Five Ways to Harness the Power of Positive Thinking

Photo Credit: Billy Frank Alexander

Here are five ways to put positive thinking into action and harness its power:

1. Don’t let the routines of the day make you forget what you have – You live better than kings did just 100 years ago.  People are so caught up with having the latest iPhone or shiny new car that they do not appreciate how good they have it.  Even those on welfare in the United States live a luxurious life compared to 90% of the rest of the world.  Apartments in the projects usually have air conditioning, heating, and cable television.  These things are not a birthright.  Go to a developing country and you will gain an appreciation of this fact.  Learn to think positively by focusing more at what you have, instead of what you don’t have.  This is something we are often reminded of at Thanksgiving dinner but something we forget on a day-to-day basis as the routines of the day occupy our thoughts.  Make time to be grateful on a daily basis.
2. Surround yourself with positive people – You will absorb their aura of positive thinking just by being around them.  Positive thinkers develop much better coping strategies to deal with life’s little unexpected surprises.  The best way to learn these strategies is to study others and see how they handle situations.  Once you begin to habitually think positively, you will in turn attract more positive people to your life.  That’s because positive people are attracted to other positive people.
3. Learn to look at things through the eyes of a child – Children are universally loved because of the way they view their surroundings with wonderment and appreciation.  Just because you are not an innocent child does not mean you cannot harness this trait.  Appreciate the feeling of your bare feet on the grass at your local park.  Appreciate the silly humor of a simple comedy like The Three Stooges.  Not everything needs to have a meaning.  You can just kick off your shoes and have fun.
4. Learn to see what is around you – When you go on vacation, you are likely to notice a charming little restaurant and give it a shot.  However, on the way to work, we often will not look twice at some of our surroundings.  There are plenty of little gems to be discovered if you become more conscious of the numerous untapped joys in your own neighborhood or area.  We have become immune to our surroundings because we are not turning on our “adventure mode.”  Learn to turn on your “adventure mode” and turn the mundane into the wildly fascinating!
5. Follow a blog or two about positive thinking – If someone is willing to invest his or her time on a daily blog about the subject, you can bet he/she is passionate about positive thinking.  A small investment of time, say five minutes, reading blog entries will serve as a daily reminder to keep practicing positive thinking in your daily life.  As much as we can be inspired by the power of positive thinking, left to our own devices, we let the inspiration fade away.  If we act on the inspiration, especially in the form of daily actions, we can make real improvement and learn to make positive thinking a habit.  If you set up an RSS feed (it’s simply really…if you don’t know how, Google it) to a couple of positive thinking blogs, you’ll be helping to create the powerful habit of positive thinking.