“Optimism refuses to believe that the road ends without options.” – Robert H. Schuller, Don’t Throw Away Tomorrow

You don’t have to be born with a sunny disposition to look on the bright side. Here are some simple ways to start seeing the glass as half-full and the world a little more optimistically.

Just Be You – Your self-esteem will plummet if you’re constantly trying to live up to another person’s beauty or success. It’s unhealthy to place your value and self-worth in the hands of others. It’s much easier to be optimistic about your future, your goals, and your own abilities when you’re seeing yourself as you are, not how you should be compared to others.

Focus on What’s Right – Are you part of the problem or the solution? Complaining constantly and being negative will only make your situation feel worse. Break the cycle–focus on what is going right, what is working out well, and what you can change that you don’t like. Sometimes the only positive thing is that we can choose to be happy when we don’t feel like anything is going our way. If you practice this, you’re well on your way to being an optimist.

Look for the Positive – A great way to look on the bright side is to actually look for it. Appreciating a beautiful day is a gift to an optimist. The miracle of birth is still an amazing feat to celebrate. The expansion and development of mankind’s technological innovations and intelligence is worth marveling. It may not be a perfect world, but it is a world with perfectly good reasons for optimism.

Listen to inspirational music – You are what you think. If you put positivity into your mind, you will become it. What better way than with inspirational music! Whether it’s contemporary Christian, adult alternative, or something folksie and indie, look for something that has positive lyrics and an upbeat message. Getting uplifting music into your brain will work it right into your soul where optimism will start becoming a lot more natural.

Separate Your Emotions – Negative consequences can’t always be avoided. Nowhere in life are we promised we can avoid them, either. But if you base your life’s happiness and your day-to-day mood on the outcome of certain situations, you will never be completely happy. If you can learn to separate your emotions from the results of events in your life, you will be not only a more optimistic person, but a happier person.

Yes! You can. – Our words can be just as powerful as our thoughts. Just as positive music can turn you into an optimist, so can a positive vocabulary turn you into one. First, you must eliminate negative phrases, such as reinforcing that you are a pessimist. It’s time to change that! You can be a positive person; you can be an inspiration; you can be an optimist, no matter the situation.

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About Alex Blackwell

Alex Blackwell is the author of Letting Go: 25 True Stories of Peace, Hope and Surrender, which includes 10 free Peace and Balance tools.
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