Having an optimistic attitude when going about your daily life, will take you far without a shadow of a doubt in my eyes. The good thing about living life with an optimistic outlook is that, over a period of time, you are embedding natural and positive thoughts into your mind which in turn, will produce a healthy mind-set no matter what situation occurs.

If you’ve been conditioned to view life in a pessimistic point of view, it’s never too late to change your mind-set. Pessimism is like poison to the mind and it has the major ability to hinder our level of progression in life. It’s not God’s intention for us to view life in a negative mind-set.

From the early days of our child-hood to the current journey that we face as adults, we carry that habit of either seeing the glass as half empty or half full. One factor that plays a huge role in the conditioning of our mind is the type of up-bringing we had.

Sadly to say, some people didn’t have the fortunate up-bringing where they were encouraged on a continual basis to be their best.  Unfortunately, these individuals were told either directly or indirectly, that they wouldn’t amount to anything.

It’s messages like this that causes these individuals go about life thinking that it’s pointless to view the positive side to everything.In their mind all they’ve ever known was that they are failures and that they don’t have what it takes to succeed in life.

These types of people have developed what I call the “It is what it is” belief. In other words, if it appears as though there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, then extreme pessimists may think that they’ll travel down a never ending dark tunnel with no light at the end.

The good thing is that this type of thinking can be changed. Negative thinking is a learned habit, the same as positive thinking. Anything that makes us feel sad, depressed, angry or bitter, is possibly associated with a negative thought that has creeped into our minds.

When you feel these negative emotions, you should evaluate your thoughts immediately. If you are thinking negative thoughts, negate those bad thoughts with a positive thought to neutralize your emotions. It may take time for your mind to adjust to thinking positively. Remember, negative thinking is a bad habit and it won’t change overnight but continue to combat bad thoughts and emotions with positive ones.

For instance, let’s say John is a competitive athlete who has been playing football all his life. John, has been used to winning for the majority of his life. However, when looking back on past episodes when John has lost, we’re reminded that John didn’t take losing very well.

One thing that may help John not to be a sour loser is to look at losing as a learning experience. When he loses, instead of beating himself up over where he went wrong, John should realize that although he lost one game he’s had a great season and he gave his best effort.

Remember my friend, it may sound cliche but no matter what we face, it can always be worse. No matter how good we are at something there’s always someone else out there who is a little better, and that’s okay. We should tell ourselves more often, that it’s okay if someone else is better at something than we are.

It’s okay if you didn’t land that account at work, or if you scored slightly less than you expected on that test that you studied so hard for. Don’t beat yourself up my friend. Keep a positive outlook as you charge forth in your life journey.

Related Posts

• February 2, 2012 -- 10 Ways to Have a Complete Joy-filled Day! (2)
• March 7, 2011 -- It All Starts With A Thought (0)
• June 22, 2010 -- Post It On Your Bathroom Mirror! (5)
• June 7, 2010 -- Not All “What If” Thinking Is Bad Thinking (2)
• May 22, 2010 -- What Inspires You? How to Go From Discouragement to Encouragement (3)

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