Cultivate a positive mindset

Do you dare to think positively?

Often, the biggest obstacle between you and what you want is yourself. The good news is that this is something you can control. Taking the time to cultivate a positive mindset can have a powerful effect on the lives that we lead and have a real impact on decision making. Here are a couple of examples from my own life where I have had to battle with my negative inner critic:

I had been working as an accountant and even though I had climbed the ladder for a few years and was nearly qualified I wasn’t happy, so I decided to quit and try something different. I had always wanted to teach English in Japan but had always found the idea daunting. I can’t teach; I’ve never worked with children before and I’ve never lived abroad; I don’t speak the language very well. Had I played it safe and allowed my negative thought patterns to control me, then I never would have moved to Japan and missed out on all the personal growth that came from that experience.

As I was finishing my time at a software bootcamp I read a job advert from one of their hiring partners. I was intimidated by the job description and felt like I would be out of my depth. I spoke to one of the advisers who said that the advert wasn’t meant to scare me; they wanted to excite me with all that I could achieve in the role. I interviewed and received a job offer, after initially believing that I wasn’t good enough to apply. A positive mindset isn’t about thinking you can achieve anything, it’s about achieving what you are capable of and not giving in to fear and insecurities.

In the book The Art of Being Brilliant the authors make the point that as our brains are bombarded with information daily “the human operating system has an inbuilt negativity bias, which means we might be deleting all the positive information”. I realised that I tended to dismiss positive feedback as oh they were just being nice or I got lucky instead of congratulating myself. To summarise the eloquent words of Alain de Botton, negative feelings can feel like an appropriate response in a world where there’s conflict, climate change and political problems and it can feel easier to listen to the negativity instead of daring to feel different and more open to joy. It’s important to realise that warped thinking can impede a richer life. Thinking more positively will lead to a better self-image which will give you the confidence to take on more challenges and achieve a more fulfilling life.

Written by Lisa McCormack