Positive thinking: Tips and exercises to train yourself
You may know of those people around you who, every time something bad happens, point out to you that a certain event didn't happen and so things are actually going pretty well. You may find this terrible, because surely he/she can see that things are all wrong? Still, you may wonder if you might be a little too pessimistic yourself. Even when a situation is clearly okay, such as a nice birthday party, there is still something to be said about the cake, the decorations or that just too loud laugh from person X.
To promote positive thinking, in this blog I give you the tools to change your thinking patterns to be more positive in life.
Positive thinking affects your life
The mindset you have affects all kinds of factors in your life, such as your health and even your financial status. It may surprise you, but positive thinking is not always best for you. Again, you need to think positively, but with that, don't downplay problems just to avoid solving them.
Positive thinking is actually meant to help you believe more in your own ability to solve problems. This doesn’t mean you’ll think problems away, but rather that you’ll solve them sooner and more quickly because you don’t deny them or make them insurmountable through negative thinking.
Using this way of positive thinking affects your life. For example, did you know that employed people who think positively often earn more than pessimistic colleagues?
Positive thinkers are also more likely to start their own businesses, but they often earn less than "realistic" thinkers. Therefore, in this article I want to help you with positive thinking in a realistic way so that you keep the benefits of positive thinking, without the drawbacks.
Positive thinking even affects your health. Indian research shows that positive thinkers are more likely to be healthy than people who think negatively. In addition, positive thinkers also live longer. Good news for working on a positive mindset.
Positive thinking is also good for your mental health and can even make you stronger, including physically. For example, positive thinking is very important for elite athletes.
What is positive thinking?
When a situation stresses you out, it can lead to negative thinking. For example, at a party, you may get stressed by the idea that the party is not good enough. Instead of focusing on what is not good, use the source of your stress as input to think positively.
This is why the well-known reversal of thinking is so important to turn your source of stress into something that actually gives you strength and positivity.
This will improve your confidence, motivation, focus and even productivity.
Multiple ways to think positively
There are four components in thinking about yourself and situations that are important in positive thinking, namely:
- Self encouragement thoughts.
- Social encouragement thoughts
- Instructional and control thoughts
- Self-affirming thoughts
Depending on the nature of your negative thinking—such as focusing on problems, issues with self-worth, or failing to achieve goals—you can focus on one of these four areas to strengthen positive thinking.
Research shows, for example, that people who are very anxious are best able to redirect their negative, anxiety-inducing thoughts using instructional and controlling thoughts. Meanwhile, people who struggle with their sense of competence and self-confidence tend to rely more on self-encouraging and socially encouraging thoughts to shift their mindset toward positive thinking.
So positive thinking is not the same for everyone. To train yourself to think positively, it is important to train thoughts that best suit you.
Examples of positive thoughts
Encouraging yourself thoughts:
"I'm going to try very hard," he said.
"For my future, I'm going to make sure I succeed," he said.
Social encouragement thoughts:
"My friends and family support me, that's why I'm going to do my best," he said.
"I want to show those around me how I'm at my best," says Dr. K.
Instructional and control thoughts:
"I focus only on my job," says Dr. K.
"I get nervous when I think about how my environment reacts, so I'm going to ignore that."
Examples of self-affirming thoughts:
"I can do what I have visualized."
"Everyone makes mistakes, so I'm going to ignore that fear," he said.
Finding the cause of negative thoughts
To train yourself to think positively, it is important to identify why you are thinking negatively: Is this fear? Is this uncertainty about whether or not you can do something?
If you find it difficult to identify the root cause of your pessimism, a hypnotherapist can help you apply positive thinking in the way that works best for you.
Exercises for positive thinking
Finding out the cause of negative thinking is not always necessary for positive thinking. There are also exercises you can do to promote positive thinking.
Exercise 1: Keep track of positive things
By writing down 3 positive things from the day daily, you train yourself to look at your day in a positive way and to see things positively more quickly.
You can totally challenge yourself to write down daily between 5 and 10 things that were positive.
Exercise 2: Substitute the negative outcome for a positive one
Do you worry a lot when you’re making plans to achieve certain goals? Do all kinds of worst-case scenarios immediately pop into your head? Or do you even have vivid images of what that worst-case scenario looks like?
Research shows that people who worry a lot can benefit from replacing that doomsday scenario with a positive outcome. Even simply saying out loud what a good outcome might be can help you adopt a more positive attitude toward the problem.
In addition, you can also visualize the positive outcome to worry less. For example, during self-hypnosis you can visualize what successful resolution of a problem looks like, how you feel then and how people around you feel then.
Do you find it difficult to visualize a good outcome? Then a hypnotherapist can also help you with a guided visualization. Because you will then also know more about visualization, you will also be better able to apply this technique yourself to future problems you are concerned about.
Exercise 3: Focus on your breathing
Sometimes negative thinking is very powerful and you have a hard time turning those thoughts into positive ones. In that case, it is important to first focus on your breathing. This helps to clear your head of thoughts as much as possible.
Then you can perform exercise 2, making the image positive, for example, with less effort because the negative thought is then less likely to bother you.
Exercise 4: Repeat positive hypnotic suggestions
If you know where your negative thoughts are coming from, you can do something to make that problem less prominent. One way to think more positively about certain things is to repeat daily hypnotic suggestions that are actually positive in nature.
Do you often have negative thoughts about your appearance? Then you can repeat positive suggestions daily during self-hypnosis about your self-image, such as "I am unique." And "I am beautiful."
Instead, do you have negative thoughts about how well you can do your job? If so, you can actually repeat daily suggestions that will make you more confident, such as: "I got this job because my boss believes in me."
In fact, these types of beliefs about yourself and your environment also affect how good you are at positive thinking.
Exercise 5: Start the day with a goal about how you want to feel
By starting your day very consciously with a goal about what you want to accomplish, you do more that day to achieve that goal. When you have done your morning ritual sit back and think about what you want to accomplish that day, such as: "Today I want to see the good things in life." By doing this you are going to make every decision that day with in the back of your mind whether you are going to see the good things from life with one option or the other.
This also works very well for practical goals, such as "Today I want to prepare the presentation well." The decision to then go on social media for a while is then better stopped because it does not help you with your goal.
Exercise 6: Learn from mistakes
Making mistakes is part of life; this can feel like failure. Failure is a moment that can make people very negative. Instead of focusing on how worthless you are because something didn't work out, ask yourself what part of the process went well and how you can handle similar situations better in the future. Then you will still get something positive out of the failure and have a better mindset next time as well.
Would you like to learn more about mental techniques for maintaining a positive outlook on life? Then come to a workshop or check out the training programs offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.
Sources:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2655283
http://www.ijcmph.com/index.php/ijcmph/article/view/146
https://www.shobix.co.jp/jssf/tempfiles/journal/2015/108.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796715300814
http://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1027/1016-9040.10.4.275