…Even When Your Inner Voice Is Trying To Sabotage You
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I recently received an email from one of my readers asking me for advice on how to stay positive, so I decided to share what I replied to him.
What follows is my response in the form of a TOP 20 list of all the things I do on a day to day basis to stay positive, keep myself inspired and make sure that little voice in my head tells me great things about myself and my future…
BE WARNED: This is not your traditional positive thinking crap. These are simple, yet profoundly effective tips for staying in a positive frame of mind.
Lastly, please forgive me for not always going into greater detail on each item on the list. It would take an entire book to do each one justice. However, the tips are self explanatory and you can use your common sense to apply them in your life.
My Top 20 Ways To Stay Positive:
The following is a list of things I do and think regularly (if not daily) to stay in a positive frame of mind. If any of these speak to you, use them and let me know your results… Of course, this list is far from complete, but it contains my personal favorite techniques…
Your Body:
Your state of mind is influenced by your energy levels. The following tips will help your body operate at peak performance and keep your head clear. When your body is running like a finely tuned machine, your mind follows suit.
- Exercise daily. This increases blood circulation to the brain, giving you more energy and keeping your mind clear. Make sure you choose exercise that is fun for you.
- Add lots of raw vegetables, nuts and fruits to your diet and stop eating crap. The quality of the food you eat will determine how you feel. How you feel will impact what you think.
Crap food in = crap thoughts and feelings out… - Eat a nutritious breakfast – it’s the most important meal of the day. I make a green smoothie every morning. Here is a link to a video a friend of mine made teaching how to make a green smoothie… http://www.theshawnstevensonmodel.com/green-warrior-shake/
- Take some time out every day to do an activity that is fun for you. This will release Serotonin in your brain and make you feel good, promoting a clear mind and good feelings.
Your People:
I’ve heard it said that our lives are the sum total of the 5 people we spend the most time with…
- Hang around with high quality people who support where you are going in life.
- Share yourself vulnerably with the people in your life. Vulnerable does not mean weak – in fact, it takes a lot of courage to be totally open and honest with people. Being this way regularly will grow relationships built on trust and honesty. These relationships are your support line when you’re not feeling great. Also, don’t pretend that everything is OK if it is not. Just sharing your challenges with another person you trust can get rid of a lot of the anxiety you may be feeling at the time.
- Contribute to the people around you regularly in whatever way you can. It will make you feel good about yourself. Also, what comes around tends to go around, so by contributing, you can be sure that you’ll be contributed to in some way in the future.
- Personally, I have made a commitment to myself not to withhold important communications from the people I love. When we don’t say something you know needs to be said, we bottle it up inside, and that pressure causes tension in our mind. This tension often manifests itself in the form of negative thoughts and low energy. So, say what needs to be said (with love of course) and most times you’ll immediately notice a sense of relief.
- I also have a commitment to love my family. I believe that our relationship to our parents is of FUNDAMENTAL importance to our happiness. Notice that I said our relationship to our parents and not with our parents. Even if your parents are no longer alive, you can still relate to them with love. If you know you are harboring resentment towards a parent, seek counseling or get the issue resolved. Whatever the case, LOVE your parents and you’ll love yourself. I wish I had the space to write more on this topic, but I’ll have to save it for a future post…
Your Thoughts And Feelings:
The way you see the world directly impacts the thoughts you think and how you respond to life. Here’s a list of ideas and beliefs I have. Try them on and see if they fit you…
- I have a commitment to myself not to judge anything as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. It is what it is…
- I have a commitment to myself to find the blessings in any circumstance. This way, I ALWAYS benefit, even when at first it appears as if life is throwing me a curve ball…
- I have a commitment to myself to feel grateful as much as possible and I focus on cultivating gratitude.
- I have learned to trust that the tough times always pass, and that I am always looked after by Life (or some higher power). I consciously cultivate this belief and look for evidence of it, so I see it every day. This is a VERY powerful belief to cultivate and can remove all future based fear.
Your Work:
Given that most of us spend about a third of our life at work, here are some basic, yet powerful tips for staying positive and focused while working:
- Take regular breaks and if you can, nap once a day for 20 minutes. A nap will recharge you and clear your mind of clutter.
- Focus on your strengths at work and if possible, delegate your weaknesses… If you’re an entrepreneur, go take the Wealth Dynamics test to find out your entrepreneurial strengths.
- Complete the tasks you set yourself. Set yourself one important primary priority task to achieve every day and get it done. It will give you a sense of satisfaction and help you experience making progress. Feeling like you are not making progress in life sucks (at least for me it does)!
Habits To Adopt:
Your results in life come from your habits. I have made many of the things on this list a habit, and do them daily. Try some of these out and watch how your state of mind improves magically.
- Before I go to sleep I run over my day and congratulate myself for everything I did well and let go of any judgment about the things I did not do well. This keeps me feeling like I am making progress and doing a great job in my life.
- When I’m feeling really low, I pull out a pen and pad and begin writing down my feelings and my thoughts. This helps me get clear on what I am really feeling and seeing it on paper helps me understand what is going on. I don’t stop writing until I feel better.
- Perhaps most profound for me, I have managed to ACCEPT my life just as it is and as it isn’t. As a result, I rarely get upset. Practice not resisting things the way they are.
- Perhaps the most powerful habit I have adopted is waking up and immediately visualizing my day going well. I do this to keep my focus on where I am going and why I am going there. It motivates me and keeps my mind in the space I need it to be in order to be successful in my life. To help me visualize, I use the Relaxation For Manifestation audio program. It’s the best.
Print this list out and try out a different tip each day. Notice the results and keep doing what works for you.
VERY IMPORTANT: Smile, take a break and get outside today and always remember… You are amazing!
[mk_fancy_title tag_name=”span” color=”#111111″ size=”24″ font_weight=”400″ font_style=”italic” letter_spacing=”1″ font_family=”Lora” font_type=”google”]Bruce[/mk_fancy_title]
P.S. I’d love to hear your ideas to add to this list. Please leave them below. I read each one.
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