This One Thing is the Ultimate Life-Hack
The key to wealth, health and success
“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Hear
I know someone who is always struggling in her life. Her name is Sam.
Sam is heavily in debt and is always broke. She works at a menial, unsatisfying supermarket job. Also, she is obese, smokes, and has constant health issues.
She always seems to have a crisis involving broken washing machines or paying bills. She immediately fritters it on pizza and movies if she ever gets any extra money.
She is almost unbearable to be around because she is always complaining and whining. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she is single and chronically lonely. Many people are happy being single, but she is not one of them.
Anything I try to tell her about being positive gets rejected with these words, ‘It’s ok for you.’
She is a victim, first-class. She is a negative thinker.
What about you?
“You have the choice to decide what to focus on day in and day out. And that choice, in part, determines the type of results you’ll get in your life.” — Ayodeji Awosika, How to be Positive in a World Full of Negative People
I’m guessing you’re not like Sam. Sam would almost certainly never read this article.
You are probably far more positive. I expect your life is better than hers. But are you as positive as you could be? Do you think positive thinking is deluded? Are you committed to being a ‘realist’?
You may believe that ‘reality’ is the first cause. But here’s the truth: youare the primary cause of your reality. Reality is not ‘out there.’ It’s in you. Whether you allow yourself to believe it or not, you’re the master of this experience you call your life.
The entirety of all things is infinite. We attune our perceptions to a tiny part of what we call ‘reality’.
The bottom line is this:
If you choose to attune to the negative, negativity will become your experience.
If you focus on the positive, positive experiences will abound.
Why negative thinking is so harmful
Negative thinking and negative self-talk will grind you down. It’ll suck the life force out of you and put your life on a downhill trajectory.
Negativity is self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. It’s a mind-cancer that should be rooted out.
According to the Mayo Clinic Staff, negative self-talk and thinking include the following:
Filtering
Personalizing
Catastrophizing
Polarizing
Here is my understanding of each:
Filtering
If you think negatively, you will filter out opportunities. You won’t see lucky chances even when they’re staring you in the face.
Sam is so busy being negative, she’ll never notice people trying to help her or give her a break. I gave up long ago trying to point out opportunities to her because she always finds excuses to reject each one.
I would have helped her find a better job before now, but she is too negative to listen to my suggestions. She filters them out.
Personalizing
If you think negatively, you’ll think everything is a comment on your inadequacy. You think about yourself in depreciating terms. Everything anyone says or does is a confirmation of that negative assessment.
Sam frets about her colleagues having fun without her and that they don’t like her. She is such a negative thinker, they probably don’t like hanging out with her. This is how personalizing becomes self-fulfilling.
Catastrophizing
If you think negatively, you live in a state of worried anticipation, waiting for the next event to go wrong. And your life will go wrong because negativity is all you’re allowing yourself to see.
Sam is broke, so she has to catch the bus rather than drive, which makes her think even more negatively. By the time she gets home, she is exhausted and even more incapable of changing her life… and on it goes.
Negative catastrophizing is a feedback loop.
Polarizing
This is black and white thinking. If things aren’t 100 percent perfect, then they must be 100 percent bad.
This form of negative thinking filters out nuance. When something that can be perceived as unfavorable does happen, you never see an upside. You don’t see the silver lining. Instead, you label it as a total disaster.
Sam was asked to take on more responsibility at work. She didn’t rejoice because she would have more money and was getting approval from her bosses. Instead, she complained bitterly. She felt she was getting taken advantage of and would be overworked.
She refuses to see the advantages life offers her.
Why positive thinking is beneficial
“Your positive action combined with positive thinking results in success.” -Shiv Khera
Health
According to the Mayo Clinic Staff, positive thinking, “Helps with stress management and can even improve your health.” It may have the following benefits:
Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress
Greater resistance to the common cold
Better psychological and physical well-being
Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress
Broaden-and-build
“I call this the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions because positive emotions appear to broaden peoples’ momentary thought–action repertoires and build their enduring personal resources.” — Fredrickson 1998, 2001.
Barbara Fredrickson is a positive psychology researcher at the University of North Carolina. She published a landmark paper . It demonstrates the impact of positive thinking on your skills and abilities. She refers to this as her ‘broaden-and-build’ theory.
She took sets of people and showing them positive and negative film clips. Her research showed that positive thinking lends itself to positive actions and skill-building. Obviously, this results in greater wealth and success.
If it believes there is immediate danger, the mind considers the future unimportant. If you think negatively, you won’t believe it’s worthwhile planning long term.
On the other hand, positivity results in a long-term life strategy. Education and skill-building become worthwhile when you are safe. People become, “…generative, creative, resilient, ripe with possibility and beautifully complex.”
She also discusses the health benefits of positive thinking.
She argues that positivity produces ‘optimal functioning’, both in the present and long-term.
How to think positively
You can learn to become a positive thinker. It’s a habit, like anything else. But, like any habit, it may take time and practice.
Even if you’ve had a terrible life so far, or trauma, you can still learn to think positively.
Others have proven this by thinking optimistically even after the worst experiences.
Meditation
In 2008, Fredrickson did more research. Those who meditated daily showed far more positive emotions than those who didn’t.
Writing
There was another study, published in the Journal of Research in Personality. It showed how writing about positive subjects had a beneficial effect on a group of students.
The Advantage Method
This is my number one positivity tool. I use this every day. It has changed my life in so many ways.
I learned if from reading Vadiim Zealand’s Transurfing books . I recommended his books for those interested in exploring the nature of reality.
He describes ‘the advantage method’. It is simple:
Whenever anything ‘negative’ happens ask yourself this, What is the advantage I can take from this? Something ‘negative’ may be something as terrible as a car-crash, an annoying phone-call or some bitter-tasting coffee.
The ‘advantage’ may be immediately evident to you. The car-crash made you swerve in time to avoid a much bigger collision. The annoying phone-call means you don’t have to go into the office. The bitter-tasting coffee is a prompt for you to drink less coffee.
The advantage may not be immediately apparent to you. In which case, you simply ask the question and move on. The chances are, you will perceive some form of advantage at a later date. The answer will come to you. It may be subtle, such as, “I broke my leg, but that meant I got to feel the love and support of my family.”
If the answer doesn’t come and you can’t figure out the advantage, don’t worry about it. By opening yourself up to the possibility of a bright side, you will have shifted your energy.
Tragic events, which seem to have no ‘advantage’, happen. It is hard to see the bright side of a child dying or of someone being a victim of violent crime. But perhaps there are some deep soul lessons to be learned from these kinds of experiences. By at least opening ourselves up to this possibility, we may ease some of the pain.
Awareness
Write down areas in your life you’d like to change. Bring awareness to your negative blocks surrounding that issue by examining your thoughts.
Bring awareness to your thoughts throughout the day. Take pauses for reflection and stillness.
Pay particular attention to how you think of yourself. Are you looking at yourself in a negative light? If so, build up your positive self-image by following through on your promises to yourself.
Catch yourself before you do or say anything negative. Be aware of everything you say. Think of your words as magic spells. Never cast a negative spell.
Practice affirmations
If you’ve read much of my work, you’ll know I’m a big proponent of affirmations. To become more positive, practice targeted affirmations.
Don’t say, “I’m broke.” Instead, say, “Wealth flows to me with ease.”
Don’t say, “I can’t afford this.” Instead, say, “How can I afford this?”
Don’t say, “I’m so fat!” Instead, say, “I love my body as it is and allow it to become slimmer every day.”
Don’t say, “I hate my job, and all my colleagues make me want to scream!” Instead, say, “What are some of the good things about my job and my colleagues? What am I learning from this situation?”
A generalized affirmation, I like is, “All of life comes to me with peace, joy, and prosperity.”
Gratitude
Much has been written about gratitude. However, this article wouldn’t be complete without mentioning it. Gratitude is a potent positivity tool.
A simple way of practicing gratitude is to write down ten things you are grateful for every morning.
I’ve been doing this for about the last five year, and it has made me so much happier. It’s a great way to start the day.
More positivity tips
Look for opportunities to laugh and smile.
Pursue a wholesome and healthy lifestyle.
Avoid negative people.
Seek out positive people.
Declutter your home and streamline your possessions.
Surround yourself with plants.
Make sure you get outside as much as possible.
Wear bright colors.
Sing and dance and make music.
Look for opportunities to play.
Look at beautiful art and listen to music you love.
Enjoy your food.
Enjoy movement.
Pay attention to your entertainment. If you have a taste for ‘dark’ literature or movies, you may want to reexamine that. I can understand, not wanting to change this one too much — art is an exception. But you may at least want to balance it with some lighter material.
Avoid the news like the plague.
In conclusion
As I said, Sam probably won’t read this. If she did, and she opened her mind to the message, it would change her life.
Sam, if you did read this, please don’t take any of this as a judgment. This isn’t about your value as a person. It’s about how you can change your life for the better.
But my task isn’t to force positivity on anyone. My task is to let youknow that you can turn your life around by thinking positively.
The only thing that matters is: Do you choose to be more positive? If you do, and you deliberately practice becoming more optimistic, you’ll achieve it.
With your growing optimism, you’ll become a happier person. That happiness will be enough in itself. But your positivity will also spread out like sonar through deep water. It’ll draw waves of welcomed experiences back to you.
You’ll be open to opportunities to build wealth and success. Your new optimistic ways of thinking will cultivate growth and prosperity. As you criticize yourself and the world less, you’ll see fewer things worthy of criticism.
Your stress levels will decrease, and your health will improve. Positive people and experiences will appear in abundance.
So go forth and spread your glorious positivity!
I know — without any doubt — you’ll shine.
Thank you for reading. I wish you everything.