You’ve more than likely heard the sayings – ‘what you resist, persists’ and ‘you get what you focus on’. I can’t even begin to tell you how much this has been true in my own life – both in negative and positive ways.
When you expect something negative, it tends to happen. When you expect positive things to happen in your life, equally that tends to happen too.
What’s more, when you focus on the positive it’s a lot easier to gloss over the bad stuff that happens, because you’re concerned really only with the good. For example, someone who is expecting good things to happen to them that day may have a bad drive into work, with extra traffic, nearly have an accident, spill coffee on their shirt and rock up to work late – but can still arrive into the office smiling and un-flustered.
Someone expecting bad things to happen to them that day will more than likely arrive annoyed, upset, emotionally drained before the day has even begun and totally unfocused. I’ve been in the latter state more times than I could count – in fact, if I had a dollar for every single time I’ve arrived to work in a negative state due to traffic, lack of sleep, running late, you name it, I would have – well, at least 100 dollars anyway.
The thing that has changed in my life is that I expect good things to happen now, and I try not to worry too much about the day-to-day ‘small stuff’ that comes up. Sure, real issues and problems do come up which I have to deal with in a far more serious way, but despite how much the average person worries these more serious situations actually come up less than one would imagine (particularly when you’re focused on the good in life, not the bad). The best part is that I have far more energy and emotional capacity to deal with the bigger issues, now that I don’t sweat the small stuff so much.
So, how to move from being uber-stressed about all of the little things that come up on a day-to-day basis (including the stuff that hasn’t happened yet), to focusing on – and expecting – good things to happen to you in your life? Well, first…
Accept that you attract whatever you feel and believe
We’re all made up purely of energy, and we attract other energy to us that is of a similar vibration. Therefore, if you’re thinking that something is going to take forever, or you’re going to have a bad experience, or things are going to go wrong, it’s pretty likely that you’re right – that’s exactly what’s going to happen to you, because that’s what you’re attracting. (For more on energy fields, and the impact they have on your life – and how you can create positive energy around you, I recommend listening to this podcast with Connie Chapman and Belinda Davidson).
Once you acknowledge that whatever you’re thinking will come back around to impact you directly (including how you think and feel about others), you are far more likely to approach your thinking with a higher level of awareness.
Create positive affirmations, and repeat them daily
Language has a huge amount of power to shape our lives and our belief systems. (Anthony Robbins talks a lot about this in his work). How we express ourselves through words plays a huge part in how we feel emotionally. Have you ever worked yourself up into a worse state telling someone about how bad you feel, and how terrible the situation is? If you changed the language you used, according to Robbins, your reaction would be far less severe. For example, rather than saying “I’m devastated”, try “I’m a little upset” and see how much faster you will recover, and how much less intense your feelings around the situation will be.
Affirmations are equally as powerful as changing the language you use on a day-to-day basis. If you have a negative thought pattern; for example, “I’m always late” or “My friends aren’t there for me”, try creating affirmations around these topics. Your affirmations could be “My life runs smoothly” and “I am surrounded by friends and family that love and cherish me, as I love and cherish them.”
Now, all you have to do is stand back and watch the results as they happen in your life.
Practice self love
Self love is not something that is ingrained in us – it needs to be worked at. Unfortunately we don’t all automatically achieve high levels of confidence and self-love at an early age, and carry it into adulthood. Most of us have to consciously practice and repeat self love, over and over again, in order to become good at it.
Why is it so important to have self-love? Well, a huge raft of problems come from having a lack of it – including bad relationship choices; negative self-talk; habits that don’t serve us; lack of confidence; not going for our dreams and much, much more.
Most of the wellbeing and spiritual leaders of our generation talk about self love a lot. Two that spring to mind are Tara Bliss and Melissa Ambrosini.
Take steps to transform bad habits into positive ones
When you feel more in control of yourself, it’s a lot easier to have a positive attitude because there’s a sense of freedom in knowing that you are living according to your values, and that you’re completely in control of your life and your wellbeing.
When you are acting on a whim according to every desire you have, it’s more likely that you will feel deeply out of control, like life is happening to you, rather than you steering your life along the course you want to take. Don’t get me wrong, not everything in life is in our control, but our own behaviours, emotions and reactions are.
When have you found that you’ve gotten what you focused on?
