We human beings, the most blessed of the species on this planet Earth have an amazing power, the power of ‘Thinking”. This perhaps is the single most differentiating attribute that human beings have which makes them superior to all the other species. This power enables human beings to plan ahead and be pro-active rather than reactive to life situations.

Enough has been written and spoken about the power of our thoughts and how they can make or break us depending on what is the quality of our thoughts. Top bestselling books such as ‘The Power of Positive Thinking – Norman Vincent Peale’, ‘Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill’, ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie’ and ‘As a Man Thinketh – James Allen’ are few of the numerous books available which all talk about how our lives are shaped by what we think.

The way positive thoughts are supposed to bring positivity and success into one’s life, the converse is equally true. Negative thoughts bring anxiety, stress, and grief into one’s life. In fact, prolonged conditions of such stress and anxiety is believed to push people into a deep depression and grave situations that may even lead to suicidal tendencies amongst people. People affected by depression also suffer in most cases from various other life threatening situations such as obesity, heart diseases, strokes, sleeping disorders, etc.

In the daily course of our lives, we cannot choose the events that take place in our lives. We cannot choose every morning from a list of events what we want in our lives and which ones we don’t. If that was possible, we all would be always happy. No one would willingly wish for events causing us disappointments, sadness, grief, or depression amongst us. But that is not what we are built like. If everything was predictable, we would be no different than robots. It is also equally true that in this circle of life, it is practically impossible to always think and stay positive. However positive our thought processes be, we are still humans and negative thoughts do creep in.

The key is to be conscious of what we are thinking so that we can make conscious efforts to ward off the negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones as soon as possible. Everyone faces difficulties in life. We may have an argument in the morning with our spouse, we may get stuck on the road in a traffic jam while rushing to work may lose our patience and may get into an accident, get a bad scolding from the boss first thing in the office, face interruptions all day in office, keep working till late in the office to finish important to-dos since all day got wasted in unproductive meetings, etc. There may be still serious situations such as misunderstanding with a friend or even worse, a loss of a dear one. The lists may be endless. We are forced to think as to why God gave us such a bad day. ‘Why Me?’. These difficult situations force us into states of sadness leading to stronger feelings of grief or to sometimes fatal situations of depression.

It is very rightly said that how we feel about anything is influenced by only 5% of what happens to us and balance 95% by how we react to it. Our will power to bounce back to energy, to ward off the negative and spring back to the positive is a choice which we and only we make. Promise yourself that come what may, you will think positive about any situation you encounter.

One may argue that it is easier said than done. People struck with a misfortune may rightly argue that how can they think and say everything is perfectly normal in their lives while there is no reason to believe and say so. The fact, however, remains that we need to get out of the negative and cross over to the positive. Imagine a situation that you are planning to buy a car and you have been waiting for this time. Now wherever you go you will find hoardings and billboards where you will see various brands advertised to lure prospective buyers. Your thoughts will automatically tend to hover around your car buying decision. You will realise that for some reason, suddenly you start seeing more of your chosen/ preferred car on the road when you are driving around. Those hoardings and billboards may have been there all the time and those cars may have been running on roads all the time, just that we only notice when we have our mind thinking on those lines. That is the power of your mind. Our mind is a big enabler. Whatever we think our mind will help us think further. If we think negative, the mind will help us to believe that it couldn’t be a worse time than this. Similarly, if we choose to think positive our mind will enable us to believe that things are actually not bad. Sometimes, we might spend fruitful time wasting over a perceived loss, which may not really matter to us after all.

There are a few steps that we can consciously take to stay positive in our day-to-day lives and see how our mind enables us to make things better for us.

  1. Control your temper: Try controlling your anger and staying calm when you have a disagreement with your spouse, colleague, or boss. As some time elapses, your thinking is much more composed and you may arrive at a better decision or understand the other’s viewpoint better. You will soon realize that staying quiet sometimes really transforms your day. One argument leads to another and you will realize that sometimes winning an argument may stress you more than it should have done to calm you down.
  2. Utilise your unproductive time: If the daily traffic jam to your workplace brings negativity to your mind, download some podcasts or e-books to your iPod or smartphone and utilize the time you get stuck in traffic towards your professional development. Once you feel you are better utilizing your time whilst you are stuck in a traffic jam, you will feel much better and much less agitated by the time you reach your workplace.
  3. Plan better: Planning things better will help you stay positive when you encounter a challenge. Though it is practically impossible to plan for each and every event in our lives, you would agree that at least 90% of our activities daily are of a routine nature. Planning the best approach to work on those activities will go a long way in de-stressing you over the long run. Try reaching your workplace 15-30 minutes earlier than your start time and you will begin your day with a positive frame of mind. Use this gift of extra 15-30 minutes to better plan your day and stay on top of your task list.
  4. Eliminate the energy vampires: Cutting out the energy vampires from your lives would go a long way in developing a positive frame of mind. Your social network, both virtual and physical plays a big role on how your thoughts take shape. Cut out all the friends, relatives, and colleagues who bring negativity into your lives. Unfriend if need be, all such friends from your network after meeting or connecting with whom you feel low or depressed. Remember your life is what matters to you. What negative thoughts others have in their lives, let them keep. You cannot destroy your precious time with someone else’s negativity.
  5. Connect with positive people: Take a step forward after cutting out the energy vampires and connect with like-minded people. Connect with those who inspire you, who bring positivity in your lives, people whom you admire. Try linking up with such people on social networks and read what these people are writing, what those people have achieved in their lives, and then what you need to do to reach the heights they have attained and kept.
  6. Faith and Self-belief: Have faith in your abilities. Think about the difficult situations you have encountered in life which have made you emerge ever stronger. Have belief in the fact that if you could overcome earlier challenges, there is no reason why you will not be able to handle the new challenge at hand. This faith and self confidence will bring positivity to your thoughts.
  7. Stay Fit: Research shows that healthier and fitter people have a much more positive frame of mind than those who are not so fit and have an unhealthy lifestyle. Research also shows that some physical exercise every day boosts our self confidence and our ability to handle stress.

The importance of positivity in life is paramount and the effect it can bring to your family life, social life, and your professional life is immense. Imagine getting to work every morning with your mind full of negative thoughts. You will not be able to connect with your colleagues, boss, and your work. You will never be able to perform at your best in such a situation. Similarly, imagine getting home from work depressed and stressed. There is a very high likelihood of getting into an argument with your spouse which could have very likely been avoided had you been in a positive frame of mind.

I believe this is all common knowledge and it is just a matter of being consciously aware of our thoughts. Let us promise ourselves to be better individuals by thinking positive in every situation that life presents us. You will feel for yourself the tremendous strength that you get when you choose to be positive.

I would like to leave you with the wonderful words by Robert Schuller:

The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.

Happy reading

– Nalin Chandna