The more you turn inward

…the more you want to leave a trace which benefits others. – Lena Kraima
…the more you want to leave a trace which benefits others. – Lena Kraima
If you start to learn how to think in a positive way this can lead to a ton of positive changes in your life.
A hopeful outlook can not only be useful for your psychological well-being but also for your physical health.
We all know that certain circumstances can arise and makes it difficult to keep an inspirational positive mindset but the good part is that these situations will pass. The more you find a way of making positive thinking a daily habit, the more you will be able to face these “downs” in life from a different perspective. A positive mind guides you through hard times different than a negative mind.
Take ownership for your behaviour
At the point when you experience issues and challenges throughout everyday life, don’t assume that others are responsible for it. Recognise your part in the game and take ownership. It is rarely others who make your day a disaster, it is in your hands or better said it is in your mind.
Giving instead of taking
If you start to see what you have instead of what you don’t have, then you start to see the good. And even better, you also see what you can give. We are all living with quite high standards compared to others, instead of buying the fifth winter coat, give away the fourth you have to someone in need.
This view will open up a whole new way of feeling grateful – which leads to the next point.
Surround yourself with positive people
I bet you have heard already about toxic people, like consistent whiners, persons who love to complain even on the brightest sunniest day. Their negativity can become part of you. Better invest energy and time with positive loved ones to improve the probability that their positivity will turn into yours as well. It is difficult to be negative when everybody around you is spreading positive thoughts.
Make a daily gratitude list
On the off chance that you begin keeping a day by day appreciation list, you’ll begin seeing precisely the amount you must be grateful for. This can assist you with zeroing in on the positive in your life as opposed to pondering all the terrible things that have occurred in the day.
Getting prone to show a demeanor of appreciation makes positive thinking more about a propensity.
See also my blog post: 30 Days of Gratitude
Set up goals to achieve
With achieve I mean achievable. There’s nothing worse than unrealistic goals. It will add up on being frustrated and raise negative thoughts. Make small steps towards your goal, like a checklist it will give you a positive mindset as you check completed steps. We tend to want more than we are capable of and this causes negative stress.
A simple trick really is break the goal down into the steps needed to achieve it and then work them off.
Reading
Invest energy every day in something that energizes your positive mindset.
Inspirational books, statements, follow motivational social media accounts, read positive news – all of this can assist you with being more positive.
If you listen to bad news the whole day you surely will be depressed, so balance it, there are many positive things happening every day. One is that you are alive.
I would recommend to end your day with positive thoughts as well, immerse yourself in a good book before you sleep. IT helps you not only to sleep better but also to wake up more positive.
A few proposals for you:
Inspirational Motivational Quotes
Practices to change your mindset
How to react to negative thoughts
To successfully erase negative thinking you need to actively react to these thoughts when they appear. There are thought patterns which need to be broken, like the word ‘never’. It will never work out, I will never succeed, these thoughts will bring you into a kind of vicious cycle.
Instead replace them with ‘this time it didn’t work out, so I analyse why and won’t make the same mistakes next time’ or ‘I failed because…so I know what do to different to succeed’.
All in life is a lesson learned, this is how you started to talk, to walk, to ride a bike.
Think about what results a permanent negativity could have
If you regularly turn towards a negative mindset, it can turn into an inevitable outcome.
For instance, you think, “I likely won’t learn how to cope with the stress at work because it never subsides” and therefore you don’t invest energy into reducing the stress. Thus, your will find yourself in the same surrounding until retirement.
Wouldn’t it be better to take this stress and start to analyse it? Why is it there, from whom is it coming (maybe it’s your own stress out of a subconscious perfectionism), can you minimise it?
Make a rundown of all the manners in which a negative mindset effects your life. It probably impacts your whole life. At that point, start to replace the negative mindset with a positive mindset, step by step.
Tell others something positive
Instead of just thinking that your’ neighbours new fence looks great, why don’t you tell them? Your colleague achieved a tremendous result, then congratulate. It sounds like small acts but these small acts of kindness create a positive mindset, not only for yourself but also for the persons around you. You remember, surround yourself with positive people? Be one of these positive persons yourself.
#BeTheChangeYouWantToSee
Be good to yourself
People often think they don’t need for instance a massage, but they gift it to their friend. Why do you think that you don’t need or deserve it?
Taking care of yourself is a big step towards being positive and thinking positive.
Mens sana in corpore sano – a healthy mind in a healthy body
Our ancestors knew it already and we seem to have it forgotten while striving for a career, a family, a whatever you are striving for.
Our body and our mind needs nourishment, only then we are able to reach our goals and cope with what we face along the way.
Here we go, in the beginning / middle of the second wave we start lockdown 2.0 in Germany.
We went through the first lockdown in March/April and it feels somehow like an old companion and somehow weird and new.
Our life has changed profoundly in 2020 and still we remain somehow the same.
If someone would have told me what comes next, would I have changed something?
No.
How?
What could I have changed?
What we can do is the following:
Positive thoughts are so important in our life. The more we think in a positive way, the happier we are.
I know it is hard and I know that this wasn’t the plan for all of us this year, but we are alive, we have access to many things others could wish for.
These rules are not that complicated, if we can get a virus under control with distance, masks and hygiene this is something great. Nothing in life is permanent so this will pass too.
Everything that happens is teaching us lessons in life, right? What did you learn so far from this pandemic state?
Did you surprise yourself? I think many of us grew already because we realised how flexible we are.
Instead of the coffee in the city schedule coffee dates via FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, whatever you like. We are honestly rich to have these possibilities, staying safe at home and not losing contact and eye sight with the people we love.
For many this has been a long forgotten treasure and just now they re-discover the beauty around us. Walking from one shop to the next with a coffee in between versus walking through the fields and forests, having a steaming coffee out of a thermo cup. What is nourishing your soul more?
Now is the time to think about what you love to do. There are many activities you can do in the safe space of your own home. Reading all the books you ever wanted to read, start writing yourself, put an empty canvas in front of you and create something new, yoga (perfect for a mindful home workout), learn to meditate, cook all the recipes from your cooking books, I’m sure you will find something that suits you.
During this time many homeless will be thankful to receive a warm coat, boots or a blanket.
The stricter we are now the easier it becomes in future. What I think is indeed astonishing is that many asian countries have close to zero new cases. They wore masks even before Covid19 was appearing, they keep distance in general (which isn’t a bad thing at all when it comes to strangers) and they complain less.
Germany (and this is where I am and where I grew up) is a nation of complainers – I always said they complain on a very high level and indeed this is what they do now as well. Instead of being thankful that we haven’t had many deaths up to now it is turned into “the virus isn’t dangerous, otherwise more would have died”.
Reflect and trust and believe that scientist are trying to find the best way for all of us seems to be impossible for many. I don’t know where this mistrust is originating in because I cannot understand it at all.
Of course you don’t take everything in and of course you don’t like every step a government is doing but in general our life in Germany is very good.
We have the freedom of speech which many would love to have, we can walk around outside without being scared that military or who ever is controlling, we get news all over the world unfiltered if we want to, there are no restrictions of the internet, we have a legal system others would wish for.
And of course nothing is perfect but I don’t expect everything to be perfect. All in life is flowing and changing and once you realise this life is much easier to handle.
Perfection is unreachable and also not needed, all the cracks and set backs and mistakes make our life so colourful and interesting.
So please, let’s focus on what good it brought us and what we can learn from this time which will one day be part of history books?
I’d rather have my grand-grand-children reading how wonderful we all made it, how helpful we were, how kindness took over instead of that tis was the start of a war because of selfishness and mistrust.
What do you want them to read?