep going.
Don’t let your conversations turn negative. When talking with others, it can be easy to let them discourage you, particularly if they have a negative outlook on life. Don’t be tempted to fall back into your old ways; turn negative talk into positive and look for the good in everything and any situation.
Look for the positive in those around you and point it out. Doing so can empower others and encourage a positive attitude all around you.
Whatever you are doing in your day-to-day life, always look for the good in it. Sometimes a boring task or unwanted situation can leave you feeling negative. However, help yourself by trying to find something about it that turns your experience into a more positive situation.
Never let yourself become distracted or tricked into going back to negativity. It takes time to change the way you feel and think. If you have been down on yourself and the world for a long time, your new outlook may take a while to register and stay around.
You will find over time that many areas of your life can be changed just by changing your outlook from a negative one to a more positive one. You will find that (1) your self-esteem improves, (2) you become more well-liked, (3) you feel happier and are more confident than before, (4) you are able to tackle the tasks you once hated without them causing you stress and anxiety, and (5) your relationships improve. These are just a few of the areas where you can self-improve and gain a more positive outlook and thus lead a more positive life.
Know Your Self-Worth
Realizing your self-worth has nothing to do with checking your bank balance. It is about you, the person you are and the way you live your life. We give others respect, love, and consideration but how often do we give ourselves what is due? How you value yourself is based on your own self-esteem; your self-esteem shows you how much you truly value yourself.
Healthy self-esteem leads to independence, happiness, flexibility, the ability to adapt easily to change, co-operation, and a positive outlook on any situation.
Unhealthy or low self-esteem, on the other hand, leads only to irrational thoughts, unhappiness, fear of the new, rigidity, defensiveness, and a negative outlook on life.
How we see ourselves has a lot to do with how others see us. If we are happy, smiling, and full of confidence, others see us as someone they want to be around. If we respect ourselves and portray this, others will respect us too. After all, how can you ask for respect from others if you don’t even respect yourself? Finding and developing your self-worth is all about developing your self-esteem, so let’s take a look at esteem.
High Self-Esteem
If you have high self-esteem you will see certain traits in yourself and how you see yourself. Traits linked with high self-esteem and self-worth are:
You are secure about who you are and have confidence in your abilities
You allow yourself to show your true feelings to others
You don’t have intimacy problems in relationships
You are able to recognize and take pride in yourself for your achievements in life
You are easily able to forgive yourself for mistakes and also forgive others
Low Self-Esteem
Similarly, if you have problems with self-worth or low self-esteem, you will follow a certain pattern in your thoughts and ways. If you have problems with low self-esteem, you may notice the following traits:
You lack belief in yourself and are insecure
You have problems showing and accepting intimacy in relationships
You never let your true feelings show
You never recognize and give yourself credit for your accomplishments
You have the inability to forgive yourself or others
You resist change at every opportunity
Improving Your Self-Worth
There are plenty of ways in which you can boost your self-esteem and change to a more positive and healthy outlook about yourself. Here are my top six tips for developing and boosting your self-worth.
Don’t take other people's criticism to heart. Instead, listen to what they are saying and learn from it. Many of us struggle to take criticism well, but it is one of the best tools to help grow your personal and professional life (if you are open to the support).
Take some time out for yourself every day. Meditate, look inside yourself, and realize all your good qualities. Imagine changing your bad habits into more positive and healthy daily habits.
Celebrate and pride yourself on even the smallest achievements that you accomplish.
Do something every day that you enjoy. Figure out what works for you - it could be taking a walk in the sunshine, soaking in a bubble bath, or reading a good book - whatever works best to bring you joy.
Never deprive yourself of something you enjoy. If you know you shouldn’t be doing it, but you're not prepared to stop, do it anyway and stop chastising yourself about it. If you want to get healthier or change a bad habit, take the time to replace that habit with a healthier alternative.
Talk positively to yourself. Repeating affirmations can help chase away all of the negative thoughts and feelings. Keep reading to check out some great positive affirmations you can use daily.
Positive Affirmations Can Change Your Life
Having a positive attitude is the key to being happy and leading a successful life. Our thoughts play a huge role in how we feel. Positive thinking leads to a more confident and happy life, while negativity leads to low self-esteem and missing out on so much in life. We so often talk ourselves out of things without even realizing we are doing so. Every day, hundreds of negative thoughts drift freely through our minds.
We put ourselves down too often, and we sow seeds of doubt in ourselves. Luckily, there is a small simple tool that you can use throughout the day to help to change these negative thoughts and instill a more positive way of thinking. Using daily positive affirmations can change your life drastically for the better. They can make you more confident, more aware, more sure of yourself, and they can change your life in many more aspects for the better.
What are Positive Affirmations?
Positive affirmations can be used throughout the day anywhere and at any time you need them. The more you use them, the easier positive thoughts will take over negative ones and you will see the benefits in your life. An affirmation is a simple technique that is used to change negative self-talk (that we are rarely even aware of doing) into positive self-talk.
Most of us have, for many years, bombarded ourselves with negative thoughts. As a result, changing your thoughts and the way you think won’t happen overnight. However, if you stick with affirmations and commit to bettering yourself, the words will work once you have re-trained your way of thinking. There are many different affirmation techniques for dealing with different situations in life. Some of the most popular and successful are listed below.
The Anywhere Technique - For Positivity
This technique can be used anywhere and whenever you catch yourself thinking a negative thought. When you realize you are having a negative thought, think of yourself turning down a volume knob inside your head. 'Turn it down' low enough so as not to hear it any longer. Then think a positive affirmation to replace the negative and turn the volume back up, repeating it to yourself.
The Mirror Technique - For Body Positivity
This technique helps you to appreciate yourself and develop self-awareness and self-esteem. You should stand in front of a mirror, preferably a full-length one in either just your underwear or naked. Start at your head, and, working down your body, say out loud what you like about areas of your body. For example, you could say “I like the way my hair shines, the slight differences in color where the light hits it” or “my eyes are a lovely shade of _ _ _ _. They sparkle and glint; my eyes are a wonderful feature.” Take the time and go slowly over your entire body building up a more positive image of yourself.
The Trashcan Technique - To Rid Yourself of Negative Thoughts
If you have negative thoughts, write them down on a scrap of paper, crush the paper up into a ball, and throw it into the trash can. By doing this, you are telling yourself these thoughts are nothing but rubbish and that’s where they belong.
The Meditation Technique - To Focus on Positive Affirmations
Find somewhere quiet where you are able to relax for 5 or 10 minutes, close your eyes and let your mind empty of all thoughts and feelings. Begin to repeat your affirmation to yourself over and over again while concentrating on the words you are repeating and believe in what you are saying.
Using Positive Affirmations & Positive Self-Talk
One of the biggest influences that we can use to our advantage in life is ourselves. In particular, we can use our thoughts to impact our self-esteem and happiness. Our thoughts influence our feelings and therefore can have a profound effect on how we deal with life. By learning to control our self-talk and turning it into positive self-talk rather than negative, we can begin to gain more control over every aspect of our lives and make essential changes.
Your ability to succeed in life largely depends on how you deal with life. A positive mental attitude leads to a confident and successful life. A negative mental attitude leads to a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. A positive attitude leads to seeing the good in people and the world; this leads to optimism and success. Your quality of life is based on how you think and feel from moment to moment. Changing the way you think can drastically change how you see life and deal with life.
The person who goes through life optimistically with a positive attitude is better able to deal with life and the problems it sometimes throws at us. They are able to bounce back and recover from problems or setbacks in life. The optimistic person will see the problem for what it is, nothing but a temporary setback which they can overcome and move on. When looking at life in this optimistic way, the person is able to take full control over their thoughts and feelings and turn a negative situation into a more positive one by simply altering the way they think.
Since thoughts can either be positive or negative and you can only have one thought in mind at any one time, choosing positive thinking will keep your thoughts, feelings, and actions optimistic. In turn, this helps you become a happier person who is able to achieve their goals much easier.
Positive Affirmation Examples
Using positive self-talk throughout the day can help you establish a new thinking pattern. You probably have established a pattern of negative thinking for many years and this will take time to overcome.
Aim to repeat positive affirmations around 50 times throughout the day. This can be achieved by repeating positive statements quietly to yourself or out aloud. Positive self-talk can help you overcome difficult situations, gain more confidence, quit bad habits, recover quicker from illness, or make positive changes to your life.
Five popular phrases or sentences that can be used in positive self-talk include:
I have an exciting/interesting challenge facing me (when a problem occurs or there is some difficulty; rather than looking at the situation in a negative way, thinking of it as a challenge is a much more positive way of dealing with it).
I like the person I am or I am a good person or I am totally awesome (to bolster self-confidence and gain respect for yourself and the person you are).
I know I can do this or I will conquer this (when you're faced with a task that you would previously doubt your capability of conquering).
I am full of health, energy, and vitality (to encourage good feelings about your health either after you have been sick or while recovering from an illness).
I am fulfilled as a person (to encourage good general positive thoughts about yourself and the world in which you live)
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