& Practices to Cultivate Optimism Each Day

7 Practices to Cultivate Optimism Each Day

You might be surprised to hear that optimism is not an innate quality. Optimism and pessimism are ways of looking at yourself and the world through a positive or negative filter. Once you think of them as reflections of your mindset, it becomes much easier to believe you can change. Like any new behavior, you need to practice every day for it to become a habit. Try these six suggestions to cultivate your optimism every day.

Keep a journal

Journaling or keeping a diary allows you to process events and to get a different perspective on them. It encourages self-reflection and captures insights into your thinking and behavior. You can write down what happened during your day and document, not just the bald facts but how you did it, what you did to make it happen and what you did right. And, importantly, how it felt while you were doing it. Don’t just record the good things (a promotion, a presentation or meeting that went well), remember to write down the thing that didn’t go so well and reflect on what happened, how you dealt with it, and what you might do differently next time.

Laugh

Consciously notice the funny side of things and write them down. If the technology didn’t work, and you had to give the presentation without the slide deck, or the power went out, or there was a fire drill in the middle of your crucial meeting. What can seem like a disaster at the time can also be looked back on as a comedy of errors. On your break, watch a funny video or ones of animals – release the dopamine.

Write to your future

Write a letter or a journal entry that sets out the future you want. What job are you doing? Are you running your own business? What have you learned? What has changed? Imagining how your future life looks and feels can be a powerful motivator.

Keep a kindness list

Have a page in your journal where you note down kind gestures. Write down when you are kind to someone, or when someone is kind to you. Even little things count, like opening a door for someone or letting them go first in the line for coffee. You’ll be surprised at how quickly they mount up, and your ever-lengthening list will give you a different perspective on things.

Say thank you

Write a letter or email, phone or visit someone (a person outside your family) who has been genuinely kind to you. Tell them how much you appreciate what they did or said and how it has affected your life. Be sure to acknowledge and appreciate those in your inner circle, as well as others.

Choose positivity

Make the positive choice to develop and maintain an optimistic outlook. Do this every morning when you wake up. Decide that today is going to be a great day. Everyone will have some level of suffering in their life. Choosing to be optimistic will make it easier to bounce back from the bad times and to enjoy and be certain of the good times.

Practice Gratitude Daily

Each morning and night, say at least 3 things you are grateful for; doing so in the morning will prime your brain to start the day well, while at night will help you to sleep better. Don’t repeat the same things over and over; sure, you can be grateful for the bed you slept on but take it a step further and thank the person who made or delivered the bed. As the saying goes, gratitude changes the attitude and least to more optimism.

Being optimistic will enhance your life in a positive way, while helping you to deal with adverse events more easily. Begin practicing these steps daily, making them part of your routine, and watch how you life changes. Remember, you do get the choice as to how you see that life.

If you are struggling with negativity or want to make improvements in your life, reach out to learn more. You don’t have to struggle or do it alone….

December 7, 2022

7 Ways to Turn Worry into Excitement about Getting Things Done

Everybody worries sometimes. Right now, you’ve probably even got a few worries on your mind: you might be thinking about a relationship or a situation at work that you’re struggling with; maybe you’re worried about your health or whether or not you’re going to have enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month; or you might be worried about the future for you and your family or the state of the world today.

Whatever the case, worry happens whether we intend for it to or not. This becomes a problem, though, when worry starts to take over your life, as it can creep up on your without realizing.

So, what is the goal? Is stopping worrying enough to put you on an even keel, or are you hoping for something…more? What if, instead of worrying, you could become excited, then use this excitement to get more done?

Let’s look at seven ways to achieve this:

Be Here Now

Worry has a way of trapping you anywhere but here. Either you’re worried about something which happened long ago, or you’re caught up in fretting about something still to come. Neither is going to get you anywhere. To stop worrying, you need to focus on the present. What interests you right now? What do you have control of today, versus tomorrow?

Realize This Gets You Nowhere Fast

Worrying stops you cold. In fact, most procrastination is caused by worrying. With this in mind, why are you wasting your time and energy on worrying? Sometimes just recognizing what a waste worry is, will be enough to derail it altogether. Especially when you have better places to be.

Throw Yourself into Something Interesting

Worry needs your attention to survive. Get busy doing something engaging to your mind, and you’ll find you forget all about worrying. Focus on a project, reading a book or a hobby, or being with friends.

Rewrite the Script

If you’re seeing everything blow up around you, maybe you should try focusing on the perceived disaster. Ask yourself how you could do things to handle the situation were it to happen. Once you have it, practice the scenario in your mind and picture yourself handling matters – always be solution-focused.

Practice

Worried about something you need to do later? Having a dress rehearsal in your head will make things go smoother and keep worry at bay entirely. Often, imploding a bad situation will stop the fears that surround it.

Ask

Challenge your worry. Dig in and get to the roots until you understand your worry intimately. Ask yourself where the negativity came from. Peel back the layers until you get down into the heart of the matter. Try the ‘what if’s’ of the situation so you can look at solutions and challenge thoughts around it. Worry really starts in our head.

Try a New Path

In the end, worry can become very attached to the familiar. It can feel ‘comfortable’ so, when you want to move out of this space, your fight-or-flight will go off, leading to more worry. Challenge yourself; find a different way to do things explore where this new path takes you.

Coaching Tip:

The main point in all of these is to enjoy the journey. This is where you find the excitement and enthusiasm, which leads to getting things done. The rest is all momentum and a whole lot of brand-new accomplishments just waiting to happen. Change takes time so be easy on yourself but be consistent in your efforts so you can deal with any worries you will face.

“Worry is like a rocking chair: It gives you something to do but it never gets you anywhere.” (Erma Bombeck)

If you’re feeling worries, anxious, or overwhelmed by life circumstances, you don’t have to suffer or go it alone. Reach out for help to get started living a freer and calmer life.

September 2, 2022

Mind over matter – You are what you believe

Happy September! As we star a new month, and moving to the last part of the year, the time is now to set plans in place for how you want this time to go. But, no matter what steps you plan to take, the most important factor is mindset.

What you may not realize is that your mindset – your thoughts, feelings, attitudes – all determine your interactions daily, with your situations and the people you interact with. Do you ever feel that your plans or goals are ‘hard’ or not obtainable, for whatever reason? Well, there is a saying to consider: mind over matter.

What is mind over matter? We like to think of our minds as something intangible, a sort of spiritual phenomenon. The truth is that the mind is a result of the processes of the brain and the brain is very much a physical part of the world.

The human mind is so powerful and it can change your world in surprising ways. “Mind over matter” is a scientific fact:

Mind Over Matter No 1. The Healing Power of Thought

Most of us don’t pay attention to how our mind thinks, what it fears, what it say to itself and what it brushes asides. Pay close attention, as our mind and our thoughts is one of the most powerful forces. What you think you believe, both positive and negative. Behaviors result from thoughts.

Mind Over Matter No 2. Meditation: Not Just for Monks

Meditation is becoming popular and widespread like never before. It is seen that people who practice it consistently and correctly enjoy host of benefits, such as: they sleep better, feel more energetic, less stressful and have a strong immune system.

Some super advanced practitioners of meditation, even take control of their body functions such as their heart rate, blood pressure and control it on command. Meditation does take practice to quiet the mind and become a habit; start small, such as 2 minutes, focusing on your breathing. Keep increasing your time to experience the true benefits of calming the mind and body to handle anything in your life.

Mind Over Matter No 3. Rid your mind of toxic thoughts

Toxic thoughts are extremely poisonous and can cause us to subconsciously sabotage our progress. Therefore, you must learn how to deal with these negative thoughts and let them go; otherwise, they will slowly take their roots and start controlling your behaviors.

Get rid of such thought patterns and eliminate them which prevent you to make progress in your lives; however, it’s not easy to eliminate some thoughts at first; the more you focus on a thought the more you actually attract it. Whenever you find such thoughts arising replace them with some positive and supportive thoughts; neuroscience says that for every negative thought, you need at least 3 positives to override it.

Mind Over Matter No 4. Meaning and Having a Higher Purpose

For many people, having a high purpose means going above and beyond what they normally do; it means challenging your knowledge, skills, and abilities (SKAs) to uncover more than you believe you can; it’s digging deep and recognizing the strengths your have and use them for higher purposes, such as in your job.

For example, Mary has been tasked to work on a project but holds herself back, with thoughts of “I can’t do this;” however, if Mary were to assess her SKAs, she would realize that she does know and is able to focus on the task. (If Mary were to recognize that she was given the task – her boss recognized her ability to get the job done).

Mind Over Matter No 5. Learn to focus

A focused mind directs your actions to a given outcome, it directs your thoughts and actions on your aims. If you intensely focus on something, you will attract it in one way or the other. If someone is concentrating more on their fears and anxieties they are most likely to attract them. Similarly if person focus more on success, joy then happiness will be attracted more. Let go of unjust, unbeneficial, and toxic thoughts.

Final thoughts

We spend the majority of our time concentrating on our physical appearance but less attention to our mental hygiene. What you think is just as important as getting exercise, eating right or taking your prescribed medicine. It’s all about the power of mind over matter. Take care to practice mental hygiene. Of course, you should not hide away from all the bad stuff in the world, but you should practice moderation when it comes to negative mental “energy” in your life. That’s the key to true mind over matter.

One last thought: ‘take care of your brain and it will take care of you!’

If you’re struggling with negativity, stress, anxiety or other issues that hold you back, isn’t it time to do something about this? Reach out to get help today https://cyscoaching.com

February 10, 2022

On Your Way to Being Happy – and Achieving More In Your Life

Happiness Is More Than Thinking Positive Thoughts

Everyone wants to be happy, don’t they? Reaching goals, making money, travel, finding love – they all bring happiness. Or do they?

While the dictionary defines happiness as “the state of being happy,” this gives you very little information about the idea or feeling of, or state of happiness. We all have heard of ‘living the dream’ – but does this mean being in a happy state?

Happiness is an internal state and will look different for each individual. Some look to fame and fortune to be happy, while others feel that way by just feeling the breeze. Defining what happiness means to you will lead you to seeking out what makes you happy and not just keep chasing it.

Let’s look at some different aspects that happiness can be, but realize that, in truth, happiness is in the mind of the beholder:

Your Needs are Met – When a person is happy, they usually don’t even have any needs that aren’t being met to the level they want them to be met. It doesn’t mean that someone is not having a hard time it’s all about how you make what you have fill your needs.

You Feel Satisfied – When you are happy you tend to feel simply satisfied with your life. You think about your life and feel good about it. You feel very satisfied when you look around your life and see all the fortune you have whether it’s where you live, who you live with, or just about yourself doesn’t even matter.

You Feel Content – A happy person tends to feel really content about the things in their life. They feel content about their job, their home, their things, their health – nothing is nagging at their mind about anything causing stress. But remember happy people do have stress, they’re just better at feeling content even when things aren’t perfect.

You Are at Peace – A happy person often feels a lot of peace surrounding their life and family. They tend to know that everything will turn out okay and are good at turning negativity around to positivity.

Your Definition – The truth is, happiness is how you define it personally for you. It’s not about getting tons of stuff unless you want that. It’s not about finding a spouse unless you want that. It’s not about having kids unless you want that. It’s all up to you and how you define happiness.

It’s a Journey – Happiness is not a destination that you get to one day and stay at. It’s a lifelong journey that will have many ups and downs and struggles. However, overall the ups and downs of life, you manage to feel good about it. In the 1989 movie, “Parenthood” one of the main characters, a mother, who is struggling states that she loves “the rollercoaster” of life while her husband is struggling and not as happy because he focuses on the downs instead of the ups.

It’s How You Act – When you are happy you tend to act in more positive ways over all. When happy, you eat better, you move more, you think differently. Don’t worry. You have it in your power to be happy where you are in your life right now.

Here are some quick tips to find your level of happiness:

Reflect – Take time to spend in self-reflection for your life – the good, the bad, the disappointments – each of these moments can show that you do have happy times throughout your life and, can then, focus on recreating that state to your present life.

Change Thoughts– reframing negative thoughts to positive ones will alter your neurons so you not only think happy, but feel that happy state of emotions. According to Mark Wahlberg, a neuroscience researcher, you need three positive thoughts to override one negative. Challenging your thoughts (“is this true?”) will create a new habit of positive thinking.

Practice Gratitude – make it a habit to practice gratitude daily. Write down at least three things (more is better) you are grateful for, and then do the same at the end of the day. This will bring more calm and peace into your life; you will see the good, which creates a sense of happiness.

Happiness is more than thinking positive thoughts. Happiness is having your needs met, but it’s not about having everything, or even the best, it’s about being satisfied with what you have while also being able to work for the things you want. While you do have to do more than think positively to really and truly feel happy, it does start with your thoughts. However, it will manifest with your actions. Follow the steps to get started.

March 9, 2020

Monday Morning Success Tip: An Easy Way to Change Mindset

As a certified Law of Attraction Coach, using the power of your mind to manifest your desires is more than what you think – just saying what you want won’t bring it to you immediately. It is not like I Dream of Jeannie, where you can nod your head and “poof” it appears. When we manifest, it creates a desired intention that elicits a positive emotion and keeps us focused on attaining that desire.

According to the Law of Attraction, action offered from a place of contradicted thought is hard, unsatisfying work and does not produce good results; but when you feel really good about jumping into action, it is a clear sign that you are offering thoughts that are in line with your desires.

Unless you are focusing on what is important to you, you can not achieve what you truly desire. By choosing a thought that feels slightly better than the thoughts you have been thinking, you can gradually change your direction. When you focus on a better-feeling thought, the balance of your thoughts will improve.

As our brains place focus on the last thing it hears, it’s important to not let them be negative ones. Start today to change your thoughts from what you don’t want to what you do. Keep the focus by repeating your desire and enjoy the positive emotion you feel. It’s a simple, but effective exercise. Do this daily and see how your life changes for the better.

If you’re ready to get started manifesting your desires, call today as I’d love to partner with you in creating the life you want. Feel free to share this with others who may want more in their lives.

I hope you have a productive week – make it a successful one!

Category: A Positive Mindset