I’m fairly sure that you would agree that a positive attitude can make a huge impact on all areas of your life. But did you know there, that may actually lengthen your life? This is exactly what The Ohio Longitudinal Study of Aging and Retirement found. This study was carried out by Robert Atchley, PhD. in Oxford, Ohio. Over 1,100 people over the age of 50 participated in the study. There were many follow ups during the years. In the 1990s, Yale University Psychologist Becca Levy, PhD researched the answers of the participants and compared the answers with the average lifespan of those who completed the survey. She discovered that those who gave answers showing a positive attitude towards aging lived 7.6 years longer than those who didn’t.
Isn’t that amazing? A positive attitude not only gives you self confidence to succeed, it also actually benefits your health.
Positive Thinking and the Impact it Can Have on Your Life
Your mind is a lot more powerful than you think. Growing research is starting to prove the many benefits that can come from positive thinking. According to Mohanty (2009), a positive attitude affects self-esteem and happiness at work, and this also is likely to enable a worker to earn a higher salary. This positive attitude at work may also be reflected in life, and success at work may be mirrored in daily life.
A positive attitude enables us to cope better with the challenges of life.
A positive attitude can be linked to sleep. This study, published in the Journal Of Adolescence in 2013, compared the effects of sleep and tiredness on positive attitude and academic success. The study showed that if adolescents get less than eight hours of sleep, they feel tired during the day, they will not have a positive attitude and their studies suffer as a result.
It is probable that corresponding links exist between sleep, tiredness and positivity in adults as well. So, if you find yourself suffering from a negative outlook, improving the quality of your sleep could help you to become more positive.
A positive attitude can help you to become more successful in everything you do in your life. According to Jeff Keller, in his book “Attitude is Everything”, positive thinking can give you more energy, help you to feel younger and enable you to achieve your goals in life.
Your attitude can have a positive impact on many other areas of your life such as:
- Your self-confidence
- It helps you cope with stress
- It can promote self-improvement
- Your health and well-being
- It can affect your behaviour
- Your fear and inner conflict can be easier to deal with
- It makes change possible
This list could be much longer, as a positive attitude affects so many aspects of life that really make a huge difference to your happiness and confidence. Let’s now take a look in more detail at each of these ways that positive thinking can help you.
Positive Thinking Builds Your Self-Confidence
Self confidence is very important in this world of high competition for jobs and the skills we now need to cope with technology and all the rest. Confidence is closely connected to positive attitude. it’s a good idea, therefore to work on your self confidence.
According to Erin Wehr-Flowers, in this article, both younger and adult women were less confident than men of the same age and this causes them to limit the choices they make to take up professions or activities which are traditionally thought to be more suitable for men.
The study mentioned above also concludes that women generally have a less positive attitude and are more likely to expect a negative outcome when faced with challenges and difficulties. this also confirms that in order to be more positive it is necessary to build confidence. So how can you do that? Check out this confidence-boosting course now.
Positive Thinking Helps You Cope With Stress
Start thinking positively. When you’re hit with an especially difficult problem, a little optimism can go a long way to improving your circ*mstances (or at least the way you feel about them). Pessimists tend to dwell on the negative, what’s wrong, what can’t be changed, etc. This line of thinking leads to increased stress and no solution for how to deal with the problem. here’s how to end your negative thoughts and improve your attitude.
A positive attitude can help you to put everything into perspective and see your circ*mstances for what they are. It is important to understand what you can control and change, and what you cannot. Being positive and having confidence will give you the motivation to move past any stressful situation.
Positive Thinking Can Enhance Self-Improvement
Self-improvement is something everyone should be focused on. It is only through continual learning and improvement that you’re able to be the best version of yourself. The sheer thought of, “I can do it”, can drive you to achieve things that a defeated attitude will make impossible.
Be aware though that in order to achieve real self-improvement you need to deal with your problems first. Whether you’re contemplating going to Casa Capri recovery program for a bad drug habit, or trying to work on your professional skills so you can land that promotion, positive thinking is half the battle. When you believe in your mind that you have the ability to be and to improve, everything else seems to fall into place and the motivation you need to persevere is somehow manifested within.
If you’re suffering from low self-esteem one of the first things I would recommend is to change the way you think. Self-hypnosis can really help with this, and through changing your subconscious thinking, you can change your behaviour.
When you look at yourself and see only what is wrong, essentially you begin to feel worse about yourself and your ability to get things done drops dramatically. However, if you flip the script and start making positive affirmations about yourself like, “I am worthy”, “I can accomplish this”, “I am attractive”, you start to feel it and therefore act on those positive thoughts.
Just look at the world around you and compare those who have a positive attitude and those who always see the negative in everything. Who has a better life? Who is more successful? Who is happier?
Positive Thinking Can Positively Impact Your Health
If you knew that having positive thoughts regularly would improve your immune system, would you be willing to think positively? Well, studies are increasingly finding that when you’re happy, the body releases super disease-fighting chemicals that can help to alleviate symptoms for everything from the common cold or flu to cancer.
There’s something about having a positive outlook on life that does the body good. If you’ve been plagued by negative energy, thoughts, and behaviors, it’s time to retrain your brain. Start looking on the bright side of things more often and state positive affirmations regularly to encourage yourself to have good thoughts about who you are and the positive change you can accomplish in your life.
There is good evidence that a positive attitude and thinking can help patients to cope with serious illnesses such as Cancer (see this article by Youll and Meekosha, 2011), and even to increase the chances of overcoming it.
There is quite a bit of evidence that the opposite of a positive attitude, ie. depression and negative thinking, can increase the likelihood of heart disease (see this article by Anda et al. 1993). It would seem that positive attitude would have the opposite effect and protect someone from heart disease or at least lessen the chances of this.
In fact, this recent study found that positive attitude can indeed help reduce heart problems, especially cardiac arrest. The study divided patients in to high, medium and low risk groups and the results were that positive wellbeing decreased cardiac arrest by half in the high risk group, by a third in the medium risk and by 13% in the low risk group.
So it seems pretty conclusive! If you want to be healthy, you need to be more positive.
The Importance That Your Actions Match Your Attitude
One important factor to consider carefully is how your actions and behaviour match your attitude. For example, if you believe you think negatively, you need to not only change your attitude so you think more positively, you need to behave positively too. Just changing your attitude is not enough. First, think about how your attitude causes you to behave in different situations. If you were more positive, what would you do differently? How would your life change?
Attitude or action first?
Which is better?
1. change your negative attitude and hope that will change the way you act
2. change how you act and hope that will change your attitude
I think the best is to work on both but start with your attitude. What you need is for the two to be in balance – positive attitude and behaviour.
How To Overcome Your Inner Conflicts and Fear
Let’s look at how to overcome negative thinking as this is often the first step towards developing a positive mindset.
The inner conflicts going on in your mind come from fear. To end negative thoughts it is necessary to deal with this fear. The conflict in your mind can cause you to be in a prison of negativity. So how to break free? Check out these outstanding books on my recommended page.
Thoughts cause your fear, the belief that something bad or harmful is going to happen (Bassey Eneyo, 2018. Philosophy of Fear: A Move to Overcoming Negative Fear).
Stop Thinking the Worst Will Happen – a Lesson to Learn
One thing I’ve learnt in my life is that things sometimes seem scary and if I allow my mind to race away into a negative cycle of thoughts, I begin to believe that the worst that could happen, will. This kind of thinking is quite common I believe. I can only say that from my experience, and all the fear I had of what might happen at certain points in my life, it was never half as bad as I imagined it would be.
We moved around so much when I was a child and each time I imagined the place, the new school, the people I imagined they would all be terrible. But it was always better than my mind had imagined. The place was nicer, the people were friendlier and everything was easier.
Never fear the future. It is unknown but that is the beauty of it. Everything is possible.
Next time you think about a change that is happening and begin to think about the things that could go wrong, stop and change the thoughts and ask yourself “What could go right? What if everything will be better than it is now? What might improve? Changing your mind’s direction so it looks forward with hope and expectation rather then dread will open up a new world of possibilities.
Positive Attitude Gives You The Power to Change
You have it in your power to change many things in your life. Some things of course are beyond your control and you must accept those things and concentrate on the things you can change. But how do you start?
First, cultivate a mindset for your growth and self-improvement.
Second, stop being critical and focus on the positives.
Once you decide what needs to be changed you can start to think about what you need to do to make those changes. Your positive attitude is vital for your motivation to change.
Change can be fearful because it is moving into the unknown. But think about this for a second. Every step into the future is a step into the unknown. Are you scared to step forward? What exactly is it that scares you?
Before moving onto the next section and discussing how to change negative beliefs, I want to leave you this link to a very helpful page. This page has some important advice on developing a positive mindset. It is aimed at college students but there is good advice here for you no matter what age or background you are.
A positive attitude can also help restore your confidence and courage to say no to others when you need to. Sometimes you will need to prioritise your own goals and feelings, don’t be afraid of this.
Change Your Negative Beliefs and become More Positive
Negative beliefs exist because you have learnt them, and you have put your faith in them as being true. This is good news because there are two important things you can do to lessen the effect these negative beliefs have over your attitude. First, challenge your beliefs and question them, you’ll discover that you may have been wrong to assume they are true. Second, you can unlearn negative beliefs and assumptions and clear your mind for more positive thoughts.
One note here, I am not saying you should stop negative thoughts, this is unrealistic, as we all have them. But if you question them and do not automatically accept them as truth, that is progress along the path of developing a positive attitude that will support you in the future.
Self hypnosis can help you change both your thinking and your behaviour so it becomes much more positive and helpful. This works because hypnosis is the same process you use to learn beliefs in the first place. It makes sense to use the same natural system to replace the negative with the positive.
Choose The Right Goals For You
Look at the beliefs connected with your goals and make sure you consider what you think you deserve, if you are capable and if your goal right for you. Is your goal realistic and do you really want it? You must be fully committed to achieve your goals because the best ones require a lot of work.
Make sure you create goals that will take you closer to where you want to be. Smaller, achievable goals are best, and even better if you believe you can attain them!
How to Develop Positive Thinking And Become a Winner
If you look at the beliefs and thoughts of champions and successful people you’ll see they all have very positive thoughts and high levels of confidence. This is not to say they think they are invincible. Failure is just a way to get closer to finding the right way to succeed.
To be a winner, you need to think like a winner. Here is a short list of some thoughts that all winners have:
- You can learn to be a winner
- You can create your own future reality
- You can choose your beliefs
- Failure doesn’t exist
- Effort brings success
- The only limit to your success and happiness is you
- There is positive in everything
- Mistakes are only mistakes if you fail to learn from them
- You don’t need alcohol or drugs to help you cope
On the last point above, drugs are a particularly negative and damaging substance that many resort to when all else fails. If you are caught in the nightmare of taking drugs you need addiction recovery and the correct mindset that will help you succeed. Never avoid seeking the help you need!
Near Life Experience – Enjoy Life More!
By Daniel Perera
Visit my son’s blog for more of his writing atfaithstatic.blogspot.com
I’ve been thinking…People ask if you ever had a near death experience…How come people never ask if you ever had a near life experience?
There’s so much to be seen, done and experienced in this world – but the ways of our society and our time has us locked up, as though we are prisoners within the walls of our very own homes, work spaces, schools… We are so swamped with tasks that we don’t really have much time for anything else.
How many moments did you have that made you really feel alive? How many moments were you able to smile and feel happy? How many moments made you thank God or whatever you may believe in, for the life you that you have? If right now you’re thinking, ”not many”, then perhaps it’s time to make a change.
You only live once. So seize every opportunity and make the most of your life. Do what makes you happy. Because I’ve got news for you, something your teachers, principals or bosses are not telling you. Whether you pass an exam or fail it, whether you complete tasks on time or fail to do so, or whether you go to university or not, isn’t what is really going to define you. It’s not going to make you who you are or who you want to be.What’s going to make you special and unique, what’s going to make you, yourself, is how you live your life, the things you do for other people out of kindness, the things you say, the way you act and the way you make others feel. What’s going to make your life special is the way you live it and the things you do, the places you go but most importantly the moments that take your breath away. That’s what really matters.
What I’m saying is, the moments in your lives – the moments that you make – are what will define you. If you want to be remembered, if you want to leave something behind once your time has come and you leave this world for a better one, then make a choice. Let that choice be to live your life, starting today, and to do what you want to do, to be the person you want to be. Figure out a way to leave a mark in this world, and do it.
How many moments did you have that made you really feel alive? How many near life experiences did you have? There comes a time when you have to make a change, and for many of us, the time is right now. What are you waiting for?
How to improve your esteem and confidence and make the hard choices
Build your Self Confidence – Hypnosis downloads – quick, easy and guaranteed to help you build your confidence (prepared by experienced psychologists and gets my full recommendation)
I hope that this page has inspired you to change your attitude and become more positive. I hope that this inspiration will turn into action that will transform you and improve your life.
References
- Anda, R., Williamson, D., Jones, D., Macera, C., Eaker, E., Glassman, A., & Marks, J. (1993). Depressed affect, hopelessness, and the risk of ischemic heart disease in a cohort of U.S. adults.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.),4(4), 285–294. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001648-199307000-00003
- Eneyo, M. B. (2018).Philosophy of fear: A move to overcoming negative fear. Xlibris Corporation.
- Keller, J. (2001).Attitude is everything. Ebook.
- Mohanty, M. S. (2009). Effects of positive attitude on happiness and wage: Evidence from the US data.Journal of Economic Psychology,30(6), 884-897.
- Perkinson-Gloor, N., Lemola, S., & Grob, A. (2013). Sleep duration, positive attitude toward life, and academic achievement: The role of daytime tiredness, behavioral persistence, and school start times.Journal of adolescence,36(2), 311-318.
- Robert C. Atchley, 2007, “Ohio Longitudinal Study on Aging and Retirement, 1975-1995”, Harvard Dataverse, V1
- Wehr-Flowers, E. (2006). Differences between male and female students’ confidence, anxiety, and attitude toward learning jazz improvisation.Journal of Research in Music Education,54(4), 337-349.
- Youll, J., & Meekosha, H. (2013). Always look on the bright side of life: Cancer and positive thinking.Journal of Sociology,49(1), 22-40.
