It seems that everything you’ve ever learned is about preparing yourself for a better future. It’s easy to get so caught up in the future that you lose the ability to enjoy the life you’re living right now.

The Power Of The Present

The first thing you should do to take action toward a better life is to realize the power that the present moment holds. There are different ways you can truly come to this realization, but the most popular and widely accepted method is meditation.

Meditation allows you to clear your mind. It’s refreshing to focus on the present moment when you find the time to sit down and relax without any worries about the past or future.

This personal reflection time will allow you to sort out your inner thoughts. On the flipside, take note of the number of times your mind tries to distract you from the present moment. You’ll be surprised to see just how many times your mind steals the present moment from you, in order to dwell on the past or future.

Enjoying The Journey

Your journey is all you have. Your goals are important, but it’s the path you take toward your goals that yield many fruits. You must be willing to enjoy your life and live consciously, even if you haven’t yet reached your goals.

If you have a lofty goal, such as becoming a doctor or the CEO of a large company, realize that it will take much planning and years of experience. Once you reach your goal, you may feel fulfilled, but your life mustn’t be unhappy and miserable until you get there!

You can remain happy by concentrating on the present and enjoying the journey. As you make positive progress towards your goal, you’ll know that you’re always one step closer.

Envisioning Your Future Self

While you should spend a great deal of time enjoying the present moment, you can add to your happiness by envisioning your future self.

Reflect on the feelings associated with the successful completion of your goals. Think about the traits you’ll exhibit when you have the life you desire. Now bring those traits into your present.

If you’re studying to be a doctor, you’re working long days for little or no pay. You’re studying at all hours with little sleep. You might feel almost tortured. That’s not the desired life you dreamt of having!

This is when you should be proud of the steps you’ve taken so far. After all, what you’re learning now will shape your future, so you might as well approach today with joyful gratitude!

Live The Life You Want Now

Whether you maintain complete focus on your ultimate goals or not, it’s important to live the life you desire right now. You don’t know how many days you’ve been allotted on this earth, and you owe it to yourself to make the most of them!

Keep these tips in mind:

* Even on busy days, take at least some time for yourself
* Don’t waste your time on people who don’t believe in you and your abilities
* Adopt a “glass is half full” mentality

Most importantly, you need to believe in yourself. Some people are literally afraid of success. They’ll put off action toward their dreams indefinitely because they fear success and fear that they’re incapable.

You mustn’t fall into this negative pattern. Don’t waste your time on dead ends. Instead, take action, learn your lessons, and enjoy the journey!

You might find it tough to keep an open mind. After all, there’s a certain comfort in being set in your ways. However, opening your mind to the possibilities of new opportunities, knowledge, adventure, and even relationships could bring greater fulfillment and happiness to your life.

Find Your Motivation

In order to make it possible for you to embrace new ideas, it’s important to motivate yourself to try new things. Why do you want to become more open? Are you committed to it? Are you willing to take action to make it happen?

Choose Areas To Develop

Which areas of your life do you want to open up to new ideas? A simple example would be if you find that you’re eating the same things all the time, perhaps you’d like to try some variation in your menu. To get your mind used to the idea, try at least one new food or recipe each week. It’s a simple and realistic approach!

You could start with one small area to open up to new ideas, and then gradually include more areas of your life. Starting small can help you ease into having an open mind, instead of making a sudden, drastic change in your life.

These tips will help you become more open to new ideas:

1. Fight the urge to react in anger when you hear differing opinions. Instead, take a moment to yourself to find the wisdom to understand that everyone will not hold the same opinions as you. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and see things their way.

2. Avoid closing yourself off. Welcome new situations that are different from those you’re familiar with. When you’re exposed to differing opinions, look at them as learning experiences.

3. Place yourself out of your comfort zone. Make the effort to journey out of your comfort zone often. If you have certain anxieties about new situations, you should still take this step, but make these changes slowly. Go to new places and try new things.

4. Stay social and make new friends. You’ll find that you’re more likely to discover new opportunities to try new things when you remain social. Your friends might be trying new things that they can introduce you to as well. Also, when you make a new friend, they’ll likely have a unique set of interests for you to learn about to broaden your horizons.

5. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Sometimes the only way to learn more about a certain situation and keep an open mind is to ask a lot of questions to gain a better understanding. While you don’t want to intrude on someone’s personal life, if they’re willing to share information, you should be willing and eager to listen.

6. Avoid speculation. Go out and live the experience before you form opinions about something. Rather than blindly believing what someone else says, or assuming that you won’t like it, find out for yourself if you like something or not. This could be as simple as trying a new food, activity, or hobby.

When you have a positive attitude about new experiences, you can open yourself up to new discoveries every day. It’s a great way to keep your life fun and exciting!

How you think about yourself makes a big difference in how you feel. You can avoid feeling down or upset if you know what to say to yourself and how to say it. Even during difficult times, you can find moments of joy and blessings to talk to yourself about.

No matter what you want to do in life, self-talk can help you accomplish your dreams, goals, and desires. Believing in yourself is a strong component of moving forward into the life you really want and deserve. Positive self-talk can bring you this belief and instill within you the confidence to succeed.

Discover the Beauty in Your Life

When you face serious challenges in your life, being unhappy and speaking negatively to yourself won’t change anything for the better. Instead, seek out joy in positive affirmations of your continued worth.

The problems you may be facing have absolutely nothing to do with your value as a human being. Remind yourself of your great value!

Positive self-talk is not about being unrealistic or lying to yourself. It’s about seeing the beauty and value in yourself and others. Each one of us has something we can give and we each have a purpose and a reason to be here.

Using Positive Self-Talk Each Day

How do you take advantage of positive self-talk? When it comes to talking to yourself, there are no specific rules. You can focus on anything about you or your surroundings that’s positive.

Avoid letting negative or upsetting thoughts creep in. Things might not be going your way at any particular moment, but there are better days ahead, and the fact that you’re alive is something to be positive about!

Here are some tips to help you get started using positive self-talk to bring about a joyful, fulfilled life:

1. Remember something others like about you. Recall a positive comment someone made about you in the past. Even if you don’t see the reason for the compliment, someone else obviously did. Use that to your advantage to remind yourself of your great qualities and talents.


2. What do you like about yourself? Start small, if you prefer. You don’t have to think or feel (or say) that you’re perfect, but pick one thing that you like about yourself, or that you can accept about yourself, and be pleased with that. 


3. Speak out loud. Sure, you might feel a little silly at first. You don’t have to do it when anyone else is around, but say your affirmations aloud whenever you can. That way you hear the good things about you, too.


4. Set aside time to practice your positive self-talk. If you don’t put it into your schedule, it’s easy to forget about it or decide that you’ll get to it later. Make it a priority, so it becomes a part of your daily routine.

The Benefits of Positive Self-Talk

The benefits you’ll get from positive self-talk will depend on your commitment to it. If you practice it each day, it’ll become second nature to you. When others say negative things, it’ll be less likely to take root in your mind, since you’ll already be filled with positive information about your worth.

Regardless of what stage of life you’re in, there’s always room for more happiness. Even in the face of despair, there are opportunities for great joy and growth. Avoid missing out on those opportunities because you don’t see your worth as a person. Instead, you can expect the best because of your positive self-talk.

Positive self-talk can help you rise higher in your career, family life, spiritual life, and any other area that matters to you. Friends and family members will notice your new-found confidence, and so will your co-workers, boss, and others. You just may find that positive self-talk leads you to some amazing new opportunities!

Affirmations are everywhere, and they have the strong ability to lift your spirits to get through hard times. This is because we’re all highly suggestible, even if we think we’re not!

Affirmations help us to keep a positive attitude about life. It’s only natural that we’ll get more out of these positive sayings if we formulate them ourselves. Writing our own affirmations makes them personal to us, which can then help us to get through our own individual situations.

When you start writing your own affirmations, keep these tips in mind:

1. Make them personal. When you write affirmations, it’s important to remember to use “I” in them. They are personal to you after all.

* Example: “I am having an exceptional day today!”

2. Use the present tense. Affirmations are built in order to change our feelings now, which is why you want to stay positive and strong in this moment. When you use the past tense, you get nostalgic. When you use the future tense, you get hopeful. The present tense helps you feel the difference right now.

* Example: “I am feeling relaxed.”

3. Be down to earth. This just means to use your own style and try not to make your affirmations too formal or wishy-washy. You want to capture your own voice.

* Bad Example: “Presently I feel the urge to enjoy my existence.”
* Good Example: “I enjoy my life.”

4. Be short. Affirmations are meant to be short, simple and sweet. Stay on target and make your affirmation a one-liner. If it’s too wordy, try breaking it up into a few affirmations. The trick is to stick with one simple idea at a time.

* Example: “I am in perfect health.”

5. Make it positive. Affirmations are positive statements, so avoid negative words like “not.” You’re using affirmations to make a life improvement and positive statements motivate you to make this improvement.

* Example: “I am at peace with my mind.”

6. Make it believable. You don’t want your affirmation to sound like something out of this world. If it’s not believable, you won’t take it seriously and your subconscious will just dismiss it.

* Example: “I am choosing to be happy today.”

Believe in the Power of Affirmations

When you say your affirmations, believe them to be true. Affirmations are truly powerful sets of words as long as you believe what you’re telling yourself.

Affirmations alone have been known to help people cure addictions. Women even use them during childbirth to help them stay calm and collected during natural delivery.

First, set your eyes on your goal and then write your affirmations to get yourself there.

Write Them Down

Practice always makes perfect. Write down the affirmations you’re feeling. Then go over the list above and make sure that your affirmations follow the rules. Once they do, start using your affirmations and feel the difference. Say your affirmations to yourself daily. Take deep breaths and keep your eyes on your goal.

Also if need be, tweak your affirmations. These positive sayings aren’t written in stone, so as you change, your affirmations can change, too.

It’s best to keep your affirmations in a place where you can see them. You can simply keep a list in your pocket or you can post them around the house. Paste them on the bathroom mirror, on your computer, or wherever you know you’ll see them each day.

Affirmations can make all the difference in reaching your goals. Give them a try and enjoy the benefits these positive statements can make in your life.

Sometimes it’s hard to look on the bright side even when things are going fairly well. When you’re going through tough times, gaining the “glass is half full” mentality can be a feat in itself!

Don’t Get Overwhelmed

When you’re in the middle of a stressful situation, it’s important to disallow over-anxious and over-analyzed thoughts. You really don’t want to overwhelm yourself with an over-stimulated mind because the added stress will only strain your mind further and you’ll find it nearly impossible to think positively.

Ways To Look On The Bright Side

How you go about transforming difficult situations into positive outcomes will differ each time. Your goal should be to discover a set of strategies that works well for you. It might take some experimenting, but that’s okay!

Consider the following ways to achieve a positive mindset:

1. Avoid feeling sorry for yourself. Feeling sorry for yourself only wastes precious brainpower and it’s not going to help you out in the long run. Instead, strive to gain the wisdom to accept your situation and focus on solutions, instead of sorrow or worry. Everyone has to travel through tough times at some point; it’s just a part of life!

2. Find the life lesson. It may be hard to find the silver lining, but it’s almost always hiding somewhere. All of your experiences – both good and bad – contribute to your life’s knowledge. Be thankful for what you know!

* Reflect on the fact that you’ve gained wisdom and knowledge that may help you make better decisions and cope well in the future.

3. Start small. Take some time to reflect on the difficult situation. If you’re having trouble finding a positive manner of thinking, just start by smiling at yourself in the mirror. You might not feel happy right away, but it sure will be hard not to feel happy when you see a beautiful smiling face staring back at you!

* You can also consider the use of positive affirmations to help you through tough times. The more frequently you repeat your affirmations, the sooner you’ll ingrain the positive beliefs into your subconscious.

4. Stop worrying. When you’re going through a tough situation, sometimes your worries can overtake you. The future might seem scary and bleak and you’re not sure what you should do. As you know, worrying isn’t going to help the situation in the least. Instead, the moment worry creeps in, redirect your mind onto something positive or reassuring.

* Stay calm and start brainstorming some practical solutions.

5. Be brave about change. Change is inevitable and most often you don’t even notice that it’s happening. During tough times, however, you’re likely more sensitive to the changes that are taking place.

* Think about change as an exciting adventure. You’ll never know what you can discover and learn until you’re open to change.

Help From Others

When you’re going through a tough time, your instincts might be to pull inward. Perhaps you don’t want people to see you in a vulnerable state or you want to solve your problems all on your own. However, you must resist this urge to shut people out! Remember, you’re never alone. Your family and loved ones are always there to help you get through any challenging situation, but only if you allow them to!

Of course, your loved ones may not be able to solve your problem outright, but they can provide you with a fantastic support system and help you brainstorm different avenues for problem solving.

As hard as it may seem now, it is possible for you to think positively when you’re enduring tough times. Use these simple positive thinking strategies to help you change your mindset quicker than you ever thought possible!