“Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope. And you can do it when things are tough.”
- Richard M. DeVos
Note: This guest post was written by personal development blogger Henrik Edberg. You can check out his website here.
I like finding ways to improve my life and bring more positivity into it. Although I´m just at the beginning of that journey I´ve already found some useful ideas for doing just that. Maybe they can help you too to have more fun, improve your relationships, your business, your health and your life. I hope so.
1. Appreciate as much as you can.
This is one of those very simple things you can do to bring more positivity in to your life. I have also found appreciation to be a great way to turn an angry, sad and frustrated mood around to a more positive one.
Simply appreciate anywhere and everywhere in your day: appreciate the great weather, appreciate the kids playing in the park, appreciate your tasty and nutritious meal and appreciate the good looking guy/gal that just walked past you. Appreciate the things you have and the things you experience. Doing this for a minute or two always gives me a positive boost and improves my outlook on the world.
2. Stop comparing yourself to others.
If you don´t then you´ll just create a lot of unnecessary pain in your life. If you pass one person then you´ll just find another person more successful than you. And your brief sense of being a winner will transform once again into anxiety, fear, tummy-aches and possibly heart-attacks. Instead start comparing yourself to yourself. Try to improve yourself and see how you grow and become a more successful and happier person. Focus on yourself, not the other people around you, no matter if they are more or less successful. It may sound corny or clichéd, but I feel it´s both a healthier and more successful way to work and view life.
3. Realize that it is possible to choose how you react.
You don´t have live your life in reaction. You have a choice. There is always a gap between stimuli and reaction. If you focus on that gap it will widen and although it might seem in the beginning like stimuli and your reaction are tied together that is not the case. The more you think about this and try to use it by consciously choosing, over time (for me it was months but it can surely be achieved quicker) the gap will appear larger and larger and that will make the process easier. And it will become easier and easier to choose a useful reaction to challenges, problems and situations in your life.
4. Educate yourself.
Self-education can be a great help to live a more positive life. Read great books on the areas of your life you want to improve. Maybe it’s it your financial situation. Or your health. Or your relationships. Ask people with more success in that area than you what they did to improve. If you have a problem in your life, most likely a lot of people have had that problem the last few thousand years. And, at least one of them – or more likely a few – has written down how they solved that problem in a great way. Feed your mind daily – or weekly – with great solutions and inspirational and useful information.
5. Act as if.
Your emotions work backwards too. So even if you don´t feel positive, confident, calm or decisive you can act like it. And after you have done that for a few minutes, guess what happens? You will actually start to feel positive, confident, calm or decisive.
If you don´t know how to act observe other people around you – it may be friends, co-workers, family or celebrities from any time and age – who have the quality you´d like to have. Then imitate them. If you don´t believe in this, then just smile – even if you have to force yourself – for 30 seconds right now and see how you feel after that.
6. Live in the now.
Don´t let your thoughts drift into the past or future more than necessary. It’s often a sure-fire way to start negative loops of thoughts in your mind. And they can dig you deep down into a negative spiral of thoughts that can last for day, week or even years. Plan your life, reflect on the lessons you can learn from the past. But then work, play and live in the now as much as possible.
7. Do some mental rehearsal.
This is great way to improve your performance and decrease anxiety in any upcoming situation. Maybe you´re heading into a meeting soon. Then visualize now how great the events will unfold – see and hear it – and also how great will you feel at this meeting. See yourself smiling, being positive, open, confident or how you´d like to act and feel. See the excellent outcome in your mind. Then release by visualizing that it has already happened, that the meeting is over with the desired result. This is surprisingly effective and will get you into a great and relaxed mood – or at least decrease your negative feelings and expectations – before even stepping into any meeting or other situation.
8. Redefine failure.
Michael Jordan once said: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Society may have brought you up to fear failure. But if you can rethink failure not as something to fear but rather useful feedback it can improve your life immensely. A failure may hurt for a while but then you can learn one or many lessons from it. And then you try again. And again. And failure becomes less and less frightening. All successful people have failed many, many times. But they know that there are still a lot of great new people and opportunities out there. So they try again. And sooner or later they have success once again.
9. Focus on what you want, not on what you don´t want.
One common problem is to focus your thoughts on what you don´t want rather than what you want. If you do that then it will be hard to get what you want in life. If you want to improve your finances then focus on having a great financial situation rather than your lack of money and your debts. If you want a new relationship then focus on meeting a lot of new people and forming great relationships rather than focusing on your loneliness and your lack. If you don´t then you´ll miss many opportunities that you mind just blocks out since it´s focused on your lack. But if you do then opportunities will suddenly start to pop out of all that stimuli that is your world. Your mind can mostly just see what you focus it on. So focus on what you want in life.
About Henrik Edberg:
Henrik is a personal development blogger who writes about people skills, goals, productivity, health, wealth and how to live a happier and better life. You can check out his blog here (subscribe here) or check out some of his other popular articles: Do You Make These 10 Mistakes in a Conversation?, 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear, Take the Positivity Challenge! and 18 Ways to Improve Your Body Language.
If you liked this article, please bookmark it on del.icio.us or vote for it on Digg. Thank you!
Chris
April 18, 2007
This is an excellent synopsis of some of the behavioural changes we can make that can actually also alter the world around us through our improved approach to problems and challenges.
It reminds me of a slogan I once read:
“You can’t think yourself into a new way of acting; you have to act yourself into a new way of thinking.”
I have bookmarked this site.
Dennis
April 18, 2007
[...] I´ve written a guest-post called 9 Great Ways to Live a More Positive Life for one of my favourite personal development blogs: Ririan Project. [...]
April 18, 2007
Dennis, I couldn’t agree more. It is indeed easier to act your way to a new way of thinking than think your way to a new way of acting. You have to be proactive and just make things happen.
April 19, 2007
Kind of like “Think. Act. Be”
I found this report by Bob Proctor talking to Stephen Pierce about money beliefs. Real food for thought regarding the way my own challenges with this sort of thing.
selfdevelopmentsecrets dot com/howtogetrich.pdf
Joy
April 19, 2007
These are great. I feel better already.
April 19, 2007
[...] 9 Great Ways to Live a More Positive Life – [TheRirianProject] digg_url = ‘http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/9-ways-to-be-more-positive.html’; ( function() { var ds=typeof digg_skin==’string’?digg_skin:”; var h=80; var w=52; if(ds==’compact’) { h=18; w=120; } var u=typeof digg_url==’string’?digg_url:(typeof DIGG_URL==’string’?DIGG_URL:window.location.href); document.write(”"); } )() Author: Craig Childs Posted: Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 8:30 am Tags: happiness, happy Share This [...]
April 19, 2007
[...] 9 Great Ways to Live a More Positive Life – TheRirianProject [...]
April 19, 2007
[...] 7. Do some mental rehearsal. This is great way to improve your performance and decrease anxiety in any upcoming situation. Maybe you´re heading into a meeting soon. Then visualize now how great the events will unfold – see and hear it – and also how great will you feel at this meeting. See yourself smiling, being positive, open, confident or how you´d like to act and feel. See the excellent outcome in your mind. Then release by visualizing that it has already happened, that the meeting is over with the desired result. This is surprisingly effective and will get you into a great and relaxed mood – or at least decrease your negative feelings and expectations – before even stepping into any meeting or other situation. [...]
April 20, 2007
Think about what you want and not what you don’t want – so true! It takes a real mental mind shift to be able to do that. To keep our subconscious free of negative or doubtful thoughts can be a full time job sometimes. However I know you can only think of one thing at a time so one can change ones mood just by changing what one is thinking about. thesecretsofvisualization dot com/attractionreport.pdf
April 25, 2007
Excellent ideas
I tend to fault myself with #2 frequently.
April 25, 2007
[...] Ririan Project posted 9 ways to live a more positive life. [...]
April 25, 2007
[...] Need more help getting positive? Read 9 Great Ways To Live A More Positive Life at Ririanproject.com. [...]
April 25, 2007
[...] 以上 详细内容请参见 http://ririanproject.com/2007/04/18/9-great-ways-to-live-a-more-positive-life/ [...]
April 26, 2007
[...] “九个让自己活得更乐观的方法”－来自Ririan Project [...]
April 26, 2007
[...] 来源：“九个让自己活得更乐观的方法” [...]
April 27, 2007
如何做一个乐观的人 – 9个让自己活得更乐观的方法…
如何做一个乐观的人 – 9个让自己活得更乐观的方法,看了”9 Great Ways to Live a More Positive Life”，感觉不错，简单翻译如下…
April 29, 2007
[...] There are 9 Great ways to live a more postive life – learn them as Ririan presents 9 Great Ways to Live a More Positive Life posted at Ririan Project. [...]
April 30, 2007
[...] Ririan presents 9 Great Ways to Live a More Positive Life posted at Ririan Project. [...]
May 3, 2007
Your 9 ways are full of wisdom and insight. I very much appreciate the reminders. I find that I explore and write about these ideas all the time and still I need reminders especially ones from another viewpoint or another writing style. Most of the time our thoughts ramble around in our head and make sense and all of that but when they come from someone else they are more easily integrated, or maybe that is they are easier understood. I think I see the words and feel them better from someone else. Does that make sense?
I write at http://www.explorelifeblog. com Thanks, Joseph
May 5, 2007
I agree! Even though we often think we “know” stuff already, hearing things from another person or a different perspective often puts a whole new light on things. http://www.selfdevelopmentsecrets.com/freeattractionreport.html
May 9, 2007
[...] Ririan Project The thing I like about the Ririan Project is it’s all top 10s and lists, such as 9 Great Ways To Live A More Positive Life and 11 Great Ways To Start Your Day, which makes for some very accessible and straight to the point content. The site covers the whole scale of personal development, from health to planning and relationships. [...]
May 17, 2007
Do what you love to do and make money with it. Most people change jobs several times in a career until they find the right one. Doing what you love is a great way to spend your working hours. Your experience in business (success or failure) is worth for your future business.
May 18, 2007
[...] 积极的生活态度可能是很多人都渴望拥有的，Ririan Project 给出了九个好办法，译文来自 生活帮，后面是我自己的看法。 [...]
June 23, 2007
[...] 9 great ways to live a more positive life [...]
August 1, 2007
[...] das englische original in productivity Search [...]
September 13, 2007
[...] 9 Great Ways to Live a More Positive Life [...]
October 26, 2007
A welcome post for while being positive doesn’t mean ignoring the realities of life’s difficulties it does create the dynamic to overcome our obstacles. I would place gratitude (to God) at the top of my list. Just the act of inventorying the things we are blessed with puts the negative in the back seat and transforms suffering into the sublime. Thanks!
October 30, 2007
… it’s brilliant and full of wisdom.
… the caterpillar has the heart of a butterfly. It is true that if we know within our hearts what we want to become, then we will become that.The way we see our life shapes the life..
Thank you for being..
November 2, 2007
[...] I just found this post today and thought it would be a good thing to share – you know, just in case anybody else out there has this little problem from time to time. And I know you’re out there…I do tech support for the site, remember? I get the emails and see the complaints. Most of them are completely valid, but once in awhile I do come across someone who could probably benefit from contemplating the following. I also need to work with a certain child in my home who has a generally negative/anxious view of life – I think this makes a good outline for some of what I need to teach him. [...]
January 31, 2008
Thanks for sharing
February 6, 2008
[...] I have found these articles also in last year, related to get started your day and to liven up your life: 11 Great Ways to Start Your Day, Kick Start Your Day With These 11 Mood-Lifting Foods, and 9 Great Ways to Live a More Positive Life. [...]
February 8, 2008
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
February 11, 2008
[...] 9 great ways to live a more positive life [...]
March 3, 2008
[...] por http://ririanproject.com/2007/04/18/9-great-ways-to-live-a-more-positive-life/ [...]
April 10, 2008
[...] 9 Ways to Live a More Positive Life at RirianProject.com [...]
April 25, 2008
[...] 如何做好一个乐观的人 来源： [...]
June 12, 2008
Really very good and thought provoking.
It helps improve the vision and action
Be Positive.
August 28, 2008
wow!it’s a better way of living one’s life,filled with confidence and as well motivative.
September 15, 2008
Cialis….
Cialis daily use. Cod phentermine as well as cialis cheap reviews. Problems lubricating even with cialis. Cheap cialis….
January 24, 2009
i love this article…it helped me a lot to realize things especially now that im struggling to deal with people around me…
February 2, 2009
Phentermine cheap….
Cheap phentermine. Buy phentermine cheap….