Choosing Happiness: the power of positive thinking

I’m going to let you in on the simplest, most basic secret to true happiness: choose it!  Seriously, this is much more effective and long lasting than winning the lotto or getting the job/home/man/woman of your dreams.  The truth about happiness (and unhappiness) is that it is not the result of our outer life circumstances, but is in fact the by-product of how we think about our life circumstances.

Happiness is an inner state of being, and therefore is completely non-reliant on external factors.  I know this seems counter-intuitive because when your “life” is good, you probably feel good, and conversely when your “life” is bad, you probably feel bad.  That always seemed perfectly logical to me, until I trialed a different approach a few years ago.  You see, what I learned is that it is not because life sucks that you don’t feel good.  It is because of how you are thinking about your sucky life that you feel bad.  The single most effective thing you can do to positively impact your happiness is to think positively about yourself and your life.  And if your life happens to be not so great at the moment, well think look for a positive spin that will help you focus on solutions rather than the problems.

A positive attitude in undesirable circumstances allows a person to be happy despite those (often undeniably awful) circumstances.  Likewise, a negative attitude in highly desirable circumstances destroys the ability to enjoy the privileged situation and be happy about it.  The majority of people seem to lie somewhere in between, and feel happy when things in their lives are good and unhappy when they are difficult.  However, if we made an effort to consciously choose a more positive perspective on our life challenges, we would unquestionably feel less hopeless or overwhlemed, and consequently deal with them better AND bounce back from them more quickly.

I suppose though that the real difficulty with positive thinking is that we mostly think our thoughts UNconsciously.  We allow whatever instinctive reaction that comes up to take hold, rather than questioning it and consciously choosing to reframe it.  Hence, when things aren’t going so well for us our thoughts tend to follow a negative train.  When we are more conscious of our thoughts we can stop that negativity train in its tracks, and choose to think something more positive.

This takes practice, and you might not really believe the positive thoughts when you start out, but don’t worry about that too much (really, for now just give it a try even if it feels a bit silly).  Just catch yourself in the act of worrying or judging, choose a different, positive thought, and reinforce it in your mind by repeating the thought to yourself several times. 

Script an affirmation that supports what you want to believe and feel, and recite it to yourself every time the negative thought creeps into your mind.  (For help with affirmations, Kirsten offers all you could need under different category headings over at Think Positive!)  Refuse to give any energy to the negative thought that sprang to mind in reaction to the situation, and instead focus on the new, positive thought that you’ve chosen to hold onto.  It’s impossible to think good thoughts and feel bad, and vice versa, and the more you practice consciously thinking positive thoughts, the happier you’re going to feel overall.

Even if you think this is airy-fairy nonsense (as I once did), what have you got to lose by giving it a try?  Go on, open your mind and give it a whirl.  I’d love to hear your outcomes too, so feel free to post them here.

Comments

[Immigrant]

~ Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts. ~
William Hazlitt
Quotes on Thoughts

[Kirsten Harrell, Psy.D.]

Yeah! I love this! You hit it right on... happiness is a choice! Our thoughts impact our mood, emotions, and behaviors. Choosing positive thoughts helps us move through the difficult times. We can't control the circumstances in our lives... but we can always control our thoughts and our attitude! Thanks for adding your input to this writing project!