Is your glass half-empty or half-full? How you answer this question may reflect your outlook on life, your attitude toward yourself, and whether you’re optimistic or pessimistic — and it may even affect your health. Every life has its ups and downs, but having an optimistic outlook on life has been found to have a significant positive effect on quality of life, such as one’s mental and physical well-being. Optimism is also considered a key component in managing stress. Optimism doesn’t mean ignoring the hard or challenging things in life, but it does mean changing how you approach them.
If you’ve always had a pessimistic worldview it can be difficult to re-orient your perspective, but it is possible to highlight the positive in your life with a little patience and mindfulness. Consciously choosing to see the lighter, brighter point of view will train your brain to lean towards the positive side of thinking as you go forward. So here are five facts that will turn you into an optimist:
The Present is All There is
Have you heard the saying, “Yesterday is history; tomorrow is a mystery”? Negative, limiting beliefs come from the past and there’s no reason to bring them into the present. Don’t pack the past into a suitcase and carry it with you. It happened; it’s done. You can’t change the past but you can change your outlook going forward. Once you realize this, then you can look to the future with anticipation of all its unlimited, positive possibilities.
The Silver Lining
Something good always comes out of something bad. Think of life as a lost and found. Every bad situation can land us in a better place than we were before, even if it doesn’t seem that way at first. For example, losing a job that you weren’t crazy about leaves you free to explore the career you’ve always wanted. Losing a so-so relationship helps you remember how much fun it was to be single, and now you’re free to flirt. Plant the seeds of trust and belief in positivity and watch how they grow—fast.
Life constantly changes from minute to minute. Just because something negative happened a minute ago, that doesn’t mean it will continue to happen in the present or the future, so don’t assume it will. That’s why it’s so important to embrace every moment of the good stuff. Things are bound to change in the blink of an eye.
Choose to Find the Good
Choosing to find the good in negative situations trains your brain to become more optimistic. Once you get into the flow of accepting change, honoring time, and seeing that nothing stays the same forever, you’ll train your brain to automatically respect the past, live in the present and anticipate the future with optimism.
Negative Attracts Negative and Positive Attracts Positive
Everything is made up of energy—people, place and things. Energy is like a magnet with both a negative and positive side. If you only acknowledge the negative side, you’ll just attract more negative energy. Turning that magnet around to the positive side will attract positive energy and circumstances into your life. Life is all about energy, and we have the power to turn ourselves into optimists. It’s a choice! Not every choice we make will have positive results, but having an optimistic outlook certainly puts the odds in our favor.