Turn your face towards the sun and the shadows will fall behind you!!

Positive thinking, or an optimistic attitude, is the practice of focusing on the good in any given situation. It can have a big impact on your physical and mental health. Of course, that doesn’t mean you ignore reality. It simply means you approach the good and the bad in life with the expectation that things will go well.

Before you put positive thinking into practice, look for any negative thoughts that may be running through your mind. When you notice a negative thought, try to stop it and shift your focus to the positive. Think rationally about the situation. Yes, your negative thoughts won’t go away overnight; but with practice, you can train yourself to have a more positive outlook. Remember, you aren’t overlooking the facts, you’re just including those that are good.

The thing is, life can seem unfair. But life gets so much easier, and happier when you learn how to overcome negative thoughts. Learn to acknowledge and explore feelings of negativity, but don’t dwell on them. Simply turn them around, and set them free. When you start to get stressed and depressed, stop and say “thank you” to anything. Don’t give up on achieving more, but get in the habit of acknowledging life’s little achievements.

We all experience negative thoughts and emotions when we’re depressed – that’s expected. You may feel like a bit of a fraud by trying to think positively, but fake it until you make it and it’ll come much more naturally. I’m not going to tell you that just by doing x,y, and z, you’ll automatically become a positive thinker overnight. But what I am going to tell you, and what I want you to remember in your bad times or negative mindset, is it can get better. It happened in the past, it will happen again in the future. Just know that you won’t always feel negative or depressed. Better times are ahead. Just hang in there and ride this wave. You’ll definitely come out the other end even stronger. Just like positive thinking breeds positive thinking, negative breeds negative. Therefore, if you surround yourself with negative, toxic people, you’re seriously going to struggle to cultivate a positive mindset. Cut negative people out of your life or, if you can’t do this, create strict boundaries in your mind or in-person to restrict the exposure you have to their negative attitude.

All you need to do is to make time for good. Find it in every person, in every situation. You have to fight for the light at the end of the tunnel. So when you wake up in the morning, tell yourself, “If I weren’t a fighter, I wouldn’t be here today.” Trust the process and believe in yourself. You have really come a long way. So keep moving forward. At the end of the day, it’s about believing in the power of good, not bad. It’s simply about turning off the negativity.

-Kashish