Tools For Maintaining a Positive Mental Outlook

Maintaining a positive mental outlook is a daily habit. It must be approached that way, as a habit, because humans are hardwired to be negative – it is very easy to lapse backwards into negativity.

Below are some tools that can help you maintain your positive outlook:

• Practice Gratitude –  At the start of every day, find three things you are grateful for. They can be simple things, such as: “I’m grateful I have a dependable car”, or “I’m grateful the air conditioner in my home is working today”, or “I’m grateful my spouse loves me”. If you give it just a little thought, there is always something to be grateful for.
• Victory Log – Maintaining and reviewing a log of all of your successes, no matter how small, keeps you focused on the progress you’re making in life and prevents you from focusing on your failures. Everyone fails, all the time. Failure is good so long as you learn and move on. A Victory Log helps you do that.
• Happiness Log – Maintain a running list of all of your year’s happiness events – good things that happened during the year.
• Pursue Goals – Pursuing goals will keep your mind active and prevent it from lapsing into the abyss of negativity.
• Meditation – If you are able to meditate, meditate. Meditation soothes the mind, and resets your Central Nervous System (CNS) and Peripheral Nervous System (PNS).
• Humor – Viewing, listening to or reading anything humorous prevents negativity.
• Music – Listening to uplifting music calms your CNS and PNS.
• Read Upbeat Content – Minimize your exposure to the news, since most news stories are negative and intended to excite negative emotions. Read books about individuals who triumphed in the face of adversity.
• Future Journal – A Future Journal takes you forward in your life two or more years. Write about the amazing future life you have. This will help keep you focused on the future realization of your goals and dreams.
• Vision Board – Since our brain thinks in pictures, a Vision Board speaks the language of the brain. Pictures of the things you desire to have, places you would like to visit or people you’d like to meet or know keeps you focused on growth and starves negativity.
• Express Love – Tell someone close to you that you love them. It will make both of you feel more positive.
• Insider’s Club – Create a unique, separate inner circle comprised of positive, upbeat people.
• Volunteer – Volunteering at a local, community-based non-profit will lift your spirits. You will feel like you are doing good and this boosts your happiness neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin levels.
• Kind Acts – Doing something kind for someone will boost your happiness neurotransmitters.
• Exercise in the Morning – No matter what goes wrong with your day, you can always look back on the fact that you did something good for yourself by exercising in the morning.
• Podcasts – Listen to upbeat or motivational podcasts.
• New Skill – Take up a new hobby that requires you to develop a new skill. This will keep your mind active and prevent it from drifting into negativity.
• Eat Healthy Food – Much like morning exercise, eating healthy is something good you do for yourself.
• Sing – It’s impossible to feel bad while singing happy tunes.
• Email/Text – Email or text a loved one something upbeat or uplifting. It will have a boomerang effect, making you feel positive about yourself.

These are the tools of positivity. Use them when you need them. Try to make a habit of one or two of them every day. It will keep negativity on the bench and not in the game.

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