12 Powerful Tips to Overcome Negative Thoughts (and Embrace Positive Thinking)

I ask myself:

Should I take you seriously?

This most often leads me to say: well, no, I honestly shouldn't.

Because at that moment in time I’m tired. Or hungry. Or overworked and so negativity can try to cloud my mind.

Or I am getting too focused on one small mistake or one bad day. Instead of focusing on the other 95% of my life that tends to be positive.

Sometimes this question helps you to see that just because you did one small thing wrong doesn't mean that you did poorly overall.

Ask yourself:

What are the top 3 sources of negativity in my life?

It could be people, websites, magazines, podcasts, music and so on.

Then ask yourself:

What can I do to spend less time with these 3 sources this week?

If you can’t find ways to do that right now for all three of them then take a smaller step and focus on doing that with just one of these sources.

Then spend the time you’ve freed up this week on more positive sources and people that are already in your life or that you want to explore and perhaps make a new part of it.

To stop a small negative thought from becoming a big monster in your mind confront it early.

Do that by asking yourself a question like:

Will this matter in 5 years? Or even 5 weeks?

...answer is likely in most cases that it won’t and that you were only starting to make a mountain out of a molehill (or out of plain air).

Keeping negative thoughts that are starting to cloud your whole mind bottled up won’t help.

So let them out. Talk the situation or your thoughts over with someone close to you.

Start making it a habit to spend more of your time in the present moment and you’ll, in my experience, naturally have less negative thoughts and be more open and constructive.

A couple of ways to bring yourself back to being mindful and this moment are:

Focus only on your breathing.

Take in the world around you.

...go for a 20-30 minute workout and lift some free weights.

This helps me to release inner tension and worries. And it makes my mind focused and constructive once again.

When you start to ground a fear and begin to look at it with your feet firmly planted on the ground then you most often realize that the worst that could happen isn’t really that bad.

...you can also probably start listing and taking action on a few things that will reduce the likelihood of this worst case scenario happening.

By doing this you gain clarity about the situation and what you can do about it and so the fear does tend to become quite a bit smaller.

If you get stuck in negative thoughts or victim thinking then one of the simplest ways to get out of your own head and the thoughts bouncing around in there is to focus outwards and on someone else.

By adding positivity to his or her life in some way you too can start to feel better and more optimistic again.

When we get negative it’s easy to forget the positive things in life. Especially the ones that are just a normal part of life that we may take for granted a bit too often.

• Three steady meals a day.
• A roof over my head during the cold nights and the rainy and windy days.
• As much clean water as I want.
• Kind and helpful family and friends.

A pessimistic or negative start makes it hard to turn things around. But a positive start makes it a lot easier to just keep going with that emotion and the optimistic way of thinking until it is bedtime again.

A couple of simple ways to get your day off to a positive start is:

A simple reminder that you see right after you wake up.

Get some positive information or conversation flowing into your mind.