Positive Thinking When Your Ship Is Sinking

This year I’m encouraging myself and others to see the glass half full. There are many reasons it’s important to think positive and many ways to do it, but you must change your thinking before you can change who you want to be.  

I don’t believe anyone walks around with the primary goal to make everything in their life negative. In my opinion, there are two reasons people do this. Number one, it’s a lot easier to see the negatives in a bad situation than it is to work so hard finding the positives. Number two; that’s just the way people in today’s society are. If you surround yourself with negative people and a negative atmosphere there’s a good chance you’ll be negative too. That’s why I believe it’s important to spread positivity. When someone sees what you’re doing, it might rub off on them and then someone else and become a chain reaction! If more of us are positive, an alternate attitude to our negative attitudes will be created and the world will be a happier place. It’s obviously hard to remain positive throughout the challenges of life, but when you have some guidelines it can become a lot more of an achievable goal.

How can you be positive?

1. Count your blessings and appreciate everything you have! Don’t focus on what you want or the things in your life you wish were going better. Instead notice everything you’ve been blessed with and find things to be thankful for every day.
2. Surround yourself with positivity! Put up inspirational quotes in places you look everyday, follow positive accounts on social media, and choose to be with people that will lift you up and that also have to same goal to focus on the positives in life. Your surroundings have an enormous effect on you no matter what the circumstance.
3. Slow down, stop and breathe for a second. Life is super tough, believe me when I say every person on this earth is struggling in some way. When you get overwhelmed with the world stop and take time to compose yourself. It’s ok to take a day off and do what you need to do for yourself. Which leads to my next point…
4. Take care of yourself! If you aren’t doing what you need to do to make yourself healthy, you’ll never be able to reach your fullest and best self. When you feel good about yourself, you’ll want to make others feel the same way! Loving yourself is super important when it comes to being positive.
5. Always remember that you get back from the world what you give out. If you give out compliments and encourage people to see the good in the world they’ll be more appreciative and want to do the same. When you let your own positivity shine throughout your community you’ll begin to see yourself become happier and a lot more thankful for every experience in life!

Why should you be positive?

1. Being positive makes you a happier person. When you start to see the good in life, that’s what you’ll focus on. If you only notice the unfortunate things that happen to you and dwell on them your mood will reflect that.
2. It gives you motivation. Getting through a day in any one of our lives is tough. Although if you think about the exciting things you get to experience every day you’ll be motivated to push through! For example, I usually have 2-3 practices a day after school and instead of dreading them like I normally do, I’ve started trying to make a list of reasons, like seeing my best friends, that I’m excited to go to them. Giving yourself things to look forward to throughout the day, even in school, will motivate you to push through.
3. Your positive attitude will affect others! Think about it… when you’re sitting next to someone in a class and all they do is complain about how they have no idea what they’re doing, that they didn’t do the homework, and that they’re so exhausted and hate school and just want to go home you either start to get kind of irritated like me or their attitude starts rubbing off on you. You start to chime in on how you have no idea either and don’t want to be here etc. Although, when someone next to you compliments you, asks you how your day is going or tries to help you with your homework you start to work together on something and maybe you compliment them back! You’re then more likely to spread the positivity you got from that person throughout the rest of your day!
4. It allows you to laugh at life! When you’re busy focusing on the things you’re thankful for and something disappointing happens, it’s not going to be as big of a deal as it would’ve been had you been focusing on everything negative in life. You’ll become too blessed to be stressed!
5. Positivity boosts self-esteem! It’s easy to get down on yourself if you dwell on every mistake you make. Notice the accomplishments you achieve and reward yourself for them! Be proud of all the amazing things you’re capable of and you’ll feel better than you’ve ever felt.

It’s important for us to recognize the good in our own lives, but positivity isn’t just something to keep to ourselves. The world needs more of it. Think about the positives you hear about vs. the negatives in both your own parts of life and in the world. Negativity is a part of human nature; it’s impossible and not healthy to completely push it out of our lives. Although, this generation does focus on the things that get us down in life a lot more than we should. Think positive and you’ll see your life change for the better. It’s not an easy thing to do, but setting the goal to have an optimistic outlook on life no matter the circumstance will not only benefit you, but the world around you. Just taking one step towards this goal everyday will end in the ultimate goal years down the road of shining an enormous light in the world we live in.