How to Make Positive Thinking Work in Your Life

When I was in college, my mom wrote and sent me a letter almost every day.  She believed in the power of the mind.  She believed in the power of thoughts.  She made me read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.  (This is not a book review!)

Yet, in the past few weeks, as I have settled into my resolutions, I understand now more than I ever did then how positive thinking can create monumental change in my life.

As a teacher, I wholeheartedly accept and try to embrace a growth mindset, but I did not always apply that mindset to myself.  Then, a few years back.  I began decluttering my life.  In the process of decluttering, I began healing.  In that healing, I began to recognize that things had to change.

I had to change.

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For anyone else stuck in a cycle…

For anyone else seeking change…

For anyone else looking to tap into the power of positive thinking in your own lives…

1. Accept that broken areas can and will be fixed.

I attended a vision board party at the beginning of this year.  At that party, I learned some things about myself.  The facilitator asked us to think about what we say to ourselves when “it” does not work out, when “it” fails.  What do you say when the relationship fails?  When the job fails?  When you fail at motherhood?  When you fail at marriage?  When your day fails?  When your life falls apart?

The answers shocked me.  The way I talked to myself shocked me.  Tears, real tears, threatened to fall from my eyes as I recorded the mantras I repeated to myself over years.  Years of beating myself up…Years of self-fulfilling prophecies….Years of a fixed mindset stared me in the face.

I decided at that moment that I had to change.  Things had to change…

You have to change.  The cycle will not continue.  The cycle will stop.

But before the cycle can stop, you have to believe.  You have to stare the lies in the face. You have to find the root of the ingrained beliefs, and you have to yank at it bit by bitter bit.  You have to accept that you are not that person.  You do not have to be that person.  You can change that person.

2. Reprogram your thinking.

In that same vision board party, I had to replace each of those awful things I say to and about myself with a positive affirmations.

For example, I tell myself that my personality is too much.  I am too much. Even typing it, I can feel how deeply I believed it for so long.

Imagine my relief as I wrote the following words right next to the statement “I am too much.”

“You are not too much. Your personality is just what the world needs.”

The world needs my too much.

And I kept going.  I addressed my hair.  I addressed my disorganization.  I addressed my sensitivity.  I replaced each negative mentality with a positive thought.

Changing your life through positive thinking starts with your mantras.  Write it all down. Get it all out.  Then change it.  Change the way you talk to yourself.  Reprogram what you say when no one but you is around to hear. It will change you. You will be different because you believe different.

3. Pay it forward.

Someone is relying on your positive thinking.  Someone is watching you change. Someone is watching you heal.  They know who you were, and they need to see who you become.  Their change depends on it.  Their healing depends on it.

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What are some ways you have made positive thinking work in your own life?

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Need some more positive thinking tips?  Here are some more of my favorites:

1. Unleashing the Power of Positivity
2. When You are All Out of Words
3. When Nothing Goes Right, Go Left

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