Six Steps That Lift & Energize
Simple Can-Do Practices that Promote Ease and Optimism
Image by Pascale Amez from Unsplash
Research in fields including sociology, psychology, business, education, and psychiatry shows that mindset matters, that perception is reality and that a positive attitude is key to success.
While we’re often told that the way we frame events is highly influential, data regarding the role that attitude plays in terms of leading a happy, fulfilling life is surprising. The fact is, attitude, the basic platform or disposition from which we receive input, process information, and respond to challenges, is more important than where one was born and to whom, is more important than one’s bank balance, is more important than one’s degrees, work experience, zip code, and the specifics of what a person does for a living. In a word, choosing and maintaining a positive attitude trumps every other detail about an individual.
The bottom line? A can-do, opportunity-is-everywhere attitude is self-edifying, empowering money in the bank.
Cultivating a positive attitude at the level of one’s identity can mean the difference between consequential experiences and years of frustrating wheel-spinning. Even in the most challenging, impossible-seeming scenarios, we can choose who we’ll be and how we’ll talk and think about things. We can choose openness, gratitude, delight in what’s good, and growth. We can choose how we frame experiences and how we receive people. Negative thoughts, fear, anxiety, and discomfort are part of life and do at times come. The good news however is that with intention and practice, seeing the world from a positive open position can become our default way to see and be.
First Step Toward a Positive Attitude
Cultivating a positive attitude is about choosing to be glad and excited about life, people, and the world. It’s about being open-hearted, being encouraging, and seeing and appreciating that which is good. A first-step toward building a positive attitude? Adopt one small change.
What do you want more of in life? Is there a slight change in routine or an easy-to-incorporate habit that will help move you toward the “more” that you seek?
What small habit could you stack into an existing routine this week that would begin to move you toward energy? Toward wellness? Toward better?
Image by Gabi Miranda from Unsplash
Six Practices that Lift Energy and Attitude
Gratitude and optimism are not traits one either does or doesn’t have. Grateful, positive thinking can be learned, practiced, and can over time, be automated. Six practices that can help establish grateful, positive thinking as one’s default position include:
Meet the day: Establish a simple waking routine that allows relaxed, electronics-free time so that your day can begin from a place of peace, gratitude, and calm.
Spend time with positive, encouraging people: Evaluate the people and groups with whom you spend time. Evaluate inputs and the environments you frequent. Consider how you aspire to be. Become familiar with people who live the way you wish to live and work to spend time with those people.
Be intentional about language and spin: Words carry weight. Words can lift or defeat. It’s highly important that we choose words with care. Using charitable, measured language to describe ourselves, our experiences, and others matters. Become a champion of people, of building, and serving. Stop complaining. Acknowledge blessings and what’s working or helpful. Be delighted with what’s good, and adopt no gossip / no hearsay / no degrading-language standards.
Befriend yourself: Talk to yourself as a friend as you build habits that automate and ease the day, expand the mind, strengthen the body, and build resolve. Find the pleasant aspects of exertion and process.
Shift attitude by doing a physically rigorous thing: Feeling pessimistic? The energy created from physical exertion clears the mind and helps move us forward with optimism. Going for a run, a vigorous walk, or taking a dance class multiple times a week is energizing and clarifying. Invest in the body and in peace by finding a way to move with vigor on a regular basis.
Be young. Be wise and delighted and appreciative. See opportunity and potential: Being young means being open, curious, and excited to try new things. Being wise means understanding and appreciating that every person has a story. Become a listener and a benevolent noticer. Realize that every person and situation has potential and every person has much to offer and teach us. Become a what-if person. Be encouraging, find the lessons, and set to work on that which facilitates progress.
In all facets of life, attitude is fundamental as it provides the platform from which we move through, experience, and influence our days. We can change our lives and the lives of others for the good. How so? By being curious, delighted, and young via ongoing can-do, potential-focused engagement with the world, ourselves, and others.