Surrounded by daily stress, it’s very easy to fall into a pattern where you look at life and its many great possibilities in a very downcast or even pessimistic way. You know even while you’re doing it that you’re just making things worse, but you just can’t help yourself.
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What’s sad is even when things take a turn for the worse if you stay optimistic you’ll get through it more quickly and end up wiser. So, take a moment to read the following words to see how you can maintain an optimistic mindset.
1. Focus On The Good
First, always try to focus on what’s good about a situation. It’s no use to look at the bad, even if it all appears terrible. There’s always something that can inspire hope. Often we let our greater ambitions’ progress determine how we feel, which means that on the occasions when those aren’t progressing how we like, we lose all hope and sink into depression.
This in turn leads to less progress, impeding progress even further. But how can you focus on the good when the big things are going badly? Well, you can…
2. Be Mindful Of The Little Things
So, you lost your job/get dumped by whomever you were dating/totaled your car. These are big problems, and they’re allowed to get you down. But rather than focusing on that, you can get the energy necessary to deal with these situations by focusing on the positives in your life and having a sense of humor about your misfortune.
By focusing on the small things, you’ll elevate your entire mood and make life more pleasant. Just distract yourself from the greater picture with small things that give you pleasure, like some flowers or a good cup of coffee with a friend.
3. Balance
The focus thus far has been on being less negative, but the key really is to be more balanced. By being too optimistic, you’re likely to be stomped on more often than is healthy. Bad things happen, the challenge is to get through them quickly and with as little pain as possible. By not being overly focused on either the negative or the positive, you can make this possible.
The best thing you can do is adopt a can-do attitude that makes you strong enough to accept the negative realities of a bad situation while making you optimistic enough that you’ll tackle the problem with all your might. You’d be surprised how big a change this can make, all you need to do is try it out.
4. Get Plenty Of Light And Air
In a slightly different vein, one way to keep from feeling down is to make sure you get plenty of air and light. Our modern lifestyle makes it so that we spend far too much time indoors. We do not get enough fresh air and natural light, two things we need to keep our brains awake and happy. It’s easy to forget, but we evolved as diurnal creatures that lived out in the open.
If you’re feeling a bit down after sitting in an office or on a couch for a few hours, go take walk. Even if you just go around a crowded city block, you’ll feel better, especially in the daytime. Try to get up early and plan for having enough fresh air; you’ll feel better immediately. Make sure there’s enough light coming in wherever you live and work, as well. It will make a huge change in your attitude.
5. Limit Negative Input
If you follow these tips and start feeling more even-keeled, happy and confident in the future, try to stay that way. Don’t lose sight of the trouble you went through to feel better and how optimism is changing your life every day.
Also, avoid negative people, or disregard what they have to say. No good comes from hanging out with people who see everything bleakly and have no desire to change that. Worse, you might fall into bad habits again, just when you started enjoying the new optimistic you. So get out there and smell the roses, enjoy the small things and don’t fret the big stuff. You’ll feel better in seconds!
