Do you find yourself being an optimist or a pessimist? Both of these characteristics can have profound effects on your mental health through everyday life and how you react to events. I was once a negative, worst-case scenario, worrisome person. However, I have learned that it negatively affected my mental health, people around me were less understanding and that I really needed to adjust my thinking. So I’ve compiled this list of ways I have found to improve my life with optimism and to change my mindset for the better.
No Complaining
The start of reducing your complaining, is knowing and recognizing that you are so very blessed and realizing that it’s not helpful or based in truth. Being thankful for every breath, every step and every night of sleep- it’s a true miracle and I’m not easily amused by things. Complaining about small things (anything really) is needless and annoying, people don’t like to hear it and makes you sound unappreciative, or like a brat. I try to find opportunities now to side step into what I do have and how I can substitute or find a different solution.
Negative Nancy
My mindset has almost always been rather cynical and well that’s just not cute. It’s not something people enjoy being around and want to engage with either. Being a Negative Nancy turns people off in a big way and they won’t want to share anything with you especially if you never see the bright side. Your friends will be less likely to share information with you based on this being how you react to anything positive.
Being Intuitive to peoples’ feelings and moods
Now, I see a huge difference in how I speak and listen to others when fully immersed in conversation. I love helping my friends find a way to be positive even about a crappy situation. I want to lighten the mood and I am naturally very empathetic and privy to how others sound, even when they try to hide or mask emotions. This helps to be relatable and understand people more in general and be open to different types of people and their lives.
Take out dwelling
Honestly, I’m still working on not dwelling. I am not very good at this yet but I am really, truly working on it. I usually try to shake off my sadness or other strong negative emotions that take over inside me. Positivity and laughter is a much, much better mindset space to be. I usually try to think of 2-3 positive things before I ever let myself think of ONE downside. It really helps me to not fall into that disastrous thinking that it can suck you into.
Look for little blessings in daily life during hard times
Expressing gratitude in your life is a huge habit to keep to improve the optimism in your mindset and life. Some people have this knack naturally and I’d like to say I do too, but I don’t. I have to work at it and be extra mindful of how very blessed I am and make sure that I never take it for granted. During hard times, I think it is much easier to be thankful in all the small ways that affect our daily lives. But when things are good- writing our gratitude list is still a good practice to have.
These are all the things that I’ve found improved my mindset and made me overall much happier in a short period of time. I know a lot of people who are naturally more positive in their thinking, but I want you to know that if this isn’t you, that’s okay. You can adjust your thinking and mindset to become a positive, enjoyable and more optimistic person. The rule isn’t hard and fast and the goal is not to be happy “all of the time” but not to be the negative, unhappy and pessimistic person you may have been before.
One Response
Having a positive mindset is really important, even just talking for myself personally. When I have a good mindset, my day and even week is amazingly good, but if I get out of bed on the wrong foot or even have one mis-step, it can impact SO much. That being said having tools that you can utilize to return to your positive mindset is important too, and you discussed so much that can help me and others remain positive in different situations!
Awesome post with LOTS of great information 🙂
~Stephanie