It’s easy to talk about becoming a more positive person, but how? It seems that many of us don’t know the basic principles. Instead of creating more positivity, we set about trying to eliminate negativity. This never works. Cursing darkness just makes us angry, makes us feel futile and encourages others to despair.
Instead, we need to resist the urge to “fight fire with fire” which only creates more negativity and get busy planting flowers, sharing the positive and bringing more light into our universe. Talk is cheap, and even what I’ve said here won’t go far to making a difference, so, here are five ways you can start today to create a more positive world.
One word about that before I start. Yes, you can change the world. It’s true that you are only able to change yourself, but that ripples out. It changes people you come in contact with and those people change others. One smile may travel across a thousand faces in a day, shared from one to the next. It’s really that simple.
It may take millions of smiles, small acts of kindness and positive words of encouragement to make a difference, but it has to start somewhere and the first thing to do is not add any more negativity, even by fighting against it.
Be open to possibilities
If you’ve been following my articles, you’ve heard my personal motto, “What’s the Best that Could Happen?” I discovered it one day, while getting my passport picture at the Okc downtown post office, a place I would have equated with despair before I saw it. I had to read the sign twice, because I thought for sure it said something else, but there it was.
This question helps me to open my mind up to possibilities, which the universe is filled with. It allows me to imagine better outcomes, which can change my attitude, which can affect my behavior, which in turn, bounces off of others. It’s like the key to positive imagination. If you ask it, you can’t help but smile.
I practice imagining the best outcome on a regular basis, especially in situations where I don’t see much hope. It has changed things a number of times. By opening our eyes to the possibilities that surround every single situation in life, we can often find solutions that no one else would have ever seen.
See limitations for what they are
We are so easily sidetracked. One little roadblock and the negativity takes over. We see every limitation as a permanent dead end most days. But, I’ve learned to see it differently. Picture yourself on a road, leading to your chosen destination. In front of you, a barrier stands, a roadblock. Your path is cutoff.
Would you immediately assume your destination is now out of reach? No. But, in so many instances, job interviews, loan applications, disappointments and personal betrayals, we give up at the first sign of resistance in the universe.
I thought about this for a while. Using the roadblock analogy, I came to this conclusion. No barrier is really a barrier. It doesn’t “no, you shall not pass” it says, “not in this way, in this place, at this time” turn around, you’ll see the rest of the universe exactly as you left it. Every single path, besides the one blocked by this limitation, is still open to you. Every other possibility in the universe remains to be tried, and there are always an inexhaustible supply of possibilities.
Limitations are inherently limited, unless they live inside of us. As Henry Ford was quoted as saying, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right!” You have the power to limit yourself. Look around. Is there anyone at all doing the thing you want to do? Then it is possible. Is there anyone doing it that has faced similar, or greater challenges? Then it is possible for you!
When we allow simple roadblocks to discourage us, we allow negativity to have a victory that it doesn’t deserve. We quit too easily in many cases in life. I’ve trained myself to not to give up on the things I truly want from life. I work to find another way. Sometimes it means I have to regroup, rethink, or even wait, sometimes for longer than I’d like, to take advantage of the right opportunities, but they are there.
Don’t prequalify yourself
When dealing with financial institutions, prequalification is the process used to assess an applicant’s ability to pay back a loan, such as a mortgage. It allows them to apply a series of algorithms to determine the likelihood of making their money back without having a hassle.
In life, it’s easy to assess our own potential in a similar fashion. We look at our education, our current financial status, the connections we have and more, to determine if we should even risk asking the universe for what we really want. But, here’s the thing, it’s bullshit.
We hear all of our lives about what it takes to succeed, but let me ask you a question. How many people have you met in life that have it all, the financial connections, the education, the good looks, whatever is needed, but never quite reach their goal? If you’re like me, a lot. Most people settle.
On the other hand, have you ever met anyone that against all odds, with disabilities and issues stacked against them, still managed to achieve things that others are afraid to even dream about? Of course you have. They stand out, but are they that rare? There may only be one that you know in any given field, but they’re never the only one, and they are everywhere. For every person who should succeed and doesn’t, there are others that did, when they shouldn’t have.
In my opinion, the common denominator between those that do make it to their goal is this, they believed they could. Whatever life may have dealt them. Whether it was a simple matter of asking daddy for a favor, or they had to climb over the bodies of those that settled on the ladder to success, they knew that’s where they belonged and they took it.
When we judge our ability to achieve based on someone else’s criteria for what that will take, what that looks like and what it will mean for them, we discount our place in the universe. We are beings of pure source energy, crafted from the same stuff that stars are made of. We possess the same skills, imagination and brain power as every great person down through history. All that is missing, is our will and determination to make it happen.
Share the good in life
For every horrible event that takes a life, there is a miraculous event that saves one. For every attack, there is an act of generosity that changes lives in a good way. There will always be light and dark, there will always be takers and givers, and our view of the world depends heavily on which we focus on.
Have you ever had a really great day, I mean so good you wish you could model your whole life on it? We all have. But think about it, on that day, how many others were having the worst day of their lives. Was the universe good, or bad? Was it a good day, or a bad day? The answer is, it was neither.
When we share what’s good in life, we remind each other of the beauty that lies inside each of us. We paint pictures of what could be and we open the imagination to the possibilities of good. When we focus on what’s wrong in the world, the opposite happens. We give in to our baser selves, we focus on the negative in the human condition and it tends to make us forget the good that is just as much a part of us.
As we focus on the positive, we attract more positive things to us. We shift our own focus to hunt for and seek out the good things around us and we shift the balance in our thinking. The more good we share, the more we begin to believe in the good in people. As we see the good in people, we open up to the good in ourselves and the light is magnified.
By sharing good, we speak our beliefs into existence. They echo in the universe and bounce back to us. The others that surround us are encouraged to make their own lives better. We change the world for the better by playing a happy song. It actually does change things, subtly, but it does.
This is how you fight negativity, build and encourage positivity.
This is lighting candles, one flame, lighting another, and another, without diminishing the original fire. It seems too simple to work, but it does. As you practice it, you’ll begin to see more and more positive things. Things you used to overlook will pop up. You’ll see potential good before it even happens and as that soaks into you, you’ll change, and the world around you will change in response to you.
Say thank you
I’ve said this one a million times before, but it’s true. Gratitude may be the single most powerful force for positivity in our universe. When we say thank you, we acknowledge the good, we celebrate it and we magnify it. It allows us to shift our gears to focus on what’s good in our lives.
The power of gratitude isn’t just a one time thing, it’s cumulative. The more you say it, the more it means. It may seem like it would cheapen it, but the more gratitude you feel, the more things you find to be grateful for.
My personal goal is to say thank you for as many things as possible each day of my life. Not just once, but many times. Sometimes I just repeat the words thank you, over and over again silently to myself, thinking of the things I am truly grateful for and focusing on the feeling of gratitude and the joy it brings.
It's a great way to shift a mood, or change your attitude. It opens up your mind and heart to new possibilities, and it echoes back to you like nothing else can. It’s been taught by nearly every tradition as the secret to happiness, but most of us dismiss it as too simple. The effect it has on people when you use it is amazing.
When you say thank you to someone, don’t throw it away. Even then it has value, but look them in the eye, make contact and say it like you mean it. Be grateful. Thank them for the things you receive from them, whether they are paid to provide them or not. It almost always gets a response, from a quick glance to a beaming smile, to an invitation for further conversation, people like to feel appreciated.
These five things are simple, but they’re powerful. If you never learned anything else, you could change your life with the lessons I’ve shared here, I have. It may not seem like positivity, which at its root is the simplest form of love, could have the power to change things, but in reality, it is the only power for good that exists, and we have a lot of power to do good.
We need more light in our universe. The only way it happens is life on life. When we choose not to engage, we become a part of the problem. By choosing the simple, positive things I’ve shared here, you can have a major impact in your own life your family and your extended community.