How to Train Yourself to Have a Positive Mindset
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” ~Helen Keller
Have you ever noticed that some people just seem more positive than others? They smile more. They constantly point out the good things, even when most of it looks bleak and hard. And they somehow avoid getting pulled down by the negativity that seems to surround us.
Do you find them super annoying, or do you wish you were more like them?
Do you make assumptions about them, like: they must not have any problems. Their life must be perfect. They were probably born that way.
Do you make excuses for yourself, like: I’d be more positive too, if only I had/didn’t have… (fill in the blank here).
Or are you one of those shiny positive people I’m talking about? Spread it around, girl!
If you want to be more optimistic, I’m here to tell you that you can cultivate a positive mindset. Starting now.
It doesn’t matter your age or background. Anyone can do it. You don’t have to be born a Pollyanna or have a perfect life to have a positive disposition.
You can literally train your mind to be more positive, regardless of your current outlook or circumstances.
Let’s talk about 5 strategies you can try today.
And if you are one of the beautiful optimists out there, please share your tips in the comments below. Let’s spread this positive energy as far as we can!
Why Does it Matter So Much to Me to Be Positive?
I wasn’t always a particularly positive kid. I remember being sort of whiney when my brother messed with me or I didn’t like what we were having for dinner. I think things turned when my mom’s MS really flared up and made it hard for her to walk and control the physical movements of her body. I was 17. At an age when your parents are an embarrassment for just doing normal parent things, people would ask if mine was drunk. Right, ick.
I became protective of her and helped encourage her to keep getting out in public. I became the biggest cheerleader to the woman who had always been mine. I think I subconsciously learned to stop whining about my petty problems to her because it seemed selfish to go on about my own inconveniences of life when she was struggling to stand up and put one foot in front of the other.
When she had a brain aneurysm burst at 52 and had to live in a nursing home, I vowed to never complain to her about anything seemingly unimportant again.
I would paint a smile on my face every time I walked into her room and sometimes even have to fake my bright attitude during our conversations. I didn’t want her to see me having a pity party for myself for anything that didn’t qualify as significant, or that diminished what she was dealing with in any way.
Here’s the thing: Even in a wheelchair, or a hospital bed, without the ability to stand or walk, living away from her home and her husband, she was the most positive-minded person I have ever known. Her mantra was ‘bloom where you are planted.’
Big shoes to fill, right!? Huge!
How was it possible for her to be so positive when she was living through such adversity? What was her secret? I’ve spent years trying to figure it out and make sense of it, and now in my own midlife I have narrowed it down to a few easy steps.
Let me share them with you, because you can start practicing them today.
How Can You Train Yourself to Have a Positive Mindset?
1. Express Gratitude
Be grateful for what you have.
Can you walk? Be grateful.
Do you have a place to live? Be grateful.
Do you have a job that lets you buy food and pay the bills? Be grateful.
Do you have a circle of loving and supportive friends and family? Be grateful.
Do you have a gift or talent that lights you up inside? Be grateful.
Beautiful friend, everything else is sweet, fluffy icing on that cake that is your life!
Listen, it takes zero effort to focus on what you don’t have, or what you can’t do. But that keeps you standing still.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the game of envy, wanting what someone else has, or someone else’s life. But jealousy gets you nowhere.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to be influenced by others, but only if you use it as motivation to enhance your own life.
At the end of an exhausting day when everything seems to go wrong you have 2 choices:
Relive every awful moment of the day and feel sorry for yourself, or…
Make the decision to highlight 3 things from your day to express gratitude for, even if one of them is a simple gift we tend to take for granted, like breathing or walking.
Which one will give you energy? Which one will strengthen your spirit? Which one will propel you forward?
Of course, choice #2. It’s easy and very effective. Try this:
Notice it… Name it in your mind.
Call it out… Say it out loud.
Journal it… Write it down.
Girl, it doesn’t get any easier to improve your life. The basic act of acknowledging things that you are grateful for causes you to unlock abundance and have more things to be grateful for in the future.
“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.
If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
~Oprah Winfrey
2. Look for the Good
Make the effort to look for good things around you. Again, it’s as simple as that. You typically find whatever it is that you’re looking for, so you might as well practice looking for signs of positivity. Try this:
When you’re on a walk, look for pretty flowers, butterflies, puffy clouds, whatever is around you that makes you happy.
Close your eyes and feel the cool breeze on your skin.
Listen for the sweet sound of the birds calling back and forth to each other.
When you’re out in public, look for the person who smiles and says “good morning!” back to you.
And of course, always smile at babies and dogs.
On the other side of that coin, if you notice something gross or weird or annoying, something that conjures up a negative feeling, try to ignore it without allowing it to incite a reaction in you. Just keep your eyes moving, seeking out the next good thing.
As you practice noticing the good things that are literally all around you, take the time to acknowledge them in your mind or better yet, point them out and comment out loud so others can get in on it too. Share it!
By looking for positivity in your environment, you will train your mind to seek it out on its own.
“People deal too much with the negative. Why not try and see the positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
3. Reframe the Situation to Find the Bright Side
This can be a tricky one, but that’s why it needs to be practiced frequently. When an event or a personality is just too much to take, it’s easy to float along with the crowd and commiserate about its terribleness, right?
Beautiful girl, you’re better than that!
Maintaining the status quo is effortless, and as human beings we gravitate toward the easy route. Finding the bright side takes effort, but I promise that practice makes it become easier. And it’s so worth it.
Practice flipping the script on little events throughout the day. Take a situation that seems negative, and train your mind to reframe it in a positive light.
You arrive 5 minutes late for an event… be grateful that you arrived safely!
You get a parking spot clear in the back 40 of the lot… thank the Lord your legs work, now you’ll get your steps in!
The checkout lady drones on to you about her bad day… how lovely that you made her feel comfortable enough to open up to you! She must have needed that.
The rain caused your plans to be delayed or moved indoors… the grass is going to green up and the flowers are going to bloom!
There are times when things just seem to go completely wrong, and that’s life. It happens. But even in the darkest times there is something positive that can be gleaned from it, if you make the effort to reframe it from a negative to a positive. It takes an insightful mind to flip it, but it’s a powerful strategy.
The more you practice it, the quicker your brain will learn to reframe situations in a positive light. Eventually it will become easier and more natural.
4. Attract Positivity to Your Social Media Feed
Okay, how much time do you spend on your phone scrolling Instagram, Facebook or Tik Tok? Too much, right?
You can either let it control you, or you can use it for your good.
Let’s check your social media feed… is it mostly positive or negative? Uplifting or mentally draining? Or is it like mine, and suddenly filled with random ads for weight loss and menopause relief, which are definitely NOT positive? I mean, what in the world? It’s like the Home Shopping Network now!
Anyway, back to you… Media is carefully tailored to incite a reaction from its viewers. What gets our attention? Drama and fear. Sometimes it seems like that’s all that is out there, but that is not true. There is SO much positive energy being generated, it just doesn’t make the news. Again, you might have to look for it, but trust me, it's everywhere.
Beautiful friend, we have a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY here! We can either sit back and allow the internet gods to send us whatever the almighty algorithm deems dramatic or profitable, or we can take control and curate our feed to attract positivity.
Grab your phone and decide if your social media feed needs a positivity update. Then try these quick and easy strategies:
Follow people and pages that promote positivity, either through laughter, compassion, beauty or inspiration.
Are you still following friends and family, not just celebrities and influencers? Go to their pages and make sure you are tracking the real people you love.
Could you use more reminders of acts of kindness going on all over the world? Check out UpWorthy, GoodNews_Movement or TanksGoodNews.
Do dogs make you happy? Try WeRateDogs or DogsofInstagram.
Is there a certain topic that fills you with joy and energy? Search and find it!
Engage with sites that post kindness, creativity and joy by liking and commenting.
Unfollow negative or toxic people and pages.
Be conscious of what is on your feed, because it is what you are attracting. Think about how scrolling makes you feel: Uplifted or disheartened? Curate it to be as positive as possible. Your beautiful mind deserves only the best, so set it up appropriately. It may take a little while, but your feed will slowly begin to adjust and bring more positive energy to you.
“You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”
~Maya Angelou
5. Be Good to Other People
When we make the conscious effort to do things that are kind, compassionate or thoughtful, we are internalizing positivity. We are literally being the good.
When we do something nice for someone else, our brain gets a hit of dopamine (the ‘feel good’ chemical) and we get a rush of pleasure. That positive reinforcement makes us want to do it again.
These acts can be thought out and planned (like sending a gift to someone) or completely random and simple (like holding the door open for the person behind you).
Each act of kindness makes you feel good, makes the other person feel good, and ultimately it makes the world a little bit better.
So help that lady put her groceries in her car.
Text that friend and wish them a beautiful day.
Smile and say “hi!” to the stranger you pass on the street while you look them in the eye.
Each little spark of kindness ignites a flame of positive energy between you and the other person.
If they don’t acknowledge it, no worries. This is about YOU, not them. Don’t look for validation from anyone else but yourself. You will feel uplifted for bringing positive energy into the world.
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
~Gandhi
So there you have it. Do you see the recurring theme in these 5 strategies? It is that you have control over being a positive person. Building a positive mindset is a skill that you can practice. And like any skill, if you put in the work, you will get better at it.
Want to learn Spanish? Practice it.
Want to play the piano? Practice it.
Want to be a marathon runner? Practice it.
Want to see the world through a positive lens? Practice it.
There are so many ways that you can start training your brain to have a more positive outlook. And they are easy! By expressing gratitude, looking for the good, reframing a negative situation to a positive one, curating your social media feed and being kind to other people, you can start practicing positivity today.
Even if you believe that you were born hard-wired with a negative mindset, you can alter it by incorporating these strategies. YOU have control over how to react to any given situation. YOU decide how you will frame it in your mind.
That’s what my mom did. She had to look for the bright spots, the glimmers, everyday. She practiced seeking them out and expressing gratitude for them.
If she could maintain a positive mindset, so can I. And so can you.
Do I slip up sometimes and get into a negative funk? Of course I do. But then I get back up and try again.
The world needs your positive light, my friend. It can brighten up the cloudiest day and influence others to look at the bright side, as well. And when we strong, elevated midlife everygirls combine our positive lights together we can overtake the darkness of negativity and light up the world.
Reframe your thinking and practice being positive today. We need you.
Because you are positively limitless.
