How to Develop a Positive Mindset
Have you ever struggled with trying to stay positive when your mind feels negative? Do you want to change your mindset to start thinking positively? If so, then this article is for you.
I can relate to how the mindset can be triggered to go down a rabbit hole of negative thoughts that can take me into a bad mood. How do we change that? Well, today, we are going to discuss how to develop a positive mindset.
We will review the following 8 steps to change your mindset:
- Changing your focus
- Changing your state of mind
- Listening to subliminal music or messages
- Practicing gratitude
- Surrounding yourself with positive people
- Practicing positive self-talk
- Being goal driven
- Believing in yourself
Disclosure: Links contain affiliates. When you buy through one of our links I earn a commission.
Now we will define what a positive mindset is and discuss how to develop a positive mindset.
What is a positive mindset?
A positive mindset is positively approaching unpleasant situations to produce a constructive outcome.
8 steps to develop a positive mindset
1. Change your focus
Changing your focus is a very important step in changing your mindset. Imagine that your brain as having two buckets to deposit information into. Bucket number one is labeled positive, and bucket number two is named negative.
Each day we are making deposits into these buckets based on the experiences we encounter, stress, anxiety, and all the emotions that make up our day. These emotions are filtered into our brains and deposited into our subconscious minds.
As we make deposits into our brains, each bucket begins to fill up. Now to take it a step further, the bucket that we feed the most becomes more dominant over time. Suppose the negative bucket becomes more full than the positive bucket. In that case, our brain will begin to go into autopilot and pull from the negative bucket more frequently because it has more information to draw from.
To change this pattern, it is important to shift your focus. How do you do this, you ask? Great question. You change your focus by thinking about the good things you have done to bring happiness and joy to yourself and others.
Start thinking about what went well today, what did you accomplish, and who did you help? Focus your mind on these positive emotions to help build up your positive bucket.
2. Change your state of mind
Our bodies can impact our mind’s behavior. When we are walking around with our heads down or have a lot of stress we are dealing with, it can cause our state of mind to feel depressed and negative.
Changing your posture, standing up straight, and walking confidently can affect your emotional state of mind. Start thinking of these body postures as the little mind and the big mind. The little mind may have fear and become frustrated when things do not go our way. The big mind is confident and has the determination to move forward.
Change your state of mind to let the big mind in you stand up and be strong with confidence.
3. Listen to subliminal music or messages
As mentioned earlier, you have a subconscious mind that receives information that you feed it. The information is sent first to your conscious mind, the one that is rational and follows reasoning, before it goes into the subconscious mind.
Controlling what you feed your conscious mind will, over time, affect how your subconscious mind reacts to situations.
Listening to subliminal music or messages that repeat over and over a stated desire causes your subconscious mind to change. It is like having a tape recording or voice recording telling your mind what to do. Examples of subliminal music and messages are available through InnerTalk.
4. Practice gratitude
In a previous article, I mentioned the importance of practicing gratitude. Being grateful for what you have instead of what you don’t have.
Our minds are energized when we feel grateful. Just imagine, for a moment, accomplishing something and feeling thankful for it. For example, you spend all week preparing for a test and end up not passing the test by just a few points. The teacher then gives you a few extra points, based on a curve for the entire class, which then results in you passing the test.
The result of the teacher providing you the extra points needed to pass the test can cause you to feel gratitude and become more appreciative towards your teacher. This is how practicing gratitude can change you. It causes you to feel emotions of appreciation instead of disappointment.
5. Surround yourself with positive people
Being around positive people can have a profound effect on your mental state of mind.
Can you imagine playing on a basketball team with Michael Jordan? You come into the game with a negative mindset of defeat and failure; however, because you are playing with someone who has a positive mindset to win at all costs results in your shifting your mindset to think like theirs.
This is the effect of being around positive people. You may not have a positive mindset, but staying around positive people will eventually rub off on you and change your perspective of how you think. Over time, your mind will begin to gravitate toward positive thinking instead of thoughts of being negative.
6. Practicing positive self-talk
As you begin your day, it helps to give yourself a pep talk. Sometimes talking to yourself may be the best conversation you have had all day. With a pep talk to yourself, you can speak positive language into your mind.
By saying this is going to be a great day, encouraging yourself to face challenges ahead, or just a reminder that you can make it. Speaking positive language to yourself and rehearsing how you will respond to others will help reshape your thought process.
So, practice positive self-talk and encourage yourself.
7. Be goal driven
In an earlier article titled Invest in Yourself for Success, I outlined how goals provide us with direction and focus. With that concept in mind, goals can become an engine that drives our purpose in life.
Many people lose purpose when they have nothing to aim for. By setting goals, short-term and long-term, you are giving your mind instructions to follow. As long as your mind is busy, focusing on the instructions given has little room for distractions.
Focusing on your goals and allowing them to drive your purpose helps you stay in a positive mindset.
8. Believe in yourself
Believing in yourself goes beyond just words. Believing in yourself is a core belief deep down in your heart that says you can succeed at anything you aspire to. It speaks to your self-confidence, your self-esteem, and your self-worth.
The measure of your accomplishments in life is not based on what others say or think about you; it is determined by what you believe about yourself.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
To paraphrase from the words of Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, If you can conceive an idea in your mind and believe that you can accomplish it in your heart, you can achieve what you are aiming for.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have reviewed a definition of a positive mindset, which is to produce a positive and constructive outcome from the challenges we face. We have outlined 8 steps you can take to develop a positive mindset.
The 8 steps included changing your focus, changing your state of mind, listening to subliminal music or messages, practicing gratitude, surrounding yourself with positive people, practicing positive self-talk, being goal driven, and believing in yourself.
Now it is time to put these steps into action. You can begin by starting a journal that documents your progress and reviewing it periodically to measure your growth in developing a positive mindset. I encourage you to leave comments or feedback on your progress. As always, thank you for your support.