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Positive Thinking Myths

Positive Thinking Myths

There are so many myths about positive thinking and optimism. Pessimists attack it, saying it’s unrealistic, shallow, and even destructive. But they’re talking about an extreme that isn’t recommended. If you think positively, you still have to be aware of pitfalls. You just don’t fixate on them, as pessimists do.

A recent article, The 7 Biggest Myths About Positive Thinking, challenges seven of the most prevalent myths about positive thinking. He addresses myths such as “Positive thinking encourages unrealistic expectations,” ” Positive thinking is a bunch of sugary, have-a-nice-day nostrums,” and ” It’s absurd to believe that thoughts shape reality.”

He busts each one, even quoting from the very authors who encouraged optimism in the first place. Recent advances in cognitive psychology, clinical studies and even brain imaging are all supporting the fact that the way you think creates your experience.

The problem with people who deride positive thinking is that they refuse to let the facts affect their opinions. I guess they choose not to take responsibility for their thoughts and their lives. One author even said that positive thinking was too hard, and then went on to advise other exercises to change your thoughts. So even with his system, you had to work to feel better.

If you’re an optimist who gets attacked for your positive attitude, read the article. It’ll give you ammunition to respond to those who don’t understand because they’ve never explored it.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

Linda-Ann Stewart empowers business women and entrepreneurs to break through their inner barriers and create the life they want with more success and abundance. Sign up for her FREE report “Imagine the Possibilities,” at www.Linda-AnnStewart.com.

Drink In Motivation and Inspiration To Keep A Positive Attitude

Drink In Motivation and Inspiration To Keep A Positive Attitude

Making sure you get motivation and inspiration is as important as drinking enough water. If you get parched, and you inspiration runs dry, it may take some time to get your attitude back on track. Discover how to make sure you keep your mind hydrated with enough motivation and inspiration so you get better results.



Copyright 2013 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Filling the Well of Your Mind, Part 1

Filling the Well of Your Mind, Part 1

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Sometime in your past, you may have started to make a change in your life. You might have started to paint your house, lose weight, or work on a project. And like most people, you probably lost your passion for it pretty quickly. Although you launched your attempt with enthusiasm, the day-to-day reality of it eroded away the excitement, and it became a bullet point on your list of “good intentions.”

Zig Ziglar, legendary speaker, said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” For some reason, people believe that once you’ve been exposed to a concept, or a new belief, or begun a new process of change, it should just keep going like the Energizer Bunny. They think it should develop a life of its own, be self-sustaining and propel itself with its own momentum.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. You have to keep refreshing your motives, and reminding yourself of the benefits of your goal. To continue to move forward, you have to keep your emotional fire stoked to provide it with energy. It’s like exercising, sleeping, or eating. They need to be done each day to keep your physical body strong and healthy. If you go without any of them for a day or more, you’re going to notice their absence by feeling weaker and confused.

The same is true of motivation and even optimism. They have to be nourished and nutured each day, too. If you go too long between jolts of inspiration, you tend to run out of steam. I’ve known people to burn out because they thought they could coast on their original motivation and desire. They soon ran out of juice and lost focus. You have to fill your inner well frequently and consistently to be able to continue to progress.

Years ago, I wanted to begin a walking program, but I couldn’t get myself motivated to get started. So I cut out articles about how walking was beneficial, and read those articles every day. Within a week, I was eager to begin my training. Whenever I felt like quitting, I just read those articles and remembered how much better I felt after a walk.

Copyright 2013 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

TEDxBloomington – Shawn Achor – “The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance”

TEDxBloomington – Shawn Achor – “The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance”

Shawn Achor is a researcher in the field of positive psychology. Using a humorous, personal example, he explains that how we perceive our lives creates our experience. He goes on to explain how we have the success equals happiness equation is backwards. When we can reverse that equation, we have a statistically higher chance of success, productivity and many more positive outcomes. In this video, he includes several quick tips on how to improve our state of mind.



Are You A Good Gatekeeper For Your Mind?

Are You A Good Gatekeeper For Your Mind?

Optimists learn to be positive, and it’s a skill you can develop. The benefits of positive thinking make it well worth the effort. Here are a couple of tips of how to assess what kinds of thoughts to let into your mind.


Copyright 2012 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

What Are Your Choices?

What Are Your Choices?

By Beth Terry

Life is a roller coaster. Unless you live alone in a cave, you will run into people and situations that unnerve you. What can you do? I’ve had three situations in the past month:

  1. A thief stole my debit card and tried to charge hundreds of dollars in a foreign country.
  2. Days later, as I sat on the shuttle to the airport I realized one of my bags was missing and was still sitting on the parking lot pavement.
  3. Earlier that day, I was hurrying to get to the airport and the phone rang. It looked like a client’s number so I picked up, realizing too late It was a telemarketer. I muttered to myself “they are just trying to make a living,” kept my opinions to myself and politely declined. Now very late, I raced out the door, exasperated.

Choice One:
The world sucks
Everyone is out to get me (shuttle driver, identity thief, telemarketers)
I have such rotten luck

Choice Two:
I am protected because I’ve made good choices
I have angels looking out for me
I live a charmed life

I pick Choice Two.
Why?

~ My bank’s fraud team has my back. National Bank of Arizona called my cell and asked me if I was in Lebanon! Or Arkansas. This was within 5 minutes of the transactions. Thieves stopped in their tracks. Canceled. Intercept! Cool.

~ At the parking lot, another shuttle driver saw my bag, grabbed it and ran to my shuttle. He handed it to my driver and grinned at me. This Parking Spot driver was at the entrance when I arrived and I had helped him with the new system. When I needed help, he was there. Disaster averted! Intercept! Saved me a lot of pain!

~ After the telemarketers call, I sped out of the house. Rounding the corner to get on the freeway, I watched in slow motion as four cars piled into each other at my onramp. I stayed in the middle lane, and took the next onramp. That telemarketer had delayed me just long enough to keep me out of a pile up. Disaster averted! Intercept! Thank God.

In each case I was OK. Each time an “earth angel” had my back. Do these things happen as a reminder someone is looking out for us? Or maybe it’s all coincidence. No matter, I choose to see these events positively. Why? It’s good for the soul, lowers blood pressure, improves heart rate, and increases ability to function. When we believe we are protected and life works out the way it’s supposed to, we may or may not be delusional. But we are healthier for thinking that way.

What are your choices? Look for silver linings, or get depressed. Be an “earth angel” or go it alone.  Alert the woman who dropped her wallet while juggling a little kid. Hold open a door. Assist someone with luggage or groceries. Smile at a clerk having a bad day. Think of it as a bank account. Each act of kindness is a deposit. You never know when you’ll need to make a withdrawal.

Granted, you aren’t served if you live your life in denial. But looking for silver linings in every situation short circuits the pity party in your head and gets you back to a productive life.

Copyright © 2011 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

Beth Terry is a Resilience and Stress Expert, Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), Speaking Coach, Speech Writer, Blogger, and Author. Her theme is “finding resilience in an insane world.” With more than 30 years Management and Speaking Experience, she brings sparkle and substance to conference or corporate meetings. Her greatest strength is her ability to synthesize and translate complex ideas in a way that anyone can grasp and use. Currently based in Phoenix, Arizona, she also has an office in Honolulu, Hawaii. Visit her website, BethTerry.com and her blog, CactusWrangler.com for more of her insights.

“Gratitude: The Key To Cultivating A Positive Attitude” Part 2

“Gratitude: The Key To Cultivating A Positive Attitude” Part 2

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Research shows that nurturing a sense of gratefulness can:

1. Improve resiliency. It gives you greater internal resources to deal with the challenges that come up and allows you to bounce back faster. You’re better able to cope, more creative and have less stress overall.

2. Lift depression. People who are grateful experience less depression. By focusing on positive things in your life, you begin to change your mood. The pleasure circuits in the mind are engaged, which makes you feel better.

3. Make greater progress on goals. Those who regularly found things to be grateful for made better progress on goals, such as exercising more or getting better grades.

4. Have better relationships and more friends. Because you’re more at ease with yourself, people are more comfortable and open with you. You have a greater capacity for compassion, and tend to be more generous. This is a characteristic that attracts people to you.

5. Have improved job performance. Studies show students who practiced appreciation are more enthusiastic, alert, determined and improved their grade point average. That translates into having more resources to devote to work and greater success.

6. Experience better health. People who practice gratefulness have stronger immune systems, lower blood pressure, reduced heart disease and exercise more. They also live an average of seven years longer than those who don’t express thankfulness.

7. Be more optimistic. Grateful people are 25% happier than those who don’t feel this positive emotion. This helps you to feel happier and more positive despite what upsetting circumstances you’re experiencing.

These benefits increased when people kept a gratitude journal. Improve your outlook on life by writing down three things you’re grateful for each day. This simple practice will break the habit of looking for the negative in your life, and replace it will intentionally seeking the positive. And don’t think they have to be big things, like getting a raise or the day going smoothly. They can be small items, like seeing a beautiful sunset or connecting with a friend.

Research indicates that expressing gratitude using this journal writing exercise can improve your attitude within three weeks, and the results remain for at least six months. It trains the subconscious mind to seek out positive outcomes. When you seek something positive, you tend to find it. And this then creates new patterns in the mind to be more optimistic. It gently trains you to be more positive.

Plato said, “A grateful mind is a great mind that eventually attracts to it great things.” By showing appreciation for what you have in your life, it instructs the subconscious to find more to be thankful for. When you find yourself wanting to complain, stop and remind yourself to look for some blessing around you. It will help to shift your outlook to be more upbeat and you’ll feel more empowered.

Read Part 1 of Gratitude: The Key To Cultivating A Positive Attitude.

Affirmation:
Whenever something challenging comes up in my life, I deliberately look for something to be grateful for. As I cultivate this habit, I find that I’m happier and more optimistic. My mind begins to seek things to appreciate. And the good I focus upon increases. So everyday, I remember to be thankful for all the good that’s in my life.

Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

“Gratitude: The Key To Cultivating A Positive Attitude” Part 1

“Gratitude: The Key To Cultivating A Positive Attitude” Part 1

by Linda-Ann Stewart

It’s easy to complain about what you don’t have and bemoan what you’ve lost, especially in today’s economic climate. But doing so just feeds into a feeling of victim hood. That attitude doesn’t help create inner resources to deal with difficulties that appear. Instead, griping about life quickly erodes self-confidence, and creates a life full of dissatisfaction and anxiety. In that mindset, it’s almost impossible to succeed in anything. Complaining drains any possibility of progress from every area of your life.

One of the best ways to combat that downbeat attitude and formulate a more constructive outlook is to practice a sense of thankfulness. This doesn’t mean you deny unpleasant emotions and disappointments or ignore negative situations. It’s simply that you don’t focus on them or let them control you.

Being grateful is a conscious choice. Sometimes, you’re taught this valuable ability as you grow up, or you learn it as an adult. But it’s a trait that’s developed with consideration and awareness. And studies show that cultivating a sense of gratitude improves the quality of your life on every level.

Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Positive Thinking Isn’t Being “Pollyanna-ish”

Positive Thinking Isn’t Being “Pollyanna-ish”

I loved the Disney movie, “Pollyanna,” about a young girl sent to live with her aunt after the death of her parents. Pollyanna had a cheerful outlook and looked on the bright side of life. Unfortunately, her name became mistakenly synonymous with being naïve, wearing “rose-colored glasses,” or ignoring facts. That wasn’t her philosophy at all. Pollyanna simply looked for the best in each situation.

Over the years, positive thinking has also gotten the erroneous reputation of ignoring the negative. The common belief is that if you have a positive attitude, it means you must repress any distressing emotion, disregard negative circumstances, and dismiss reality.

That doesn’t accurately represent what optimism is. Being positive doesn’t mean you won’t grieve, feel sad, angry or get upset at times. It just means you allow yourself to experience the normal flow of those emotions and then begin to bounce back to a more positive frame of mind. Eventually, you’re able to view things in perspective, rather than wallow in the suffering.

When you’re positive, you don’t pretend that unpleasant occurrences don’t exist. You simply don’t focus on them. Recognizing reality is essential to formulate a constructive strategy to overcome obstacles. It’s like driving a car. You notice where the other cars are and what they’re doing, so that you can make informed decisions about how to avoid collisions. But you keep your gaze on the direction you’re going.

When you’re optimistic, you seek positive solutions and are open to possibilities. If someone calls me a “Pollyanna” in an attempt to put me down, I say “Thank you” because I know what its real meaning is. Smiling when pessimists want to spoil your day will make them nuts. It’s a win-win situation. Now that’s positive.

Gratitude Boosts Your Positive Mindset

Gratitude Boosts Your Positive Mindset

Researchers estimate our thoughts are predominantly negative. Increasing the amount of constructive thoughts is something to strive for. Studies indicate that gratitude is one of the best ways to boost your positive mindset. Learn how thankfulness can be a key for you to change your life.

Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved