Do you consider yourself a positive or a negative person? I know, you consider yourself a “realist.” I get it.
But if your spouse or best friend was forced to pick between the two options, which would they choose?
We want to be positive, but it’s just so easy to be negative. It doesn’t take any effort to be negative. The gravitational pull of life is toward negativity. You really have to fight against it.
To show you how easy it is to be negative…you are probably being hard on yourself right now for not being more positive. You’re being negative about your lack of positivity. Instead of beating yourself up for not being more positive, think about this…you have a growth mindset evidenced by the fact you are reading something like this. Funny how our mind often focuses on the negative when the positive is right there too.
I think that is the key to being more positive. Both choices are always right in front of you and you have to pick which one you’re going to grab. You might have to retrain your brain to see the positive choice, but it is there.
Being positive is a choice.
I have two friends who are Jedi masters of this. They have the ability to see the positive no matter what happens. I love being around them and so do other people.
Positivity attracts other people to you. In a world of negativity you really are a light. You stand out because positivity isn’t the default of our world.
Think about it…
Where would you go to find something positive?
Where would you go to find someone positive?
It’s not a long list.
What would happen in your home if you chose to be more affirming?
What would happen if you complimented your spouse more?
What would happen if you focused more on connecting than correcting your child?
I think you know what would happen, but the negative just keeps coming out.
So how do we change our focus to the positive that’s already there?
Try these 3 simple things.
1. Reverse Your Focus.
Somewhere along the way we learned how to be positive about the wrong things and negative about the right things.
Here is what I mean. We tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to our weight or our financial future. We know we aren’t where we want to be or should be but we give ourselves a break. We find something to latch on to that allows us to block out the negative even though we should be paying attention to it.
We’re positive about the wrong thing.
When it comes to something like our relationships we lose the ability to block out the negative and we can fixate on something small. We block out all the positives this person brings into our life and only focus on a few negative things.
We’re negative about something that is overwhelmingly positive…a friend or a spouse.
We already have the skill to focus, we just need to reverse it. We need to apply our mental ability to selectively block things out and extend grace to our significant relationships.
2. Keep Your Work Drama at Work
When do you catch up with your spouse about each other’s day? Maybe you catch up on the commute home or over dinner. Whenever you finally get a moment to debrief, what does the conversation sound like? Is it a run-down of all the negative events and people?
I want to challenge you to limit the rehashing of your work drama. Here is why…Dumping all the negative events of your day on your spouse makes you both relive the worst parts of the day. It’s a concentrated negativity pill.
You were able to digest those things over 8 hours. Your spouse feels it all in 10 minutes and you are mad about it all over again. Then it’s their turn to share their concentrated day with you. It’s no wonder you feel tired after you relived all the negative events of your day and theirs, not to mention you’re probably angry at someone you don’t know for what they did or said to your spouse.
Instead, what if you left the work drama at work and put a little more thought into your conversation with your spouse? Sure, it may only be a 15-minute conversation but make it count.
Ask a question like…
What did you learn today?
What did you read in the Bible today?
What was the best thing that happened today?
What would you like to do on our date night?
3. Limit Yourself to One Complaint a Day
Have you ever been on a diet before? What most people are surprised to learn is how much they eat!
Our church gives away free donuts on Sunday morning. They are the best donuts in the world! We are asked all the time where we get them because they are so big and tasty. When I started paying better attention to how I was eating a few months ago, I was shocked to learn the embarrassing truth…some Sundays I had 4 donuts! I would have one before church started and one after each service as a reward. Yikes!
I was positively blind about something truly negative to my health. I only became aware because I started to keep track of what I was eating.
Are you aware how much you complain? What if you kept track? Just like most of our weight challenges can be traced back to sugar, most of our negativity can be traced back to complaining.
What if you started counting how many times you complained?
…at work
…when you got home
…in random conversations
…on social media
Try it today. You don’t have to tell anyone your number, but start counting. Do you say more positive or negative things? Do you compliment or complain more? Do you talk about the best or the worst more?
See if you can get down to one complaint a day. It will take a while…trust me.
If you can be more positive today than you were yesterday…that’s something to be positive about!
Let your light shine!
