Staying positive in difficult situations is a most important skill worth developing.
- Do you wish to discover how to stay positive in negative situations?
- Do you become pessimistic and lose hope, when you fail or when you face difficulties?
- Did you know that you can change your attitude and maintain a positive attitude, even when facing difficulties?
- You can train your brain to create a positive environment and stay positive at work and at home.
When train your mind to be more positive you create positive changes in your environment.
There are people, who do not allow negative situations to affect their state of mind. These people manage to maintain a positive attitude even in difficult times.
You probably wonder how is it possible to stay positive, when everything seems negative. Read on to find out.
You Should Avoid Negative Thinking
We often face negative situations and encounter negative people. We are constantly exposed to negative news when we listen to the radio, watch TV, or read the newspapers. This can create negative energy.
It seems like it is impossible to stay away from negative situations, people or news. Is it possible to stay positive in these negative situations and not allow them to affect how we think and feel?
- If you keep thinking and focusing on negative situations, you keep attracting and creating them in your life.
- If you keep thinking about negative situations, difficulties or disasters, strangely, your mind starts expecting them.
This affects your moods and feelings, and how you react. You might get angry and frustrated more easily, become unhappy, and you develop a negative state of mind.
A negative state of mind is like a heavy rock that you carry on your back. It slows you down, weakens you, and makes you feel helpless.
This state of mind makes you passive, and takes away the motivation to improve. It also allows external situations to control your life.
- How is it possible to change this attitude?
- Is it possible to be positive and stay so, when facing difficulties?
- Is there an alternative to a negative state of mind?
The alternative is to develop a positive frame of mind. You can learn to stay positive in negative situations. However, this requires vigilance, awareness of your thoughts, and some inner work. This is not difficult and is fun to do.
Tips for Staying Positive in Negative Situations
1. Get enough sleep and rest
When you are tired and exhausted, it is much easier to become negative, frustrated and unhappy. You need to strive not to overwork and exhaust yourself, get enough sleep and have enough rest.
2. Bring more positivity into your life
Try to be around positive people. Positivity is contagious. By being around positive people, gradually, you will notice that you are becoming positive too.
Take action, be more active, start new projects and do things that bring happiness into your life.
Watch funny and entertaining movies, and read positive quotes and inspiring stories.
Spend time to focus on the good things in your life. This will help you improve your outlook on life.
It would also a good idea to read about successful people who did not allow their circumstances to limit their dreams and their goals. All this, will affect your state of mind.
All this would contribute to your mental health and infuse you with positive energy.
3. Focus on solutions, not on problems
When things are tough, we tend to focus on the problems. Focusing on problems, makes them grow, and if we don’t do anything about them, we become unhappy, frustrated and pessimistic.
If we maintain a positive attitude, believe that there is a solution, and keep looking for it, we will ultimately find it.
4. Exercise your body
Exercising your body improves your health, your energy level, and your inner strength. This makes it easier to think positively and face difficult situations with confidence and assertiveness, and deal with them more effectively.
Any kind of exercise is beneficial, such as walking, swimming, basketball, bodybuilding, or anything else that you like.
5. Replace your negative thoughts with positive thoughts
Always replace each negative and pessimistic thought with a positive and optimistic one. Become aware of the thoughts that occupy your mind. If these thoughts are negative, shift your attention to happy and optimistic thoughts.
You will probably experience inner resistance, and you might even forget to replace your negative thoughts. Nevertheless, continue to practice this technique over and again, until this way of thinking becomes natural and easy.
I have written about this technique of replacing thoughts in my article, How to Stop Your Negative Thoughts.
Additional Tips for Staying Positive
6. Positive affirmations
Repeat positive affirmations when in difficult or unpleasant situations. Repeat them also when in the company of unpleasant people. This would help you divert your attention from the problem and maintain an optimistic state of mind.
There are plenty of affirmations, which you can find on the Internet, suitable for different situations. If you repeat affirmations with faith and focus, you change your attitude and state of mind.
Affirmations, which are positive statements, can motivate and encourage you, and change how you feel. I have included many affirmations for various purposes in my book, Affirmations – Words with Power.
7. Do not take anything too personally
Strive not to take personally, what people think and say about you. There is no reason in the world to allow their thoughts and words hurt you. It is you, who allow their thoughts and words to affect how you feel. Often, people are not even aware that they hurt you.
Avoid thinking about what people said and why they said it. They might have meant something different and you misunderstood them. They might have been joking, or what they said was not about you at all.
You need to find out how to let go of anger, resentment and hurt feelings. This becomes possible with just a little degree of emotional detachment, which is another term for letting go.
You can find working advice and guidance about emotional detachment in my book, Emotional Detachment for Happier life.
Meditation and Gratitude for Staying Positive
8. Learn to meditate
Meditation might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Yet, even ten minutes a day of meditation, would relax you and relieve you of stress and strain.
A regular practice of meditation can enable you to stay calm and positive in difficult times.
If you have never practiced meditation, you might find the following articles useful:
What Is Meditation.
Meditation Advice, Guidance and Tips
Meditation in Active Daily Life
9. Practice gratitude
Show gratitude for the people who help you and motivate you.
Staying Positive Quotes
Staying positive in the various situations that you encounter is a great asset, which is worth acquiring.
“Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.”
– Mary Lou Retton
“People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?”
– Nhat Hanh
“I start each day by telling myself what a positive influence I am on this world.”
– Peter Daisym
“A positive attitude can really make dreams come true – it did for me.”
– David Bailey
“Having a positive mental attitude is asking how something can be done rather than saying it can’t be done.”
– Bo Bennett
“A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.”
– Wade Boggs
We have more positive quotes for you.
