21 Strategies for Becoming Positive at Work and in Life

From this article you will learn what positivity is and how it benefits us. Most importantly, you will learn 21 strategies to become more positive. You don't have to use exactly all the strategies to increase your positivity rate. You'll choose the ones that give you the biggest boost in efficiency. You will also learn how to respond to negative people around you and stay positive during difficult times in your life.

To get the most out of the information below, take notes so you remember all the strategies listed. Then choose one or two and use them for two weeks. You must continually practice the methods you choose to see how they help you feel happy and positive. If it works, continue using it in the future until it becomes a habit.

Try to return to this material periodically over a six-month period, choosing a new strategy to apply. Some will work better for you than others, and that's okay. Just keep experimenting until you find the best combination that truly improves your sense of well-being and positivity.

Understanding the Positive

What is positivity and why is it important? To do this, let's take two equally competent, smart, hardworking people, but one of them will be positive and the other negative. When a positive person goes to work, he is happy with the weather, grateful to other people for their help, and notices the employee’s individual contribution to the overall result. A negative person will constantly complain about how busy they are at work, the traffic jams, and how stupid their bosses' decisions are.

A positive person always sees the glass as half full, while a negative person always sees it as half empty. An optimist has an affirmative bias, meaning he wants to focus on human potential and strengths. A pessimist decides to focus on problems and weaknesses.

You might think that a pessimist sees reality, that he is quick to spot potential threats or problems that an optimist misses. Here's something to make clear: having a positive attitude in the workplace doesn't mean you bury your head in the sand or ignore unpleasant realities or problems, it's just that when you see a problem, you go into solution mode rather than despair. You are not such a soft person that you never give critical feedback to anyone, but you balance constructive criticism.

Positivity is a well-researched way to get better results in the workplace while enjoying life to the fullest. Kim Cameron, in her book Positive Leadership, cites more than 40 studies illustrating consistent and compelling evidence that positive actions like the ones you'll learn in this article do have health benefits. Positivity helps us be more creative.

Research from the University of California, Berkeley School of Business found that managers with greater positivity were more accurate decision-makers, were more effective in interpersonal communication, and spread positivity to their entire team. Athletes whose coaches asked them to review tapes of their successful games performed better themselves than athletes who were asked to review their unsuccessful attempts.

When we focus on successes rather than failures, our performance improves. Health, creativity, effective leadership, increased productivity, all these benefits come when we carefully work on our thoughts.

Don't turn a blind eye to problems

It's hard to feel like a positive person when pressing problems occupy all your thoughts. Fight difficulties, do not put off solving them. Make a plan, analyze a particular case, look for solutions.
There is no need to try to solve problems at once. You will end up chasing two birds with one stone. Tired of fighting with your boss for a salary increase? Change your job, work for a company that will value your work.
For several years now you haven’t felt love and tenderness from your husband, haven’t you received any signs of attention? Have a heart-to-heart talk, maybe you will break up or go back to the candy period. It is important to understand that problems do not last forever, a solution will be found.
In the modern world, more and more people are experiencing financial difficulties. To become confident in the future, try to find ways to earn extra money. Sell photos on the Internet, complete courses for hairdressers or nail technicians, receive clients at home.
People who have problems with excess body weight need to go on a diet. Balance your diet, start exercising (you can do it at home). Write down your achievements in a notebook, do not stop there.

How to be positive at work and in life

Viktor Frankl wrote: the last of human freedoms is the freedom to choose in any circumstances how to react to them. Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor. If he had the ability to choose his thoughts, his attitude, then we can too, but it will take some effort.

1. If you find yourself ruminating on one particular problem or task that keeps running through your head, you can try to calculate the worst, best, and most likely outcome to prevent a panic attack. It often happens that even the worst consequences of the problem that is sitting in your head will not affect you in any way.

2. One helpful strategy for staying positive is a gratitude journal. Try keeping a journal where each night you write down three things you are grateful for about your day. Writing like this helps you focus on what's good in your life. Gratitude breeds more gratitude and good things happen around you every day. It's great to share your posts with a loved one every day to encourage positive discussions.

Dr. Seligman, the founding father of positive psychology, asked participants to write three things they are grateful for today. After this, within a week, the subjects were 2% happier than before. And in subsequent tests, their happiness continued to increase: 5% in one month, 9% in six months. A gratitude journal is a great way to increase our positive thoughts.

3. Another strategy to stay positive is a portfolio. Collect in a box images, small objects and expressions that help support your mood. Every time you feel a crisis in your situation, look into this box, the things in which will reveal to you the positive side of your life.

4. Our brains are wired for survival, so we tend to notice things that threaten us. A great way to remind yourself that you are looking for positivity is to find a specific point in your life that you associate positive thinking with.

5. It's easier to feel positive when we're in a space that evokes those feelings. Try to clean your desk at the end of the working day. This will help you maintain your focus and positivity. No matter how comfortable our physical space is, we still get tired of it, which drains our level of positivity.

6. Researchers consistently find that exercise has a positive effect on mood and acts as a distraction from negative thoughts. Need to increase the positivity of your thoughts? Then get up and take a walk.

7. The next strategy may be the most difficult for you. Take a social media sabbatical. Set aside one day a week when you don't look at Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Just turn them off. When you are standing in line or in transport, just look around, pay attention to people, nature, weather, etc.

8. The best time to create positivity in a relationship is when someone shares good news with us. Psychologist Shelley Gable suggests that emotionally constructive questioning is the most effective way to respond to good news. Celebrate good news and ask questions as if you were talking to the person about their success.

9. Give people more positive feedback than negative feedback. This is called the Lozada coefficient, which looked at 60 teams in his study. He found that in teams with high performance scores, the ratio of positive to negative feedback was 5:1. In teams with average efficiency, the ratio was about 2:1. And in low-performing teams, three times more negative feedback was given than positive feedback. The same ratio holds true in your personal relationships.

Marriage expert Dr. John Gottman is able to predict divorce with 95% accuracy. A key component of his prediction is the 5:1 ratio. Five positive comments for every critical statement you make to your partner, your children, your colleagues, everyone.

10. Next is a strategy called “random acts of kindness.” You can tip a waiter or other employee generously, bring a coworker's coffee in the morning, write an email to your supplier's CEO and thank his employee for his work. Feel free to brighten someone's day with your random acts.

11. Certain activities help us become more positive, and one of the best habits you can develop is balance. Balance is the key to positivity. Try to balance between your work and your rest. Your vacation is not just about eating for lunch. You've probably noticed that many large Western companies create game rooms for employees with table tennis, football, billiards, game consoles, etc. If you have the opportunity, break up your workday with various types of games.

12. Another positive habit is to find joy while working. Instead of getting lost in yourself, solving the next problem and being at a dead end, you can invite your colleagues for coffee to analyze your problem and find a solution.

13. Very often our positive attitude is influenced by the ease of completing tasks using our strengths. Unleash your natural talents and identify your strengths, and you will see your positivity grow day by day. For more information on how to identify your strengths, read our article “How to Identify Your Strengths and Talents.”

Optimists are masters of communication

Positive people are persuasive and confident, and they understand that communication skills are very important in everyday life. Optimists do not judge others or get angry, and they do not allow others to make them angry. Instead, they are always tactful and well-mannered. A positive person is never insecure or depressed; he does not depend on other people’s problems.

Overcoming difficult situations

I hope you have adopted a few strategies from this article to increase your positive feelings in the workplace. But what to do with those people who constantly sow negativity around us? Here are some tips for you:

Sometimes the most appropriate response to other people's complaints and negativity is simple empathy. Don't take their complaints to heart and don't sympathize. Sympathy does not solve problems, it connects.
Keep your distance. We deserve to be happy, and when others try to steal that joy from us, a little distance is considered acceptable. Long distance is not always an option, so what then? Imagine a shield that goes up so that you can see and hear, but are not infected by the toxicity of negativity.
Gratitude game. Sometimes we just want to tell a person “hey, stop being so negative!” But I promise you that this will not help. Instead, ask, “tell me three good things that happened today?” This approach is called the gratitude game.

Yes, sometimes life gets complicated. Positive feelings must be genuine. This is not a fake smile, a game of happiness in times of tragedy or intense sadness. When life is hard, you will feel bad. Developing positive habits will help you sustain yourself during dark times, but it won't make your pain go away.

When things get bad, be alert and think about what could be worse. Pay attention to extreme words like “always,” “never,” and “worst.” Are you always late with your work? Is this really the worst day of your life? Is it true that your boss never notices your hard work? Ask yourself these kinds of questions before you start setting yourself up for negative emotions.

When we lose someone in our life, we grieve. Give yourself time and space to move through all five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.

Keep in mind that emotions are only one part of Dr. Seligman's five elements of happiness model: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement. Although positive emotions may not be possible at some points in our lives, we can still focus on the other four patterns. Focus on what matters to you: rely on strong relationships, recognize and enjoy your successes in other areas of your life, and more.

Conclusion

I have listed all the positive mood strategies at the end of this article. There you will also find an action plan that you can use in your experiments with different approaches. Try to maintain your optimism and charge other people with it. This will have an immediate positive effect on your career. Follow the advice from the article to protect yourself from the negative emotions of people around you.

Action plan for becoming a positive person

You may find it helpful to take a few notes on each of the 21 strategies to help you remember each one.

Reducing the number of negative thoughts in our head

calculate the worst, best and most likely options;
reject negative thoughts;
change your perspective on a negative situation.

Increasing the number of positive thoughts in our head

gratitude journal;
create a portfolio of positive moments;
Find a specific point in your life that you associate positive thinking with.

We create a positive environment

Change your physical space;
Take a break from your daily movement;
Take a social media sabbatical.

Creating Positive Relationships

Emotional constructive question;
Give more positive reviews than negative ones.
Practice random acts of kindness.

Creating positive habits

Balance of work and play activities;
Find joy in your work;
Use your natural strengths.

Attitude towards negative people

Showing empathy;
Keep your distance;
Gratitude game.

Actions in difficult times

Stick to extreme words;
Give yourself space to get through the difficult phase;
Focus on what matters to you.

After reading the article, use this action plan to record your experiments with

different approaches.

Strategy

Dates when the strategy was applied in the allotted 2 weeks

Your application experience

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By lifting the mood of other people, we lift it ourselves

Photo by Pexels
When we are in a bad mood, we do not want to do good deeds. We don’t see the point in this and withdraw into our shell. But, as life shows, even a tiny kind deed can change depression to a smile when we make loved ones and complete strangers happy. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be the rescue of a drowned tractor, or Batman’s flight over a crime-ridden city. It could be just a note in a couple of tender lines that you stuffed into your daughter's pocket. Or a culinary surprise for a husband who has been dreaming of meat stew with a cheese crust in a pot for so long.

The desire to make someone happier simply inevitably makes us happy.

Communicate more

Do you dream of becoming joyful and positive? How to achieve this? Talk to people more. Books are a good teacher, but direct interaction will teach you more. People are an endless source of knowledge. Learning from a person is much easier and faster than learning the basics of some science on your own. By communicating with people, you broaden your horizons and learn other points of view on problems that did not seem so obvious to you. The wider your social circle, the richer you are. Today you can make friends anywhere in the world. You can learn about many cultures from their native speakers without leaving home. Learn languages and talk more with foreigners. This way you will be able to understand the world, which, it turns out, is not as simple as you thought about it.

Play sports

How to become cheerful and cheerful? Useful advice that will help any girl become a better person is to immediately go in for sports. The modern pace of life does not leave many people time for the gym. But you can exercise not only in the gym, but also at home or in the yard. Exercising improves your body, eliminates extra pounds and cellulite, improves stamina and makes you happier. During sports, a person’s brain is filled with oxygen, and as a result, the person begins to think faster and better. It was not for nothing that our ancestors believed that a healthy mind lies in a healthy body. The outer shell is a direct reflection of a person’s inner world. If a person is happy, he will be beautiful, and if his face is distorted by grief and melancholy, no amount of cosmetics will make the person more attractive.

Let go of the past

How to become cheerful and cheerful? Many people cannot accept their past. Mistakes made several years ago have left a feeling of guilt that haunts a person on a constant basis. Try to understand that the past cannot be changed. To live happily, you need to accept all your mistakes. In the future, you will try to avoid them and will no longer make rash actions. But it is impossible to change anything in your past. Therefore, stop mentally replaying situations in which you do an action differently. Watch any movie with a time travel theme. For example, "Butterfly Effect". The example of the main character clearly shows that no matter how you change events, the result will be the same. Understand that if you had not done what you did, you would not have become the person you are. Mistakes teach people and make them stronger, wiser, more experienced and nobler.

Rejoice often

Man comes to this earth to have fun. It was in the Middle Ages that people thought that earth was hell, and that heaven awaited people in the next life. Today this assertion is highly questioned. How to become cheerful and cheerful? Take a closer look at your life and learn to appreciate it. The average healthy person can find reasons to be happy every day. For example, good health, the opportunity to do what you want, a job you love, wonderful friends, a loved one nearby. All this becomes so familiar that a person takes the pleasant aspects of life for granted. Learn to appreciate every moment and understand that tomorrow you can lose what you don’t value today. Therefore, thank fate every evening for giving you a happy destiny, and for the fact that it gives you wonderful gifts that you accept with joy and a smile.

Psychotherapy techniques

Founder: Nossrat Pezeshkian: positive psychotherapy. In 1968, he developed and introduced into psychology the idea of thinking positively. His method is based on three principles:

principle of hope . It consists of faith in one’s capabilities and strengths;
principle of balance . Based on the abilities and talents of the individual;
self-help principle . Based on introspection and reflection. On the ability to identify one’s own complexes and obsessions.

Short-term positive psychotherapy.

Pezeshkin, when working with patients, identified two types of conflict:

current . Associated with current problems (change of job, place of residence, deterioration of health, loss of relatives);
basic _
This type is formed in childhood, during the process of education. Has a global impact on the individual. The ability to cope with difficulties, confront life's problems, endure stress and overcome conflicts depends on the strength of the basic conflict.

Light woman - what is she like?

Let's say you firmly decided for yourself: to become and be an easy woman. But first, let's define it: an easy woman - what she is like in general.

The first and most important thing that distinguishes a light woman from a heavy one is that it is easy to communicate with her. You know this yourself.

But what is behind her ability to be easy to communicate with?

After all, it’s only at first glance that it seems that by chance she’s all so cheerful, everyone likes her. In fact, there is a peculiarity there. This feature lies in complete self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is the basic, most important characteristic of a girl, which can be easy. Can afford to be unloaded.

Self-acceptance means that the girl accepts herself:

1. Externally, with all its features. Overweight, if any. With what nature gave.

2. In addition, a woman is easy - she accepts her internal processes. Your feelings, emotions. She is, as they say, in contact with her inner world. This means that she knows how to distinguish between them, knows how to respect them.

In addition, she even knows how to stop, sit down, listen to herself, and allow herself to experience her feelings - what is happening inside her.

And, this is the difference between an easy and difficult woman - it is not visible from the outside just like the presence/absence of a good manicure. But the presence of this acceptance of oneself, one’s inner experiences, the ability to interact with them, one’s appearance plays a key role in the fact that a woman is light.

This is what makes her outwardly and behaviorally calm, imperturbable, and comfortable. And this is what helps her react easily to other people. React easily to life events and situations.

Get out of your comfort zone

Among the most frequently encountered positive advice, the formula “leave your comfort zone” is in first place. What does it mean? Some psychologists consider leaving a state of comfort as a series of steps beyond the limits of yesterday’s self, however, in order to develop a positive attitude, it is not at all necessary and even dangerous to step over your “I don’t want to.”

A person should consider any action that is not included in his algorithm of daily movement in a circle from two positions: “I’m interested in this” or “I’m not interested in this.” And even if everyone jumps with a parachute, but he alone is not at all excited about it, there will be little benefit from such self-overcoming. But for something that arouses interest and a sea of positive emotions, even at the mere thought of trying, learning, experiencing, you don’t need to spare any resources. Such motivation will be useful for the formation of positive thinking for a long time and will leave a desire to lift the canopy of the unknown from time to time.

Fight stress

Modern man is daily subjected to a moral shake-up. It is difficult to feel like a cheerful person when you regularly experience the consequences of quarrels or other negative reactions.
Try to find your own ways to deal with stress. Learn to abstract yourself, solve problems as if they were not happening to you. Look at difficulties from the outside, think sensibly.
It is important to understand that you cannot accumulate negativity in yourself. Otherwise, it will burst out at the most inopportune moment. Talk to your best friend or make an appointment with a psychologist, get a diary or a pet.
To eliminate negative judgments, try not to be alone with your own thoughts. Realistically assess your capabilities. If you are too busy at your main job, you should not look for part-time activities.
To combat stress, you can take a fragrant bubble bath, listen to calm music, or watch a comedy. Many people find it helpful to take a nap during the day, so in any unclear situation, go to bed to rest.

how to get rid of bad thoughts

Get involved in your education

How to become an energetic and cheerful woman? Start filling in the gaps in your education. How does intelligence level affect happiness? A person who knows a lot will never get bored in his company. He can always find something to do to his liking. Reading a book, watching an educational program or simply talking to yourself will be interesting to the person. A poorly educated person cannot be alone with himself. She needs someone who will entertain her. TV, social networks or friends help a person feel complete. But such a person will not be happy. Why? Each person has his own happiness. Some people want to start a family, others want to realize themselves in their career. And the joy of a poorly educated person will be consumption. Marketers have been selling emotions, not products, for many years. And a stupid person buys them, and then is surprised at yet another deception.

Find a hobby

To live happily, you need to be passionate about something. Not all people have hobbies and work as synonyms. Work should be something you love, but it doesn't have to be passion. For example, a person can happily work as a hairdresser, and in his free time he can breed dogs. Animals and caring for them will be a huge part of a girl’s life. Psychologists say that you need to smile more often. Cute doggies will help keep a lady's smile on her face.

How does a person live without a hobby? Boring. And if a person also has a job he doesn’t like, then life can become unbearable. You definitely need to find an outlet for yourself. Find an activity that inspires you and practice it as often as possible. And remember that watching TV and TV series, as well as sleeping, are not hobbies.

Make your loved ones happy

How to cheer yourself up? Surprise your friends more often. Giving pleasant gifts or creating a festive atmosphere for no reason will lift the spirits of your loved ones. And as you know, people treat you the same way you treat them. The more often you delight your surroundings with pleasant surprises, the more you will feel the gratitude of your loved ones. Don't be afraid that your imagination will run out. When a person does good, the imagination works flawlessly. Remember, the more positive you bring into this world, the more it comes back to you.