9 Practical ways to stay POSITIVE: Handle the day today challenges!

This blog is in response to the interest raised in recent times by one of the participants of my session.

“How to stay positive and handle the day today challenges of life?”

Let me thank her first for raising such a great question.

Let me try and explain this based on what I practically follow in my own life. But, before doing this, first let me pose you with two primary questions of this topic.

First,are we, as human beings positive or negative thinkers by nature?

Secondly, are challenges good or bad?

You will find out the answers towards the end of this blog, but I give here 9 ways to practically stay positive in life.

1. According to research, on an average, we have 60,000 thoughts/day and 95% are repetitive thoughts. Surprisingly, out of these repetitive thoughts, 85% are negative by nature. Apart from this statistics, what is more important to understand is that we as a human beings are programmed automatically to think negatively (ATN). There is a good reason for this. Human beings are weak animals by nature who can’t fly or run faster. Million years ago, because of such weakness, primitive men lived and survived in fear due to constant potential dangers/threats around them. Because of this survival mechanism, our brain especially the limbic brain, the so called emotional center is hardwired to ATN and has not changed much in spite of the many years of evolution. This is the bad part of the story.

Good part of the story is that our brain has increased its size from 0.5Kg to 1.5Kg as we have evolved. This massive three fold growth has happened primarily in the Prefrontal Cortex of the brain, that is, the thinking part of the brain.

So, the first technique is to take advantage of the thinking brain to our benefit to overcome the shortcomings of the emotional brain.

Now, in the modern world, threats happen in small doses, but many in numbers. For example, financial issues, traffic jam, meeting deadlines, house maid not coming in time and school admission of your kids, etc. This is in sharp contrast to the experience of the primitive man. Primitive man had faced big threats, but fewer in numbers.

Threat response of the limbic brain is designed in such a way that it instantaneously excites energy to cope up with the threat. Subsequently the energy subsides back to normal. So, in the modern world, the small but many number of negative doses of threats that we encounter on a day today basis results in generation of a train of pulses in the limbic brain, which on long run results in a stable high alarmed negative state. This means that we have constant worries, fears all the time, bad health & bad perception of the world around us.

Now, instead of negative doses, if one provides positive doses to this circuit, then one can soon reprogram the brain to move from ATN to automatically to think positively (ATP). So, here is the exercise which works out well. Every day, think of at least 5-10 events which have given you small positive feelings in life. By doing so and bringing those to our awareness, one can feed into the same brain circuit small doses of positive thoughts. This, on long run rewires the emotional center of the brain permanently to think positively.

2. We need to intentionally create right positive ambiance to stay positive all the time in our life. Create a pool of friends who think of life in a positive way, keep good role models and teachers in life and mimic their behaviors & surround yourself by right kind of books. Read ‘wise men’s sayings’ before bed and after bed. These are the ideal and perfect times to program your subconscious mind. Anything that got programmed in our subconscious mind becomes our habit. Soon, positive thinking becomes our habit!

3. Train yourself to come out of your comfort zone. Staying within comfort zone is not good and it is a ‘no growth zone’. We don’t grow. Push yourself with certain limited risks and intentionally train the brain to handle some uncomfortable situations. This training helps later on in life when we may have to handle some uncomfortable events.

Do you know why the driving skill of an Indians is very good? Or, why an Indian stomach is adjustable to all kind of foods when compared to that of a person from another part of the world? Indians can effortlessly drive smoothly and eat any kind of food in any part of the world. This is because we as Indians have been exposed willingly or unwillingly to such harsh conditions, which have given us the privilege to handle other situations much better.

4. If at all we could control one thing in life, then it shoul be nothing but our attitude and behavior. It is clear that we can’t control the events or people around us. This is a fact and we can train our mind to think this way. So, our perception regarding the event or people around us is at our disposal. It is our choice and is in our control.  We get hurt provided we allow ourselves to get hurt. For example, even if someone screwed me for some reason, I get hurt provided I allowed that to happen to me. This acts like a positive shield & it makes a very big difference to stay positive.

5. Things become ambiguous when the mind is filled up with too many engagements, worries, thoughts & occupations. So, there is no empty space in mind to think differently.  Create a free space in the mind. Please press STOP button for the mind every day at least for 10 minutes to go to NO THINKING zone. Use simple concentration, contemplation or some meditation techniques that work good for you.

6. When we are disturbed by day today challenges and when we feel that we have lost the direction, it is important to have our own light house which gives direction to continue our life journey. This comes in the form of setting up clear goals in life that act as the driving force to see the bigger picture of our life. By doing so, say when a situation happens where we are disturbed by some external forces, we don’t give due consideration if those do not serve our specific goals.

7. It is normal and natural that each one of us has problems. It is okay to stay in the problem zone for a short period of time to understand the details. If we stay longer thinking about the problems, then we are allowing the mind to fill up with just the problems. This is a problem thinker zone. One needs to switch the focus to solutions and spend time in coming out with various solutions. Successful people are mostly solution thinkers and create solutions. When in action, they focus on what they can do rather than focusing on what they can’t do.

8. Mind is like a garden. Do not allow bad seeds to get into your mind garden. Plant a good seed. For example, “I talk always positive about others & I don’t encourage and listen to others who talk bad about others.” You can put such a strong shield to protect you from planting a bad seed which otherwise germinates within you as a weed in your mind garden. This is one such powerful practice which I personally follow all the time. You are in control of your action. Take such a strong action to protect your garden.

9. Pain circuit in the body is good to protect our body from danger. A person without proper functioning of pain circuit can’t survive in the world. For example, when he can’t feel the burning sensation, he will lose his feet when he steps in fire. On the other hand, one can’t live in the pain all the time. Same way, bad emotions are a good protection mechanism to understand the nitty gritties of life. Only thing is that we need to move away from the emotions without staying with them for a long time.

Now, have you got the answers for the two questions posed at the beginning of the blog?

YES, you are right!! We are by evolution an auto negative emotion generator, but can be programmed to become a positive thinking machine. Thanks to the new 1kg jelly mass in the brain that accomplishes this transformation. Challenges in life are great vehicle engine for our growth irrespective of whether they are bad or good.

Most of the above points can be practically applied to improve our cognitive health development. This is completely in our control. We can do only the stuff that is in our control. So, make a commitment to work every day on few or all of the above practices that make sense to you & importantly take at least one ACTION RIGHT NOW.

By doing so & reconditioning yourself, I guarantee you that you will watch good mental movies with good mental dialogues in you and in your head.